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  • Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy

    Benito Mussolini was establishing a totalitarian regime in
    Italy, where unemployment and inflation produced bitter strikes, some communist-led. Alarmed by these threats, the middle and upper classes demanded stronger leadership. Mussolini took advantage of this situation
  • Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany

    In Germany, Adolf Hitler had followed a path to power similar to Mussolini’s. At the end of World War I, Hitler had been a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. In 1919, he joined a struggling group called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi Party.
  • Mein Kampf

    Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party. Nazism the German brand of fascism, was based on extreme nationalism. Hitler, who had been born in Austria, dreamed of uniting all German-speaking people in a great German empire.
  • storm troops

    Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts).The German people were desperate and turned to Hitler as their last hope.
  • Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union

    In Russia, hopes for democracy gave way to civil war, resulting in the establishment of a communist state, officially called the Soviet Union, in 1922. After V. I. Lenin died in 1924,Joseph Stalin, whose last name means “man of steel,” took control of the country. Stalin focused on creating a model communist state.
  • Japanese invasion of Manchuria

    Ignoring the protests of more moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Within several months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural resources.
  • third reich

    Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich”—it would last for a thousand years
  • Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia

    Meanwhile, Mussolini began building his new Roman
    Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few
    remaining independent countries. By the fall of 1935, tens
    of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on
    Ethiopia.
  • Hitlers military build up in germany

    In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. A year later, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler.
  • Rome- Berlin Axis

    The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
  • Francisco Franco

    In 1936, a group of
    Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco,
    rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all
    over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began.
  • Hitler's Anschluss

    On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete.
  • Munich agreement

    On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired
  • nonaggression pact

    nonaggression pact
    Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fascist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other.
  • Blitzkrieg

    Blitzkrieg
    Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Blitzkrieg made use of advances in military technology—such as fast tanks and more powerful aircraft—to take the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force.
  • Britain and france declare war

    Britain and france declare war
    The portion Germany annexed in western Poland contained
    almost two-thirds of Poland’s population. By the end of the month, Poland had ceased to exist—and World War II had begun.
  • phony war

    phony war
    The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the
    sitzkrieg (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the phony war.
  • hitlers invasion of denmark and norway

    hitlers invasion of denmark and norway
    Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway in order “to protect [those countries’] freedom and independence.” But in truth, Hitler planned to build bases along the coasts to strike at Great Britain.
  • hitlers invasion of the netherlands

    hitlers invasion of the netherlands
    Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May.The phony
    war had ended.
  • marshal Philippe Petain

    marshal Philippe Petain
    Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy,
    in southern France.
  • germany and italy invasion of france

    germany and italy invasion of france
    Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris from the north. On June 22, 1940, at Compiègne, as William Shirer and the rest of the world watched, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender.
  • THe battle of Britain

    THe battle of Britain
    The Luftwaffe began making bombingruns over Britain. Its goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF). Hitler had 2,600 planes at his disposal. On a single day—August 15—approximately 2,000 German planes ranged over Britain. Every night for two solid months, bombers pounded London.
  • Pearl Harbor

    Pearl Harbor
    In less than two hours, the Japanese had killed 2,403
    Americans and wounded 1,178 more. The surprise raid had
    sunk or damaged 21 ships, including 8 battleships—nearly
    the whole U.S. Pacific fleet. More than 300 aircraft were
    severely damaged or destroyed.
  • womens auxiliary army corps

    womens auxiliary army corps
    The military’s work force needs were so great that Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC).
  • manhattan project

    manhattan project
    In 1941, the committee reported that it would take from three
    to five years to build an atomic bomb. Hoping to shorten that time, the OSRD set up an intensive program in 1942 to develop a bomb as quickly as possible. Because much of the early research was performed at Columbia University in Manhattan, the Manhattan Project became the code name for research work that extended across the country.
  • internment

    internment
    However, he was eventually forced to order the internment,or confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 percent of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population.
  • battle of the atlantic

    battle of the atlantic
    Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America’s east coast. The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain depended on supplies from the sea.
  • u.s. convoy system

    u.s. convoy system
    The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater. They were also accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface. With this improved tracking, the Allies were able to find and destroy German U-boats faster than the Germans could build them.
  • battle of stalingrad

    battle of stalingrad
    In defending Stalingrad, the Soviets lost a total of 1,100,000 soldiers—more than all American deaths during the entire war. Despite the staggering death toll, the Soviet victory marked a turning point in the war. From that point on, the Soviet army began to move westward toward Germany.
  • office of price administration

    office of price administration
    Roosevelt responded to this threat by creating the
    Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods. Congress also raised income tax rates and extended the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before. The higher taxes reduced consumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend
  • war productions board

    war productions board
    Besides controlling inflation, the government needed to
    ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the
    resources they needed to win the war.The War Production Board (WPB) assumed that responsibility.
  • operation torch

    operation torch
    The Italian campaign got off to a good start with the capture of Sicily in the summer of 1943. Stunned by their army’s collapse in Sicily, the Italian government forced dictator Benito Mussolini to resign. On July 25, 1943, King Victor Emmanuel III summoned Il Duce(Italian for “the leader”) to his palace, stripped him of power, and had him arrested. “At this moment,” the king told Mussolini, “you are the most hated man in Italy.”
  • bloody anizo

    bloody anizo
    One of the hardest battles the Allies encountered in Europe was fought less than 40 miles from Rome. This battle, “Bloody Anzio,” lasted four months until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties.
  • D-day

    D-day
    June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed in the early morning hours by thousands upon thousands of seaborne soldiers the largest land-sea-air operation in army history.
  • korematsu v. united states

    korematsu v. united states
    In 1944, the Supreme Court decided, in Korematsu v.United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.”
  • unconditional surrender

    unconditional surrender
  • battle of the bulge

    battle of the bulge
    tanks drove 60 miles into Allied territory,creating a bulge in the lines that gave this desperate last ditch offensive its name, the Battle of the Bulge. As the Germans swept westward, they captured 120 American GIs near Malmédy. Elite German troops—the SS troopers herded the prisoners into a large field and mowed them down with machine guns and pistols.
  • death of hitler

    death of hitler
    “I die with a happy heart aware of the immeasurable deeds of our soldiers at the front. I myself and my wife choose to die in order to escape the disgrace of. . . capitulation,” he said. The next day Hitler shot himself while his new wife swallowed poison. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned.
  • harry s truman

    harry s truman
    president Roosevelt did not live to see V-E Day. On
    April 12, 1945, while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president had a stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president
  • V-E day

    V-E day
    General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of
    the Third Reich. On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated
    V-E Day—Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over.