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Hitler invades the Rhineland
A year after the military buildup, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demili- tarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler. -
Mein Kampf
A third element of Nazism was national expansion. Hitler believed that for
Germany to thrive, it needed more lebensraum, or living space. One of the Nazis’
aims, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, was “to secure for the German people the
land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth,” even if this could be
accomplished only by “the might of a victorious sword -
Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
Mussolini had established the Fascist
Party. Fascism stressed nationalism and
placed the interests of the state above those of individuals.
To strengthen the nation, Fascists argued, power
must rest with a single strong leader and a small group
of devoted party members.
Calling himself Il Duce, or “the leader,” Mussolini gradually extended Fascist
control to every aspect of Italian life. Mussolini achieved this efficiency by
crushing all opposition and by making Italy a totalitarian state. -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
Stalin moved to transform the Soviet Union from a backward rural nation into
a great industrial power. In 1928, the Soviet dictator outlined the first of several
“five-year plans,” to direct the industrialization. All economic activity was placed
under state management. By 1937, the Soviet Union had become the world’s second-largest
industrial power, surpassed in overall production only by the United
States. The human costs of this transformation, however, were enormous. -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
Halfway around the world, nationalistic military leaders were trying to take control of the imperial government of Japan. These leaders shared in common with Hitler a belief in the need for more living space for a growing population. militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria. Within several months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural resources -
Storm troopers
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. -
hitler's invasion of denmark and norway
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for Operation Weser-Exercise, the Weser being a German river -
Nonaggression pact
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fas- cist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other. Germany and the Soviet Union also signed a second, secret pact, agreeing to divide Poland between them. With the danger of a two-front war eliminated, the fate of Poland was sealed. -
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
The Great Depression helped the Nazis come to power. Because of war debts and dependence on American loans and investments, Germany’s economy was hit hard. By 1932, some 6 million Germans were unemployed. 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.
By mid 1932, the Nazis had become the strongest political party in Germany. Hitler was appointed chancellor -
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. -
Hitler's military build up in germany
The failure of the League of Nations to take action against Japan did not escape the notice of Europe’s dictators. In 1933, Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. 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 demili- tarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler. -
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. The League of Nations reacted with brave talk of “collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression -
Office of Price Administration
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 con- sumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend. -
Francisco Franco
group of Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the Spanish republic. Spanish Civil War began. The war aroused passions not only in Spain but throughout the world. 3,000 Americans formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and traveled to Spain to fight against Franco. “We knew, we just knew,” recalled Martha Gellhorn, “that Spain was the place to stop fascism.” Among the volunteers were African Americans still bitter about Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. -
Hitler's Anschluss
Austria was Hitler’s first target. The Paris Peace Conference following World War I had creat- ed the relatively small nation of Austria out of what was left of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The majority of Austria’s 6 million people were Germans who favored unification with Germany. On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. The United States and the rest of the world did nothing. -
War productions Board
government needed to ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the resources they needed to win the war. The WPB decided which companies would convert from peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries. it organized drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags, and cooking fat for recycling into war goods. Across America, children scoured attics, cellars, garages, vacant lots, and back alleys, looking for useful junk. -
Munich Agreement
n their eagerness to avoid war, Daladier and Chamberlain chose to believe him. On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired -
Rome Berlin Axis
The spanish civil war war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. After a loss of almost 500,000 lives, Franco’s victory in 1939 established him as Spain’s fascist dictator -
Blitzkrieg
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. On September 3, two days following the ter- ror in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany -
Britain and France declare war on germany
On September 3, two days following the terror in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany -
Phony war
For the next several months after the fall of Poland, French and British troops on the Maginot Line, a system of fortifica- tions built along France’s eastern border sat staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen. On the Siegfried Line a few miles away German troops stared back. The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the
phony war. -
Hitler's invasion of the netherlands
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. Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. -
Germany and Italy's invasion of france
A few days later, 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. Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, head- ed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy, in southern France. -
Marshal Philippe Petain
Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, head- ed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy, in southern France. -
The Battle of Britain
summer of 1940, Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast. its naval power could not compete with that of Britain, so Germany also launched an air war at the same time. The Luftwaffe began making bombing runs over Britain. goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force. Hitler had 2,600 planes at his disposal. August 15, 2,000 German planes ranged over Britain. Every night for two solid months, bombers pound- ed London. -
Battle of Atlantic
The Battle of Atlantic lasted as long as WWII itself, however, it was most significant from mid-1940 to the end of 1943. To survive the war against Hitler’s forces, Britain needed imports of food, fuel and raw materials from overseas. America provided Britain with the only tools needed for its success as Britain’s successful defence ensured that there was a base for Western Allies to launch a strategic air offense or a land invasion of the Europe mainland to defeat Germany. -
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. -
Lend Lease act
By late 1940, however, Britain had no more cash to spend in the arsenal of democracy. Roosevelt tried to help by suggesting a new plan that he called a lend-lease policy. Under this plan, the president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.” Isolationists argued bitterly against the plan, but most Americans favored it, and Congress passed the Lend- Lease Act in March 1941. -
Pearl Harbor attack
For an hour and a half, the Japanese planes were barely dis- turbed by U.S. antiaircraft guns and blasted target after target. By the time the last plane soared off around 9:30 A.M., the devastation was appalling. John Garcia, a pipe fitter’s apprentice, was there.In less than two hours, the Japanese had killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178 more. surprise raid had sunk/damaged 21 ships, including 8 battleships—nearly the whole U.S. Pacific fleet. 300+ aircraft severely damaged or destroyed. -
Operation Torch
Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign of the Second World War which started on 8 November 1942. It is the first major operation that US troops undertook in the European / North African theatre of World War II. -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
Under this bill, women volunteers would serve in noncombat positions -
interment
confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 per- cent of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population. -
US convoy system
The Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys, groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection. The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater & accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface. With improved tracking, Allies were able to find and destroy German U- boats faster than the Germans could build them. -
Battle of Stalingrad
successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War. most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history, with combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million. -
Unconditional surrender
enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies dictated. -
Bloody Anzio
The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that took place from January 22, 1944 to June 5, 1944. The operation was opposed by German forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno. The operation was initially commanded by Major General John P. Lucas, of the U.S. Army, commanding U.S. VI Corps with the intention being to outflank German forces at the Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome. -
Korematsu v US
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 -
D-Day
After almost 2 years of planning Allied troops composed mostly of British, American, Canadian soldiers mounted the worlds largest ever combined operation. This involved 175,000+ soldiers landing on the coast of Normandy by ship, parachute, glider, armed with tanks&artillery, they made a significant beach head on the first day. Landings kept happening after this first day and by the end of June the Allied forces had almost a million men ashore in France pushing the ill-prepared German armies back -
The Battle of the Bulge
On December 16, under cover of dense fog, eight German tank divisions broke through weak American defenses along an 80-mile front. Hitler hoped that a victory would split American and British forces and break up Allied supply lines. 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. -
V-E day
A week after hitler's death, 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. -
Death of Hitler
On April 29, he married Eva Braun, his longtime companion. he wrote out his last address to the German people. he blamed the Jews for starting the war and his generals for losing it. “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 &his new wife swallowed poison. the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned. -
Larry 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 pres- ident had a stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president.
