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Marshal Philippe Petain
Henri-Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) was a World War I French general who was later imprisoned for treason. ... In February 1916, Pétain became commander of French forces at Verdun. In the terrible destruction of what the French soldiers called the “furnace,” he finally succeeded in halting the Germans. -
Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
Benito Mussolini was an Italian political leader who became the fascist dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945. Originally a revolutionary socialist, he forged the paramilitary fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922. -
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
Adolf Hitler rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its best speakers, he told the other members to either make him leader of the party or he would never return. He was aided in part by his willingness to use violence in advancing his political objectives and to recruit party members who were willing to do the same. -
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926. -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
In Stalin's view, counter-revolutionary elements will try to derail the transition to full communism, and the state must be powerful enough to defeat them. For this reason, Communist regimes influenced by Stalin have been widely described as totalitarian. -
Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on 18 September 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. After the war, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. -
Third Reich
Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. -
Hitler's military build up in Germany
On March 16, 1935, Adolf Hitler announced that he would rearm Germany in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler revealed that Germany had begun to construct an air force, and unveiled plans to re institute conscription and create a German army of more than half a million men. -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a colonial war which was fought between October 1935 and February 1937. -
Hitler invades Rhineland
The remilitarisation of the Rhineland by the German Army began on 7 March 1936 when German military forces entered the Rhineland. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
Rome-Berlin Axis, Coalition formed in 1936 between Italy and Germany. An agreement formulated by Italy's foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano informally linking the two fascist countries was reached on October 25, 1936. It was formalized by the Pact of Steel in 1939. The term Axis Powers came to include Japan as well. -
Hitler's Anschluss
Anschluss refers to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The word's German spelling, until the German orthography reform of 1996, was Anschluß and it was also known as the Anschluss Österreichs. -
Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement or Munich Betrayal was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. It provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia. -
Stormtroopers
Stormtroopers were specialist soldiers of the German Army in World War I. In the last years of the war, Stoßtruppen ("shock troops" or "shove troops") were trained to fight with "infiltration tactics", part of the Germans' new method of attack on enemy trenches. -
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish general and dictator who ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975. During his rule Franco assumed the title Caudillo. -
Non Aggression pact
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. -
Blitzkrieg
A German term for “lightning war,” blitzkrieg is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. Its successful execution results in short military campaigns, which preserves human lives and limits the expenditure of artillery. -
Britain and France declare war
On September 3, 1939, in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany. ... They would begin bombing German ships on September 4, suffering significant losses. They were also working under orders not to harm German civilians. -
Phoney War
The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany's Saar district. -
Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, and was a major part of the Naval history of World War II. -
US Convoy System
The convoy system, or a group of merchant ships sailing together for protection, has a long naval history. ... During the Second World War, the Destroyers for Bases Agreement provided the British navy with ships in exchange for U.S. access to British naval bases. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. -
Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany on April 9th 1940. Hitler had issued the order for the invasion of Norway on March 1st under the code word “Weserübung”. The order also included the invasion and occupation of Denmark. It was the start of war in Western Europe – and an end to the 'Phoney War'. -
German and Italy's invasion of France
The Italian invasion of France, also called the Battle of the Alps, was the first major Italian engagement of World War II and the last major engagement of the Battle of France. The Italian entry into the war widened its scope considerably in Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. -
Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
Despite being neutral, the Netherlands in World War II was invaded by Nazi Germany on 10 May 1940, as part of Fall Gelb. On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family saved themselves by going to London. -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It has been described as the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. -
Korematsu V. United States
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case upholding the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast Military Area during World War II. -
Office of Price Administration
The Office of Price Administration was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War II. -
Internment camps
The first internment camp in operation was Manzanar, located in southern California. Between 1942 and 1945 a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans for varying periods of time in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was an Anglo–American invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. The French colonies in the area were dominated by the Vichy French, formally aligned with Germany but of mixed loyalties. Reports indicated that they might support the Allies. -
War Productions Board
The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was the largest confrontation of World War II, in which Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States as the WAC on 1 July 1943. -
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. -
Invasion Of Normandy
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. -
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. -
Unconditional Surrender
An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party. In modern times, unconditional surrenders most often include guarantees provided by international law. -
Death of Hitler
Adolf Hitler shot himself in his secret bunker in Berlin -
V E Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day or V-E Day, or simply as V-Day, is a day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on May 8, 1945. -
Lend Lease Act
The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, was a program under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, Free France, the Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. -
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, succeeding upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt after serving as vice president. He implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO.