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Benito Mussolini
Mussolini, leader of Italy, had begun his rise to power by advertising for war veterans to fight the politicians, who, in Mussolini's view, were destroying Italy. -
Adolf Hitler
joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party; also known as the Nazi Party -
Period: to
World War II
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Benito Mussolini & Fascism
Fascism was a new political movement that consisted of a strong, centralized government headed by a powerful dictator. Mussolini established the Fascist Party, which won 35 seats in the Italian paliament. His nickname was Il Duce. -
Joseph Stalin
Became leader of Soviet Union -
Adolf Hitler
Mein Kampf, a book based on Nazism beliefs written by Hitler was published into two volumes in 1925 and 1927 -
Joseph Stalin
Stalin launched his massive drive to transform the Soviet Union into a truly socialist country , which meant stamping out private enterprise - especially private farming. -
Kellogg-Briand Pact
United States joined 61 other nations and made a pacts to never make war again. The agreement still allowed defensive war. -
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Holocaust
Barely three months after Hitler took power in Germany, he ordered all "non-Aryans" to be removed from government jobs. This order was one of the first moves in a campaign for racial purity that would become the Holocaust - the systematic murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews. -
Rhineland build up
Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, it was a key event leading up to the Second World War when the act with Britain and France did not go through -
Ethiopian troop build up
Mussolini's target was Ethiopia, Africa's only remaining independent country. Tens of thousands of Italian soldiers were ready to advance. -
Neutrality Acts
Congress passed a series of acts to keep an effort to keep the United States out of future wars. The first two acts outlawed arms sales or loans to nations at war. The third act extending the ban on arms sales and loans to nations undergoing civil wars. -
Anti-Semitism
Anit-Semitism, or hatred of Jews, had deep roots in European history. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I. The Nazis tightened their hold on Germany. The Jews were denied their civil rights and property if they tried to leave Germany. To make identification easier, Jews over the age of six had to wear a bright yellow Star of David on their clothing. -
Franklin Roosevelt
Reelected as President -
Rhineland build up
Britain and France talk about military capacity, and go seperate ways -
Francisco Franco
fighting broke out in Spain under Facist General Francisco Franco's command, fighting against the United States -
Franklin Roosevelt
delivers his anti-isolationist "Quarantine Speech" -
Union with Austria
Hitler invited Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schushnigg to meet. Hitler bullied Schuschnigg into sighning an agreement to bring Austrian Nazis into his goverment. -
German Troops marched into Austria
After Schuschnigg had second thoughts about the agreement, Hitler sent his troops into Austria, forcing Schuschnigg to resign. Two days later Germans announced that it's "union" or Anshluss with Austria was complete. -
Munich Pact
Hitler invited French premier Edourd Daladier and Britain prime minister Neville Chamberlain to meet with him in Munich. They signed the Munich Pact, which turned the Sudentenland over to Germany without a shot being fired. -
Neville Chamberlain
Prime minister of Britain. Signed the Munich Pact. When he returned home he said, "My friends . . . there has come back from Germany peace with honor. I believe it is responded by peace in our time." -
Winston Churchill
Chamberlain's political rival for leadership of Great Britain. Churchill thought that Daladier and Chamberlain's sigining of the Munich Pact adopted a shameful sense of appeasement (giving up principles to pacify an aggressor). -
Kristallnacht
A night known as kristallnacht, or "crystal night" - the night of broken glass. Gangs of Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany. More than 20,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. -
Joseph Stalin
Stalin had established a centralized totalitarian government, one that maintained complete control over its citizens. -
Nazis
began to convert labor camps into extermination camps for Jews and other ethinic groups -
Francisco Franco
600,000 lives were lost at a cost more than $15 billion and the resistance to Franco had collapsed -
Nonaggression Pact
Soviet Union and Germany agreed to not fight each other. They also signed a second, secret pact dividing Poland between themselves. -
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg was Germany's newest war tactic, also known as lighting war. It enabled Germans to take over the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force. -
Soviet Union invades Finland
Stalin sent his Soviet troops into Finland, after already occupying eastern Poland, and trying to regain regions the Union had lost after World War I (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). After three months of fighting in Finland, the Finns surrendered. -
Franklin Roosevelt
reelected to a third term of Presidency -
The Election Of 1940
War was the key issue in the 1940 presidential election. At the Democratic convention, isolationists inserted a plank in the party platform that read, "We will not participate in foreign wars. We will not send our armed forces to fight lands across the seas." Roosevelt could not accept this and his solution was to add five words to the no-war plank: "except in case of attack." -
Germans invade Denmark and Norway
Hitler launched a surprise attack against Norway and Denmark. Germany said it was necessary to "protect [those countries'] freedom and independence." -
Germany invades Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg
After Hitler invade Norway and Denmark, Germans turned to Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Blitzkrieg was turned against these places and were overrun. -
Germany and Italy invade France
Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south, while Germany invaded from the North, closing in on Paris. Marshal Henri Pentain told his country that they must stop fighting. Hitler turned in his terms of surrender, Germans would occupy the northern part of France and a Nazi-controlled puppet government ran by Marshal Petain would be in Southern France -
The Battle of Britain
After controlling France, Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast. Although the naval force couldn't beat Britain naval force, Germans also launched an airforce. The goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britian's Royal Air Force -
Battle of Britain
"Never was so much by so many to so few"The RAF (Royal Air Force) shot down 56 German planes, losing only 26 themselves. Two days later, Hitler called off the invasion indefinitely. -
Axis Powers
By 1940, France had fallen and Britain was under siege by the German Luftwaffe. Later, Japan, Germany, and Italy signed a mutual defense treaty, the Tripartite Pact. The three nations became known as the Axis powers. -
Concentration Camps
In these camps the prisoners were crammed into crude wooden barracks that held up to a thousand people each. They shared their meals of thin soup and occasional scraps of bread or potato. The prisoners worked from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, until they collapsed. Those too weak to work were killed. -
A. Philip Randolph
After Roosevelt backed down for the march, Randolph called off the march with the promise that the President would "provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin." -
A. Philip Randolph
A. Philip Randolph, president of theBrotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the nation's leading African-American labor leader, constructed a march on Washington. He called blacks from all around to march for their equal right to fight and work for their country. Roosevelt called Randolph to the White House, in fear that the whites would protest, and asked him to call off the march. Randolph said he could not do that. In the end Roosevelt was the one who had to back down. -
Atlantic Charter
Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly aboard a warship off the coast of newfoundland. Churchill had coming for a military commitment from the United States. Instead, he settled for a declaration of principles called the Atlantic Charter. In this document the two leaders spelled out the causes for which World War II was fought. -
Leader of Japan- Hideki Tojo
Japanese general Hideki Tojo became Japan's new prime minister. -
Hideki Tojo
Tojo promised to try and make peace with the Americans, if the peace talks failed Japan would have no choice but to go to war. November 5, 1941, Tojo ordered the Japanese navy to prepare for an attack on the U.S. with his special "peace" envoy. -
Lend-Lease
Roosevelt suggested a new plan that he called lend-lease. Under this plan, the president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to "any country whose defense was vital to the United States." The Lend-Lease Act was passed in and Congress supported it with $7 billion. In all, the US eventually spent $50 billion under the act. -
Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl HarborA Japanese dive-bomber swooped down over the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the largest United States naval base in the Pacific. The bomber was shortly followed by 180 Japanese war planes launched from six aircraft carriers. It only lasted an hour and a half but the damage was significant. The surprise attack had damaged (or destroyed) 350 places, 2,400 people died, and 1,178 had been wounded. -
Pearl Harbor
Roosevelt addressed Congress the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He requested a decaration of war against Japan, which Congress quickly approved. Three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. -
War Plans with FDR & Churchill
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill wired FDR and offered his help. Together they came up with ideas for war, their first major decision was to make the defeat of Germany the Allie's top priority. A second decision was made to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. When Churchill returned to London, a message from FDR waited from him saying, "It is fun to be in the same decade as you." Together they made a strong bond. -
Selective Service and the G.I.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, young Americans jammed their ways into recruiting offices. The 5 million volunteered Americans were not enough to face the war. The Seective Service System expanded the draft and provided another 10 million soldiers. The new recruits would become disciplined into G.I.'s (Meaning "Goverment Issue"- were first applied to goverment-issued uniforms, weapons, and supplies, but soon described soldiers too). -
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Philipines, Corregidor, Douglas MacArthur
In the Phillipines, 80,000 American and Filipino troops, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, held out against 200,000 invading Japanese troops for four months. They were there for another month on the Island of Corregidor. 14,000 were killed and 48,000 were wounded. Finally, MacArthur was ordered to abandon the Philipines. As he left he pledged to the thousands of dead men, "I shall return." -
Internment of Japanese
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many Americans questioned the lyalty of Japanese Americans. FDR signed an order requiring that all people of Japanese ancestry be removed from the West Coast. Two thirds of those people were known as Nisei, Japanese Americans who were born in America making them American citizens. And many of the nisei had already been drafted into the military. -
The Industrial Response
Automobile production stopped. Within weeks, automobile plants had been refurbished to make tanks, planes, boats, and command cars. Across the nation factories were converting to war production. Shipyards and defense plants expanded with a dizzying speed. Henry J. Kaiser had built seven massive shipyards by the end of 1942. He had the Hull 440 assembled in four days. -
The Battle of Stalingrad
The Germans wanted to control Stalingrad, with it they could cut the movement of military supplies along the Volga River to Moscow. The German army has confidence as they approached Stalingrad, taking it house-by-house and in three months they controlled nine tenths of it. In Novemeber, the Soviets launched a counter attack telling Hitler to retreat. -
The Battle of the Coral Sea
A combined American and Australian fleet intercepted a Japanese strike force aimed at Australia. All the fighting was done by carrier-based airplanes. The Allies lost ore ships than the Japanese. The real triumph belonged to the Allies, by the end of the battle, the Japanese fleet was too short of fuel to continue on to Australia. For the first time sice Pearl Harbor, a Japanese invasion had been stopped and turned back. -
Womans Auxiliary Army Corps.
Army Chief of Staff General Goerge Marshall pushed for women's right to fight in the war, also known as WAAC. He established a bill to support this idea. The idea was looked down upon because, "...who then will do the cooking, the washing, the mending?" The bill became law on May 15, 1942. A week later more than 13,000 women applied the first day applications were available. Overall, 250,000 women served in this and other auxiliary branches during the war. -
The Battle of Midway
Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of American naval forces in the Pacific, discovered that a Japanese invasion force of well over 110 ships - the largest assemblage of naval power in history - was heading toward Midway, a strategic island in the Pacific. Even though Nimitz was outnumbered four to one in ships and planes, he prepared a surprise reception for the Japanese. By the end of the battle, the Japanese had lost four irreplaceable aircraft carriers, a cruiser, and 322 planes. -
Guadalcanal
The Americans' firts land offensive of the war bagan when 19,000 marines stormed Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. When the Japanese abandoned the island six months later, they called it the Island of death. Gudalcanal marked Japan's first defeat on land, but not its last. TheAmericans continued moving across the Pacific toward Japan and in October 1944, some 178,000 allied troops and 738 ships converged on Leyte Islan in the Philipines. -
The North African Front
During the Battle of Stalingrad, Stalin urged Britain and America to open a "second front" in Western Europe. He thought a raid from the English Channel would diverge Hitler from the Soviet battle, however Roosevelt didn't think they had enough troops. Instead they launched the Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa. It was commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower. In Nov. some 107,000 Allied troops landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The German troops surrened with only 91,000 out of 330,000 men left out of the army. The Soviets had lost a total of 1,250,000 soldiers and civilians in battle, totaling more than all American casualties during the entire war. Despite the loss, this win for the Soviet marked a turning point for the east. -
The Battle of the Atlantic
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America's East Coast. Seven months into the year of 1942, American ship loss was at a total of 681, making America a weak target. In May 1943, the United States launched a shipbuilding program. 140 Liberty ships alone were being produced each month and for the first time in the war, Allied cargo ships began to outnumber sinkings. By mid-1943 the Battle fo the Atlantic had turned in the Allie's favor. -
North African Front
Operation Torch, led by Dwight D. Eisenhower, chased after the Afrikan Korps, led by General Erwin Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox. The Afrikan Korp finally surrended after months of heavy fighting. British General, Harold Alexander sent a a ,essage to Churchill reportig that, "All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores." -
The Italian Campaign
Even before the battle in North Africa was won, FDR, Churchill, and their commanders met in Casablanca to decide where to strike next. They decided on Italy, the "soft underbelly of the Axis." It got off to a good start in the summer of 1943 with the capture of Sicily. By this time Italy was weary of war, they wanted Mussolini out. The king, Victor Emmanuel III summoned him and stripped him of power. However Hitler seized control of Italy and reinstalled Mussolini as its leader. -
The Italian Campaign
After Mussolini was reinstated in power, it took 18 long months for Allied troops to drive the German troops form the Italian soil. One of the toughest battles the Allies fought in Europe, "Bloody Anzio" lasted four months, lasted until the end of May 1944, and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis soldiers dead. The Allies were aided by 50,000 partisans during this tough time. The partisans harassed the Germans by cutting telephone wires, derailing trains, and dynamiting bridges and roads -
D-Day
For two years, Britain and the United States had been building up an invasion force of ships, landing crafts, and nearly 3 million troops to attack Axis power forces. It was originally planned for June 5th, the day before but bad weather forced a delay. With 156,000 troops, 4,000 landing craft, 600 warships and 11,000 planes it was the largest land-sea-air operation in history. -
The battle of Leyte Gulf and kamikazes
KamikazesThe Japanese threw their entire fleet in the battle for Leyte Gulf. They also tested a new tactic, the kamikaze, or suicide-plane, attack in which pilots crashed their bomb-laden planes into Allied ships. 424 kamikaze pilots embarked on suicide missions, sinking 16 ships and damaging 80. Despite the damage done by the kamikazes, the battle was a disaster for Japan. In three days, it lost 3 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 13 cruisers, and almost 400 planes. -
The Battle of the Bulge
German forces broke through American defenses along an 80-mile front. As the Germans went west they captured 120 American GIs, which they were then shot down with machine guns and pistols. 43 somehow survived. Battling for a month, the German troops lost 120,000 troops, 600 tanks, and assault guns, and 1,600 planes in the Battle. The Nazi's afterwards, could do nothing bu retreat. -
The Battle of Iwo Jima
The Allies then turned to capture the island of Iwo Jima. This island was critical to the United States as a base from which heavily loaded bombers could reach Japan. It was also perhaps the most heavily defended spot on earth, with 20,700 Japanese troops entrenched in tunnels and caves. More than 6,00 marines died taking this island, the greatest number in any battle in the Pacific to that point. Only 200 Japanese survived. -
Yalta
In Februar, Roosevelt had met with Churchill and Stalin at the Soviet city of Yalta on the Black Sea. At the Yalta Conference, the three leaders made a number of important decisions about the future. They agredd to move ahead in creating a new internation peacekeeping body, the United Nations, based on the principles of the Atlantic Charter. Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan after the surrender of Germany, in exchange for Japan's Kuril and Sakhalin islands. -
Nuremberg War Trials
Germany was divided into four zones. The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union each occupied and administered one zone. During the next year, an international tribunal representing 23 nations tried Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany. Twenty-two Nazi leaders were tried at the first of the Nuremberg trials. They included Hitler's most trusted party officials, government ministers, military leaders, and powerful industrialists. -
The Battle of Okinawa
A ferocious battle was raging in OKinawa, Japan's last defensive outpost. The Japanese unleashed more tha 1,900 kamikaze attacks on the Allies during the Okinawa campaign, sinking 30 ships, damaging more than 300 planes, and killig almost 5,000 seamen. By the time the fighting ended more than 7,600 Americans died and 110,000 Japanese. This Japanese total includes two generals who chose ritual suicide over the shame of surrender. -
Nuremberg Tials
Nuremberg TrialsNuremberg TrialsTwelve of the 22 defendants were sentenced to death. and most of the rest to prison. In later trials of lesser leaders, nearly 200 more Nazis were found guity of war crimes. For the first time in history a nation's leaders had been held legally responsible for their actions during wartime. -
Harry Truman becomes President
While posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, President Roosevelt had a stroke and died. That night, Harry S. Truman became the nation's president. -
The Italian Campaign
Partisans who had ambushed a Nazi convoy found Mussolini disguised as a German solider in one of the trucks. The next day they show "Il Duce" and hung his body in a Milan square. At the time of his arrest in 1943, Mussolini has prophectically described his own fate, "From dust to power and from power back to dust." -
Unconditional Surrender/ V-E Day
By April 25th, 1945, the Soviet army had stormed Berlin. In his underground home in Berlin, Hitler prepared for the end. He married his companion a few days later and wrote a letter the same day blaming the Jew for starting the war, and his generals for losing it. That next day he shot himself while his new wife took poison. Both bodies were burned, Hitler's wishes. A week later, General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. The Allie's celebrated V-E Day. -
Potsdam
Prsident Truman met with Churchill and stalin at Potsdam in defeated Germany. They drew up a blueprint for disarming Germany and eliminating the Nazi regime, they also agreed that "stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties on our prisoners." -
The Manhattan Project
This project was not only the most ambitious scientific enterprise in history but also the best-kept secret of the war. More than 600,000 Americans were involved in the project, few of them new its ultimate purpose - the creation of an atomic bomb. The project had begun since 1942. Many feared that it would not work at all, while others feared that the explosion would be too much that it would set fire to the atmosphere, which would mean the end of the earth. -
The Manhattan Project
Finally, the time arrived to test the atomic bomb. The first atomic bomb was detonated in an empty expanse of desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. It created a blinding flash, which was visible 180 miles away, which was followed by a deafening roar as a tremendous shock wave rolled across the trembling desert. The bomb not only worked, but it was more powerfu; than most had dared hope. -
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
A B-29 bomber named Enola Gay released an atomic bomb, code-named Little Boy, over Hiroshima, an important Japanese military center. Forty-three seconds later, almost every bulding in the city collapsed into dust, Hiroshima existed no more. Still Japan's leaders hesitated to surrender. Three days later a second bomb, code-named Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki. An estimated 200,000 people died as a result of injuries and radiation poisining caused by the atomic blasts. -
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Japan's Emperor Hirohito was horrified by the death and destruction brought by the bomb. The Emperor ordered the leaders to draw up papers to end the war. On Septe,ber 2, formal surrender ceremonies took place on the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
