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Italian invasion
Italo-Ethiopian War, was an armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia's subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers. -
German annexation of Austria and Sudetenland invasion of Czechoslovakia
The impact of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 brought an end to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy. Chamberlain offered to help Poland if it was attacked by Germany, and the British public now faced full-scale preparations for war. -
The Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen have become famous as the first African American pilots in United States military service, who proved that Black men could fly advanced aircraft in combat as well as their white counterparts. The first Black commander of an Air Force fighter squadron was a Tuskegee Airman. -
Flying Tigers
They were called the American Volunteer Group and later became known as the Flying Tigers. Though only in combat for less than seven months, the group became famous at the time for its ability to inflict outsize damage on Japan's better-equipped and larger aircraft fleet. -
Chester W. Nimitz
He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II. Nimitz was the leading US Navy authority on submarines. -
Bracero program
An executive order called the Mexican Farm Labor Program established the Bracero Program in 1942. This series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts. -
Audie Murphy
Audie Murphy eventually became the most decorated U.S. soldier in World War II. Though he was around 20 years old at the end of the war, he had killed 240 German soldiers, had been wounded three times and had earned 33 awards and medals. -
The Navajo Code Talkers
The Navajo Code Talkers were successful because they provided a fast, secure and error-free line of communication by telephone and radio during World War II in the Pacific. The 29 initial recruits developed an unbreakable code, and they were successfully trained to transmit the code under intense conditions. -
Executive Order 9066
this order authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to "relocation centers" further inland – resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans. -
Bataan Death March
Bataan is a province in the Philippines on the island of Luzon. It is a Peninsula on the Manila Bay across from the capital city Manila. After bombing Pearl Harbor, Japan quickly began to take over much of Southeast Asia. Though they ultimately surrendered, their stubborn defense of the peninsula was a significant propaganda victory for the United States and proved that the Imperial Japanese Army was not the invincible force that had rolled over so many other colonial possessions in the Pacific. -
Manhattan Project
The secret Manhattan Project site at Los Alamos, New Mexico was instrumental in developing atomic bombs. It was here that research and assembly of these new weapons took place, including the Gadget, the world's first successful atomic bomb test. -
Douglas MacArthur
an American general who commanded the Southwest Pacific in World War II oversaw the successful Allied occupation of postwar Japan and led United Nations forces in the Korean War (1950-1953). -
Korematsu v. U.S.
the Supreme Court held that the wartime internment of American citizens of Japanese descent was constitutional. Above, Japanese Americans at a government-run internment camp during World War II. -
Vernon Baker
Vernon Baker was one of seven African Americans to receive the Medal of Honor for service in World War II, an award delayed decades by bias and discrimination. Baker led two actions against the enemy, taking out machine gun nests and observation posts and ultimately leading a battalion advance through enemy minefields and heavy fire to secure the occupied mountain objective. This action helped breach the Gothic line and drive German forces out of northern Italy. -
Nuremberg Trials
The first international war crimes tribunal in history revealed the true extent of German atrocities and held some of the most prominent Nazis accountable for their crimes. -
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton Jr. was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 -
Omar Bradley
Omar Nelson Bradley was one of America's greatest generals. He commanded the largest American force ever united under one man's leadership during World War II. Afterwards, General Bradley became the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank of General of the Army.