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The Weimar Republic in Germany is established. The Weirmar Republic had serious weakness from the start. Millions of Germans blamed the Weimar government for their defeat and post war issues caused by the Treaty of Versailles.
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Benito Mussolini rose to power in now Facist Italy as at first the Prime Minister. He was a strong, but violent Facist leader. He called himself "Il Duce", meaning "the leader".
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Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party in war depressed Germany attempt to invade and conquer Munich in a coup d'etat. They failed, and Hitler was arrested . While in jail, Hitler wrote his book Mein Kampf, which means "my struggle".
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New York City's Wall Street was the financial capital of the world. On October 29, 192, New York Stock Exchange collapsed. Millionares were in the depths of poverty overnight. People lost their houses, or had to sell everything just to have money for a loaf of bread.
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Beginning of the Great Depression. There were high unemployment rates as production, prices, and wages declined. Thousands of banks, factories, and business failed. Over 9 million people lost all the money in their savings accounts. Most famers lost their land. By 1933 over 1/4 of U.S workers were unemployed.
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The Japenese military seizes Manchuria, which was the first direct challenge to the League of Nations. In 1937, The Japanese invade China, despite the treaty to respect China's borders. Soon, Chinese cities began to fall to the strong Japanese armies.
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Franklin D Roosevelt was elected president during the depths of the Depression. He introduced a program of government reform called the New Deal. the New Deal created public workshops to help find jobs for the unemployed, new government agencies gave financial aid to businesses and farms, a lot of money was spent of welfare and relief programs. It also imposed regulations to reform the stock market and banking system. President Roosevelt and his New Deal did eventually reform American economy.
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In October of 1936, Mussolini directed and attacked his armies on Ethiopia. Ethiopia was one of Africa's three independent countries. In order to keep the peace in Europe, Britian and the League of Nations let Italy to Ethiopia.
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The Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) form an alliance.
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Hitler announces his plan to conquer Austria and Czechoslovakia, known as the Third Reich.
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The Munich Conference was held in Munich, Germany between Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France.
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Nozi mobs attacked Jews and their homes and businesses and destroyed thousands of Jerish-owned buildings. Kristallnacht, or "Night of Broken Glass", signified the real beginning of Hitler's process of eliminationg Jews from the German population.
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Germany invaded Poland with a new military strategy called Blitzkreig, meaning "lightning war". France and Britain declare war on Germany.
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The Japanese military bombed the Hawaiian military base, Pearl Harbor. The bombs sunk 19 ships, 8 of which being battleships. About 2,300 Americans were killed, and over 1,100 were wounded. The U.S declared war on Japan and its allies, and officially entered WWII.
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Hitler's "Final Solution" was to eliminate the Jews from German life. The Nazi's built huge extermination camps that killed over 6,000 people in a day. The largest of these camps was Auschwitz. Over 6 million people, primarily Jewish people, died in these camps and in other massacres.
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British, American, French, and Canadian troops fought their way onto the beach at Normandy against massive German troops in an attempt to penetrate the German forces. More that 2,700 men died that day.
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The U.S dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Between 70,000 and 80,000 died almost immediatly.
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Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the U.S dropped a second atomic bomb of the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Over 70,000 people were killed immediatly. Thousands of others in nearby cities were killed from radiation from the bombs.
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On September 2nd 1945, the Japanese military surrendered. This was officially the end of World War II,
