-
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
Hitler had been a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. he joined a struggling group called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi Party. Despite its name, this party had no ties to socialism. Hitler proved to be such a powerful public speaker and organizer that he quickly became the party’s leader. Calling himself Der Führer—“the Leader” he promised to bring Germany out of chaos. -
Storm troopers
Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts). -
Mein Kampf
In his book Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Hitler set forth the basic belief of Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, was “to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitle on this earth,” even if this could be accomplished only by “the might of a victorious sword.” -
Third Reich
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. -
Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
stressed nationalism an 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 -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria. -
Hitler's military build-up in Germany
Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. Hitler began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. -
Hitler invades the Rhineland
A year later, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler. -
Francisco Franco
a group of Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco ,rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began. The war
aroused passions not only in Spain but throughout the world -
Munich Agreement
Just when war seemed inevitable, Hitler invited French
premier Édouard Daladier and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to meet with him in Munich. When they arrived, the führer declared that the annexation of the Sudetenland would be his “last territorial demand.” In their eagerness to avoid war, Daladier and Chamberlain chose to believe him. they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired -
Hitler's Anschluss
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. -
Nonaggression pact
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler.Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fascist 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. -
Blitzkrieg
This invasion was the first test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or 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. -
Britain and France declare war on Germany
On September 3, two days following the terror in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The blitzkrieg tactics worked perfectly. Major fighting was over in three weeks, long before France, Britain, and their allies could mount a defense. In the last week of fighting, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, grabbing some of its territory. The portion Germany annexed in western Poland contained almost two-thirds of Poland’s population. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
Hitler and Mussolini backed Franco’s forces with troops,
weapons, tanks, and fighter planes. The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. -
Phony war
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. The phony war had ended. -
Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
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. The phony war had ended. -
Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony war had ended -
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. At Compiègne, as William Shirer and the rest of the world watched, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender. -
Marshal Philippe Petain
Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy, in southern France. -
The Battle of Britain
The Germans want invasion fleet along the French coast. Because its naval power could not compete
with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time.The Luftwaffe began making bombing. run over Britain. Its goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF). Hitler had 2,600 planes at his disposal. On a single day August 5 approximately 2,000 German planes ranged over Britain. Every night for two solid months, bombers pounded London -
Lend-Lease Act
Britain had no more cash to spend in the arsenal of democracy. Roosevelt suggested a lend-lease policy. The president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.Roosevelt compared his plan to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose
house was on fire. He asserted that this was the only sensible thing to do to prevent the fire from spreading to your own property. Isolationists argued bitterly about the plan -
Pearl Harbor attack
a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor the largest U.S. naval base in the Pacific. The bomber was followed by more than 180 Japanese warplanes launched from six aircraft carriers. For an hour and a half, the Japanese planes were barely disturbed by U.S. antiaircraft guns and blasted target after target -
Battle of Stalingrad
the Germans took the offensive in the southern Soviet Union. Hitler hoped to capture Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. He also wanted to wipe out Stalingrad, a major industrial center on the Volga -
Internment
Frightened people believed false rumors that Japanese Americans were committing sabotage by mining coastal harbors and poisoning vegetables. President Roosevelt signed an order requiring the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from California and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. In the following weeks, the army rounded up some 110,000 Japanese Americans and shipped them to ten hastily constructed remote “relocation centers,” euphemisms for prison camps. -
Battle of the Atlantic
Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America’s east coast. The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. the Germans sank 87 ships off the Atlantic shore. Seven months into the year, German wolf packs had destroyed a total of 681 Allied ships in the Atlantic -
U.S. convoy system
Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War. The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater. They were also accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface. -
Operation Torch
Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t think the Allies had enough
troops to attempt an invasion on European soil. Instead, they launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. some 107,000 Allied troops, the great majority of them Americans, landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa -
Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps
The law gave the WAACs an official status and salary but few of the benefits granted to male soldiers. In July 1943, after thousands of women had enlisted, the U.S. Army dropped the “auxiliary” status, and granted
WACs full U.S. Army benefits. WACs worked as nurses,
ambulance drivers, radio operators, electricians, and pilot nearly every duty not involving direct combat. -
Manhattan Project
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, it became the code name for research work that extended
across the country. -
War Productions Board
The 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 materi-
als to key industries. The WPB also organized drives to col-
lect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags, and cooking fat for
recycling into war goods. -
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 consumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend. government encouraged Americans to use their extra
cash to buy war bonds. As a result of these measures, infla-
tion remained below 30 percent—about half that of World
War I—for the entire period of World War II. -
Unconditional surrender
Roosevelt, Churchill, and their commanders met in Casablanca. At this meeting, the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. That is, enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies dictated. The two leaders also discussed where to strike next. -
D-Day
the first day of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed in the early morning hours by thousands upon
thousands of seaborne soldiers—the largest land-sea-air
operation in army history. Despite the massive air and sea bombardment by the Allies, German retaliation was brutal, particularly at Omaha Beach -
Korematsu v. United States
the Supreme Court decided, in Korematsuv. United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.” After the war, however, the Japanese American Citizens League
(JACL) pushed the government to compensate those sent to the camps for their lost property. In 1965, Congress authorized the spending of $38 million for that purpose—less than a tenth of Japanese Americans’ actual losses. -
Bloody Anzio
One of the hardest battles the Allies encountered in Europe was fought less than 40 miles from Rome. This battle, “Bloody Anzio,” lasted four months—until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. During the year after Anzio, German armies
continued to put up strong resistance. The effort to free Italy did not succeed until 1945, when Germany itself was close to collapse. -
Harry S. Truman
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 -
Death of Hitler
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 while his new wife swallowed poison. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned. -
V-E Day
the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over. -
The Battle of the Bulge
Tanks drove 60 miles into Allied territory, creating a bulge in the lines that gave this desperate last-ditch offensive its name. As the Germans swept westward, they captured 120 American GIs near Malmédy. Elite German troops—the SS troopers—herded the prisoners into a large field and mowed them down with machine guns and pistols. the
Germans had been pushed back, and little seemed to have
changed. But, in fact, events had taken a decisive turn -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
Mussolini began building his new Roman Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few remaining independent countries. When the invasion began, however, the League’s
response was an ineffective economic boycott—little more
than a slap on Italy’s wrist -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition
