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Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
At the end of World War I, Hitler had been a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. In 1919, 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. -
Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
While Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, Benito Mussolini was establishing a totalitarian regime in Italy, where unemployment and inflation produced bitter strikes, some commu- nist-led. stressed nationalism and placed the interests of the state above those of individ- uals. 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
Ignoring the protests of more moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Within several months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural resources. -
Mein Kampf
as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, was “to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth,” even if this could be accomplished only by “the might of a victorious sword. -
Storm troopers
Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
Made both agricultural and industrial growth the prime economic goals of the Soviet Union.Stalin moved to transform the Soviet Union from a backward rural nation into a great industrial power.All economic activity was placed under state management. Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition -
Third Reich
Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. 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 -
Hitler's military build-up in Germany
Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. A year later, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demili- tarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler -
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. By the fall of 1935, tens of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia. -
Hitler invades the Rhineland
A German region bordering France and Belgium that was demili- tarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles -
Francisco Franco
In 1936, 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. -
Hitler's Anschluss
On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. The United States and the rest of the world did nothing. -
Munich Agreement
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. On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired. -
Nonaggression pact
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fas- cist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other. -
Blitzkrieg
German tanks raced across the Polish countryside, spreading terror and confusion. 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
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. By the end of the month, Poland had ceased to exist—and World War II had begun -
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 Germany in 1945. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
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
On the Siegfried Line a few miles away German troops stared back. The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the phony war. -
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. -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain raged on through the summer and fall. Night after night, German planes pounded British tar- gets. At first the Luftwaffe concentrated on airfields and air- craft. Next it targeted cities. Londoner Len Jones was just 18 years old when bombs fell on his East End neighborhood. -
Germany and Italy's invasion of France
German army threatened to bypass the line during its invasion of Belgium. Hitler’s generals sent their tanks through the Ardennes, a region of wooded ravines in northeast France -
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. Collins English dictionary adds that the term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". -
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 -
Office of Price Administration
The Office of Price Administration (OPA) 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 (price controls) and rents after the outbreak of World War II. -
Lend-Lease Act
Military aid to Britain was greatly facilitated by the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, in which Congress authorized the sale, lease, transfer, or exchange of arms and supplies to 'any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States -
Operation Torch
an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
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 on January 16, 1942, with Executive Order 9024. -
U.S. convoy system
The Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys. 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 destroy- ers 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 -
Unconditional surrender
After months of heavy fighting, the last of the Afrika Korps
surrendered in May 1943. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe. -
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 full status as the WAC on 1 July 1943 -
D-Day
The Allied invasion, code-named Operation Overlord, was originally set for June 5, but bad weather forced a delay. Banking on a forecast for clearing skies, Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for D-Day—June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions parachuted down behind German lines. They were fol- lowed in the early morning hours by thousands upon thousands of seaborne soldiers—the largest land-sea-air operation in army history. -
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, the Battle of the Bulge. As the Germans swept westward, they captured 120 American GIs near Malmédy. Elite German troops—the SS troop- ers—herded the prisoners into a large field and mowed them down with machine guns and pistols. -
Korematsu v. United States
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship. -
Bloody Anzio
The Battle of Anzio was an important battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that began on January 22, 1944, with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle against the German forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno. -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
Death of Hitler
Adolf Hitler killed himself by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva (née Braun) committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project that produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. -
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, an American politician of the Democratic Party. -
Marshal Philippe Petain
Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender. Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, head- ed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy, in southern France.
