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Winston Churchill
Born November 30, 1847 and died January 24, 1965. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. -
FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
Born January 30, 1882 and died April 12, 1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States. He came up with the New Deals to help America out of it’s Great Depression. -
Benito Mussolini
Born July 29, 1883 and died April 28, 1945. Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. -
Harry S. Truman
Born May 8, 1884 and died December 26, 1972. Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States. As the final running mate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Truman succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died after months of declining health. -
Adolf Hitler
Born April 20, 1889 and died April 30, 1945. Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. -
Dictator
A ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained power by force. -
Vernon Joseph
Born December 17, 1919 and died July 13, 2010. Vernon Joseph Baker was a United States Army officer who received the Medal of Honor, the highest military award given by the United States Government for his valorous actions during World War II. -
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Nazism
Nazism (or National Socialism; German: Nationalsozialismus) is a set of political beliefs associated with the Nazi Party of Germany. It started in the 1920s. The Party gained power in 1933, starting the Third Reich. They lasted in Germany until 1945, at the end of World War II. -
Audie Murphy
Born June 20, 1925 and May 28, 1971. Audie Leon Murphy was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II, receiving every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. -
Fascism
An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. -
Victory Gardens
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II. -
Rape of Nanking
From December 13, 1937 to January 31, 1938. After the Japanese sacked Nanjing, the conquering troops engaged in a six-week long orgy of violence. Depending on various sources, somewhere between 50,000 to over 300,000 Chinese, mostly civilians and prisoners of war, were killed. Those who had bullets ripping through their bodies as they ran away could have been said the lucky ones, as many other victims suffered worse fates. -
U.S. declares Neutrality
September 5. As war broke out in Europe, American sentiment heavily favored isolationism. With the nation still skeptical of Allied propaganda after it had lured the U.S. into the first World War, the United States declares its neutrality in the European War. -
Propaganda Women’s Roles in WWII
During World War II, the American government made a conscious effort to include women in the war effort using a vast array of media to urge the public. Large scale campaigns were launched to encourage women to enter the work force and fill places that were previously held by men. Women were called upon to work in factories making bombs and aircraft parts, as air raid wardens, driving tanks, building shops and so on. -
Lend Lease Act
March 11, 1941. lend-lease, arrangement for the transfer of war supplies, including food, machinery, and services, to nations whose defense was considered vital to the defense of the United States in World War II. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
War Bonds and Rationing
In the spring of 1942, the Food Rationing Program was set into motion. Rationing would deeply affect the American way of life for most. The federal government needed to control supply and demand. Rationing was introduced to avoid public anger with shortages and not to allow only the wealthy to purchase commodities. The United States issued war bonds was during World War II, when full employment collided with rationing, and war bonds were seen as a way to remove money from circulation. -
Japanese-Americans in internment camps
Internment means putting a person in prison or other kind of detention, generally in wartime. During World War II, the American government put Japanese-Americans in internment camps, fearing they might be loyal to Japan. -
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Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II to consolidate existing government information services and deliver propaganda both at home and abroad. OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. -
Fire Bombing of Dresden
On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the "Florence of the Elbe" to rubble and flames, and killing as many as 135,000 people. It was the single most destructive bombing of the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and all the more horrendous because little, if anything, was accomplished strategically, since the Germans were already on the verge of surrender.
