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The Treaty of Versailles was the peace treaty that officially ended World War I, signed on June 28, 1919. It was a monumental, and ultimately controversial, agreement between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began in 1931 when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan staged an explosion on a Japanese-owned railway line and used the incident as a pretext to invade northeastern China. The quick takeover of Manchuria by the Japanese military demonstrated the weakness of the League of Nations and is often considered a starting point of World War II in Asia. -
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the systematic, state-sponsored genocide of six million European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. It was the culmination of decades of increasing antisemitism and discriminatory actions, which intensified under the Nazi regime and ultimately led to a program of extermination.
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The MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner that sailed from Hamburg in May 1939 with 937 passengers, nearly all of them Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. The ship's journey became a tragic symbol of the world's indifference to the Jewish refugee crisis on the eve of the Holocaust. -
taly invaded Ethiopia twice, with the most decisive invasion, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, occurring from October 1935 to February 1937. The first invasion attempt in the 1890s was a humiliating defeat for Italy at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, leaving Ethiopia as one of the few independent nations in Africa. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini launched the second invasion with the twin goals of avenging the prior defeat and fulfilling his expansionist ambitions. -
The remilitarization of the Rhineland occurred on March 7, 1936, when German troops marched into the region bordering France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This act was a blatant violation of both the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties, which had established the Rhineland as a demilitarized zone following World War I. -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 was a non-aggression agreement that secretly included a protocol to invade and partition Poland, an act that triggered the start of World War II. On September 1, 1939, Germany launched a surprise "blitzkrieg" invasion from the west, and the Soviet Union followed with its own invasion from the east on September 17. -
The Anschluss was the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938. As the first act of territorial aggression by the Nazi regime, it violated the post-World War I Treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain, which had explicitly forbidden the union of Germany and Austria. The annexation was a critical step in Adolf Hitler's expansionist plans for a "Greater Germany" and a precursor to World War II. -
The Evian Conference was a 1938 international meeting convened by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to address the growing Jewish refugee crisis stemming from Nazi Germany. Despite expressions of sympathy, the conference ended in almost total failure, as most of the 32 participating nations, including the United States and Great Britain, refused to significantly alter their restrictive immigration policies. -
The 1938 Munich Conference was a meeting where the leaders of Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy agreed to allow Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia inhabited by a large German-speaking population. This act of appeasement failed to prevent the start of World War II the following year. -
Blitzkrieg, which means "lightning war" in German, was a military tactic used by Nazi Germany in the early years of World War II to achieve swift, decisive victories. It relied on a highly coordinated and concentrated attack using mobile armored units, motorized infantry, and overwhelming air support -
The Lend-Lease Act was a U.S. program established in March 1941 that provided Allied nations with military equipment and other supplies during World War II. It allowed the United States to support the Allied war effort without officially entering the conflict and was crucial for Britain and the Soviet Union, especially in the years before the U.S. became a belligerent. -
The Wagner-Rogers Bill of 1939 was proposed United States legislation that would have allowed 20,000 Jewish children under the age of 14, fleeing Nazi Germany, to enter the U.S. outside of existing immigration quotas. Despite significant support from some politicians and humanitarian groups, the bill failed to pass largely due to strong anti-immigrant and antisemitic sentiments, as well as isolationist views in the American public and Congress. -
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 until the defeat of Germany in 1945. The battle pitted German U-boats (submarines) and other Axis warships against Allied naval and air forces defending merchant shipping routes in the Atlantic Ocean. Control of these supply lines was absolutely crucial to the Allied war effort, as Britain was dependent on imported goods to survive and fight.
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The Battle of Britain was a pivotal air campaign during World War II, fought in the skies over southern England from July to October 1940. It saw the Royal Air Force (RAF) successfully defend the United Kingdom against large-scale, destructive air raids conducted by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. -
The Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement was a deal made in September 1940 between the United States and Great Britain. In it, the U.S. transferred 50 of its older naval destroyers to Britain in exchange for the right to establish U.S. military bases on British-controlled territory in the Atlantic and Caribbean. -
The Cash and Carry policy was a U.S. foreign policy implemented in 1939 that allowed countries at war, most notably Britain and France, to buy military goods from the United States, but only if they paid in cash and transported the goods themselves. The policy was designed to aid the Allies against Axis aggression while technically preserving American neutrality and avoiding direct entanglement in World War II. -
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration issued on August 14, 1941, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Though the U.S. had not yet entered World War II, the document established a common set of goals for the Allied powers regarding the postwar world. The statement affirmed the solidarity between the U.S. and Britain and became a crucial step toward creating the United Nations. -
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Sunday, December 7, 1941. This devastating assault, executed without a formal declaration of war, directly led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
The Battle of the Coral Sea, a significant naval battle in the Pacific during World War II, took place from May 4–8, 1942. It was a confrontation between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied forces from the United States and Australia. Notably, it was the first naval battle where opposing ships did not directly engage, with all attacks launched by carrier aircraft -
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II, which began with the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, a day commonly known as D-Day. The largest amphibious assault in history, it was a crucial step toward the liberation of Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany -
The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval and air battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, fought between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy from June 4 to 7, 1942. The American victory effectively turned the tide of the war in the Pacific by crippling Japan's carrier forces and permanently halting its expansionist plans. -
The War Refugee Board (WRB) was a U.S. government agency created in 1944 to rescue and provide relief to Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution. Established late in the war, its efforts are credited with saving tens of thousands of lives, though they were "little and late" in comparison to the scale of the Holocaust. -
The Battle of Okinawa, fought from April to June 1945, was the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific theater and the final major battle of World War II. Code-named "Operation Iceberg," the Allied victory came at an extreme cost and influenced the U.S. decision to use atomic bombs against Japan.
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The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War II, launched on December 16, 1944. The surprise counterattack in the densely forested Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg caught Allied forces off guard, pushing a bulge into the American defensive line that gave the battle its name. Despite initial German gains and brutal fighting during the winter, the Allied line ultimately held. -
V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day, marks the end of World War II, celebrating the official surrender of the Japanese Empire to the Allied forces in 1945. While the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made in mid-August, the official end of the war is formally recognized by the signing of the surrender documents in September. -
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals held by the Allied powers (the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) to prosecute Nazi leaders for war crimes and other atrocities committed during World War II. The trials took place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949.
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The liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp occurred on April 11, 1945, when it was entered by U.S. forces, specifically soldiers of the Third Army's 6th Armored Division. -
Little Boy" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, by the United States during World War II. It was the first nuclear weapon ever used in warfare. -
"Fat Man" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. It was the second and last time a nuclear weapon was used in warfare. -
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization founded in 1945 after World War II to maintain global peace and security, promote international cooperation, and address humanitarian challenges. The UN officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, when its founding Charter was ratified by the majority of its initial members. -
The Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. initiative to provide economic aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. The program was announced by Secretary of State George C. Marshall in June 1947, and ran for four years, starting in April 1948. It is widely considered one of the most successful foreign aid programs in history, with dual goals of rebuilding European economies and preventing the spread of communism -
The Truman Doctrine, announced by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, was a Cold War foreign policy that committed the United States to providing political, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations facing threats from authoritarian or communist forces. This doctrine marked a major shift in U.S. foreign policy, moving away from isolationism and toward international intervention. -
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a landmark international document that outlines the fundamental rights and freedoms to which all human beings are entitled. Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, it was created in the wake of World War II to prevent the atrocities and systematic human rights violations that had occurred during the conflict. -
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance established in 1949 by 12 founding members, including the United States, Canada, and several European nations. Born out of the tensions of the Cold War, its primary purpose was to provide a collective defense against the threat of Soviet aggression.