2. World War II, or the Second World
War global military conflict from
1939 to 1945, which was fought
between the Allied powers of the
United States, United Kingdom,
and Soviet Union against the Axis
powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan,
with their respective allies. Over 60
million people, the majority of them
civilians, were killed, making it the
deadliest conflict in human history.
3. The start of the war is generally held to be 1
September 1939, beginning with the German
invasion of Poland; Britain and France declared
war on Germany two days later. Other dates
for the beginning of war include the start of
the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937.
4. When Hitler invaded Poland in
September 1939, France and
Britain declared war on Germany.
After conquering Poland,
Germany attacked France. France
fell in June 1940, and soon the
Nazis overran most of the rest of
Europe and North Africa. Only
Britain, led by Winston Churchill,
was not defeated.
5. On June 22, 1941, four million troops poured over the
Russian border. Within one month, over two and half
million Russians had been killed, wounded or captured.
The Germans made tremendous advances into Russia –
into portions of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad.
And then winter hit. The Germans were caught in
summer uniforms, and it was a bitter, cold winter that
year.
Stalin, using sheer force of numbers, threw another two
million soldiers at the Germans.
Battle of Stalingrad 1942 photo courtesy of National
Archive The German offensive sputtered, and then
stopped. The German army was about 1,800 miles
away from home, and the railroads did not work.
In the spring of the next year (1943), another German
offensive was launched especially around the
approaches to Stalingrad. What followed can only be
described as a nine-month titanic battle, with the result
that the German Sixth Army in Russia was almost
completely destroyed. That was the beginning of the
end for Germany, but it would take three more years of
desperate fighting, and millions and millions of people
dead before it was all over.
6. The turning point in the war in
the Pacific came in June, 1942
at the Battle of Midway. In a
four day battle fought between
aircraft based on giant aircraft
carriers, the U.S. destroyed
hundreds of Japanese planes
and regained control of the
Pacific.
The Japanese continued to
fight on, however, even after
the war in Europe ended.
Following the attack on Peal Harbor, Japanese armies rolled over Southeast Asia,
the Philippines, and the East Indies. The war in the Pacific was fought on land,
at sea, and in the air.
7. On D-Day, June 6, 1944 , General Dwight
Eisenhower led U.S. and Allied troops in an
invasion of Normandy, France.
The armies
fought their
way through
France and
Belgium and
into Germany
while Russian
troops fought
from the east.
On May 7,
1945,
Germany
surrendered.
8. The Japanese fought on even
after the war in Europe ended.
Truman decided to use the
newly developed atomic bomb
to end the war quickly and
prevent more U.S.
casualties. The Enola Gay
dropped an atomic bomb on
Hiroshima, Japan on August 6,
1945, killing about 78,000
people and injuring 100,000
more. On August 9, a second
bomb was dropped on
Nagasaki, Japan, killing another
40,000 people.
9. Germany,1936. llustration from an
anti-Semitic children's book. The
sign reads "Jews are not wanted
here."
In part, the Nazi party gained popularity by disseminating anti-Jewis
propaganda. Millions bought Hitler's book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which
called for the removal of Jews from Germany.With the Nazi rise to power in
1933, the party ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and
enacted anti-Jewish legislation. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws defined Jews by
blood and ordered the total separation of "Aryans" and "non-Aryans." On
November 9, 1938, the Nazis destroyed synagogues and the shop windows of
Jewish-owned stores throughout Germany and Austria (Kristallnacht).
10. The Holocaust was the systematic
persecution and murder of
approximately six million Jews by
the Nazi regime. The Nazis, who
came to power in Germany in
January 1933, believed that
Germans were "racially superior"
and that the Jews, deemed
"inferior," were "unworthy of life."
During the era of the Holocaust,
the Nazis also targeted other
groups because of their
perceived "racial inferiority":
Roma (Gypsies), the handicapped,
and some of the Slavic peoples
(Poles, Russians, and others).In
1933, the Jewish population of
Europe stood at over nine million.
By 1945, close to two out of
every three European Jews had
been killed as part of the "Final
Solution", the Nazi policy to
murder the Jews of Europe.
11. Axis
Germany
Japan (1937–45)
Italy (1940–43)
Hungary (1940–45)
Romania (1941–44)
Bulgaria (1941–44)
Co-belligerents
Finland (1941–44)
Thailand (1942–45)
Iraq (1941)
Client and puppet states
Manchukuo
Italian Social Republic (1943–45)
Croatia (1941–45)
Second Philippine
Republic(1944–45)
Serbia (1941–44)
Slovakia
12. Alies
Soviet Union (1941–45)
United States (1941–45)
United Kingdom
China (1937–45)
France
Poland
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
South Africa
British India
Yugoslavia (1941–45)
Greece (1940–45)
Norway (1940–45)
Netherlands (1940–45)
Belgium (1940–45)
Czechoslovakia
Brazil (1942–45)
Mexico (1942–45
Client and puppet
states
Commonwealth of the
Philippines (1941–45)
Mongolia (1945)
21. I. Allied forces begin to take large numbers of Axis prisoners.
II. Germans leave Finland.
III. Mussolini's death.
IV. Hitler's death.
V. German forces in Italy surrender.
VI. German forces in Berlin surrender.
VII.German forces in North West Germany, Denmark, and the
Netherlands surrender.
VIII. German forces in Bavaria surrender.
IX. Central Europe.
X. Hermann Göring's surrender.
XI. German forces in Breslau surrender.
XII.German forces on the Channel Islands surrender.
XIII. Jodl and Keitel surrender all German armed forces unconditionally.
XIV. Victory in Europe.
XV. German units cease fire.
XVI. Dönitz government ordered dissolved by Eisenhower.
XVII. Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption
of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers.
XVIII. Cessation of hostilities between the United States and Germany.
XIX. End of state of war with Germany.
XX. The full authority of a sovereign state.
