Mr. Stobbs' Virtual American History Classroom



Essential Facts World War II (1939 – 1945)Key Axis Powers: Germany (Hitler), Italy (Mussolini), Japan (Tojo / Hirohito)Key Allied Powers: U.S. (Roosevelt, Truman) Great Britain (Churchill), France (De Gaul), Soviet Union (Stalin)Post WWI: While America was wallowing in neutrality and isolationism, events were occurring in Europe and Asia that were causing increasing tension across the regions. These events included: Totalitarianism as a form of government in the USSR (Joseph Stalin), Italy (Benito Mussolini), Germany (Adolf Hitler), and Spain (Francisco Franco). A move towards fascism in Japan. The creation of Manchukuo, Japan's puppet government in Manchuria, beginning the war in China. The conquest of Ethiopia by Mussolini. Revolution in Spain led by Francisco Franco. Germany's continuing expansion including taking the Rhineland. A worldwide Great Depression. WWI allies with large debts, many of which were not paying them off.1923: The Ruhr Crisis – French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhrgebiet. 1924: The Dawes Plan leads to resolution of the Ruhr crisis1925: French and Belgian troops withdraw from the RuhrgebietAmerica passes the Neutrality Acts in 1935-37. These created an embargo on all war item shipments. Americans were not allowed to travel on belligerent ships, and no belligerents were allowed loans in the United States.March, 1936: Operation Winter Exercise – Hitler re-militarizes the RhinelandMarch, 1938: Germans occupy Austria 29 September, 1938: The Munich Conference puts in place a policy of appeasement and seals Czechoslovakia’s fateOctober, 1938: The Relegation of CzechoslovakiaMarch, 1939: Hitler seizes the remainder of Czechoslovakia not already ceded in peace negotiationsAugust 23, 1939: Hitler and Stalin sign secret non-aggression pact, agree to divide Poland; Stalin given the Baltic states September 1, 1939: Hitler invades Poland.September 3, 1939: Britain and France declare war on GermanyMay, 1940: Hitler invades Northern Europe, Benelux regionJune 14, 1940, Germans enter Paris, establish puppet government at VichyJuly to October 1940: Britain struggles to survive German attack in The Battle of BritainFebruary 1941: Hitler invades Africa to assist MussoliniDecember 7, 1941: Japan attacks U.S. at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and other Pacific bases.December 8, 1941; The United States enters the war.D-Day June 6, 1944: American Invasion of EuropeV-E Day May 8, 1945: War ends in EuropeNuclear bombing of Hiroshima August 6, 1945: B-29 Enola Gay, “Little Boy”Nuclear bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: B-29 Bock’s Car, “Fat Man” President Truman ordered the use of nuclear weapons as a way to prevent the war dragging on at the cost of millions of Japanese and American lives. V-J day August 15, 1945: War ends in JapanCritical TopicsLend-Lease Act: Early in WW II the United States devised a plan, dubbed Lend-Lease, to assist the nations that were then fighting the Axis powers (Germany, Japan and Italy). The Lend-Lease Act was passed by Congress on March 11, 1941. It provided that the president could ship weapons, food, or equipment to any country whose struggle against the Axis assisted U.S. defense. By permitting the president to ship war equipment and supplies to a besieged Britain, without payback as stipulated by the 1939 Neutrality Act, Lend-Lease empowered the British to resist the German onslaught until Pearl Harbor spurred America into the conflict. In addition, it avoided the prickly issues of post-World War I war debts. Lend-lease advanced the United States to the edge of war. Such Isolationists as Republican senator Robert Taft spoke against it. The bill would "...give the president power to carry on a kind of undeclared war all over the world, in which America would do everything except actually put soldiers in the frontline trenches where the fighting is," he correctly observed.Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941 was “a day that will live in Infamy” which resulted in America’s entry into WWII. A Japanese carrier strike force attacked the military bases in the Hawaiian Islands, primarily at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese intent was to knock America out of the war so that it could operate freely in the Pacific region. The attack failed to knock out America’s aircraft carrier fleet, and Japanese planners failed to carefully evaluate America’s ability to respond industrially, politically and militarily.U.S. Internment of Japanese Americans (Nisei)Within days of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded up many Japanese, German, and Italian Americans on the West Coast. The U.S. government classified Japanese Americans as "enemy aliens." In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order #9066, allowing military authorities to set up restricted zones and remove "aliens" from those zones. Most American citizens who happened to have Japanese ancestry had 10 days to close up their businesses and homes. Over 100,000 were loaded on trains and buses and sent to assembly centers and then on to larger camps were built in "safe" rural areas of Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. Estimates of the value of property confiscated from Japanese Americans ran as high as $400 million. America was building its own concentration camps at a time when the world was just becoming aware of the Nazi concentration camps in Europe. The Holocaust: State-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.The decision to kill Europe's Jews was formulated in late 1941, and Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 coordinated the apparatus of mass murder.Nearly 6 million Jews were murdered in Europe as part of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution" to what the Nazi dictator called “The Jewish problem”.Most victims were murdered in six extermination camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland was the largest and at least 1.1 million Jews were killed there before its liberation by the Red Army on Jan. 27, 1945. In total 85 percent of the Jewish population in Poland died -- some 2.8 million people.Only an estimated 11 percent of Jewish children who were alive in 1933 survived the Holocaust.The Marshall Plan: The European Recovery Program (ERP), popularly known as the Marshall Plan, America's most successful foreign aid program, was a landmark in the struggle to contain communism abroad and isolationism at home. The plan was fueled by a humanitarian impulse to rebuild war‐ravaged Europe and by fears that Depression conditions might return in the United StatesThe Marshall Plan addressed three post–WWII crises: the collapse of Britain’s 's imperial role in the world balance of power; the instability of France and Italy; and West Germany's economic and moral deterioration. Consequences of WWII: Europe divided between Communist Soviet Union and Western Powers, primarily Britain, France and the United States. Germany divided into four sectors, each controlled by one of the primary allies – the USSR, USA, Great Britain, and France. The effects of World War II had far-reaching implications for most of the world. Many millions of lives had been lost as a result of the war. The war can be identified to varying degrees as the catalyst for many continental, national and local phenomena, such as the redrawing of European borders, the birth of the United Kingdom’s welfare state, the communist takeover of China and Eastern Europe, the creation of Israel, and the division of Germany and later of Vietnam. In addition, many organizations have roots in the Second World War; for example, the United Nations, the World Bank, World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. New technologies, such as nuclear fission, the electronic computer, the microwave, advanced rocketry, and the jet engine also appeared during this period.A multipolar world was replaced by a bipolar one dominated by the two most powerful victors, the United States and Soviet Union, which became known as the superpowers. ................
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