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It ended World War I and imposed harsh conditions on Germany, including territorial losses, heavy reparations, and military restrictions. placed harsh punitive measures on Germany, including massive reparations, territorial losses, and severe military restrictions, along with the infamous war guilt clause. -
It was Japans greatest defeat, operation August Storm, the 1945 Soviet invasion of Manchuria, it brought an end to World War II. They were trying to claim apart of land with rich materials. -
In 1935, Fascist Italy launched a war against Ethiopia, a military invasion that led to the Italian occupation of the country, the exile of Emperor Haile Selassie, and the weakening of the League of Nations's authority. -
It was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties, as Adolf Hitler sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland zone bordering France and Belgium. This action was a major turning point, emboldening Hitler to pursue further expansionist policies without significant intervention from Britain and France. -
The Munich Conference concluded that the Sudetenland territory would be ceded to Germany. In addition, Hitler would take over portions of Czechoslovakia provided he would not seek further expansion. -
1938 annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, which unified the two German-speaking nations under Hitler's control, eliminating Austria's independence.his aggressive territorial expansion, part of Hitler's goal to unite all German peoples and achieve greater German dominance, set a precedent for further aggression and significantly contributed to the outbreak of World War Il. -
In July 1938, delegates from 32 countries met in Evian, France for a conference on the refugee crisis. The delegates expressed sympathy for the Jews who were seeking to flee Nazi persecution. -
U.S. law that allowed belligerent nations to buy U.S. goods, including military equipment, but only if they paid in cash upfront and transported the goods on their own ships. Enacted 1939 as a revision to the Neutrality Acts, this policy aimed to support the Allies. -
The Wagner-Rogers Child Refugee Bill was a 1939 proposed law that would have allowed 20,000 Jewish children from the Greater German Reich into the United States outside of the regular immigration quotas over two years -
The MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner that, in 1939, carried over 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Denied entry to Cuba and the United States, the ship was forced to return to Europe. -
The Battle of the Atlantic was the continuous, lengthy WWII campaign where German U-boats tried to cut Allied supply lines by sinking merchant ships, but the Allies fought back with anti-submarine tactics, codebreaking, and improved technology like radar to secure the sea lanes and ultimately win the war -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact, a 1939 agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union, set the stage for the joint invasion and partition of Poland on September 1, 1939, which initiated World War II. -
Its a military tactic characterized by concentrated, rapid, and deep attacks by armored Panzer units, supported by mobile infantry and tactical air power, to quickly defeat an enemy by dislocating and disrupting their lines of communication and command rather than through prolonged attrition. -
Germany invaded Poland in 1939 to annex territory and acquire Lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe, which was a core Nazi ideological goal to expand their population and resources. Hitler used the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union that secretly planned the partition of Poland, as a way to secure his eastern flank. -
The Battle of Britain was a decisive aerial campaign from 1940 where the Royal Air Force successfully defended the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. It stopped Germany from invading Britain, preventing Nazi dominance over Western Europe -
The "Destroyers-for-Bases" deal was significant because it marked a major shift in U.S. foreign policy from neutrality toward supporting the Allies, provided crucial naval and air bases to the U.S. for defending the Western Hemisphere, and created a strong Anglo-American wartime partnership that led to further cooperation like the Lend-Lease Act. -
It was to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet, allowing Japan to expand its empire in Southeast Asia and secure vital natural resources like oil from colonies in the region. The attack was a preemptive strike designed to prevent American interference with Japan's conquest of the Dutch East Indies and other territories. -
The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 was a United States program that allowed the President to provide military and economic aid, such as weapons, food, and supplies, to Allied nations vital to American defense during World War II. -
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration issued on August 14, 1941, by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II. It outlined eight principles for a peaceful post-war world, including no territorial gains, self-determination, disarmament, and freedom from want and fear, and served as a foundation for the United Nations. -
The Battle of Midway was a decisive U.S. victory in June 1942 where American forces, using intelligence to predict the attack, sank four Japanese aircraft carriers while only losing one of their own, inflicting a severe and irreplaceable blow to the Japanese Navy and shifting the tide of the Pacific War. -
The Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 was the first naval battle in history fought entirely by aircraft carriers, resulting in a strategic Allied victory by halting the Japanese invasion of Port Moresby, despite both sides suffering heavy losses, including the U.S. carrier USS Lexington -
Operation Overlord is not the same as D-Day, though they are closely related; Operation Overlord was the overall Allied campaign to invade Normandy and liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, while D-Day was a specific term for the June 6, 1944, invasion day of that larger operation. -
The Battle of the Bulge was Germany's last major offensive on the Western Front during World War II, a surprise attack launched through the Ardennes Forest in December 1944 to split the Allied armies and force them to negotiate. -
U.S. government agency, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1944, to rescue Jews and other victims of persecution in Nazi-occupied Europe. -
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. -
The battle caused more than twice the number of American casualties than both the Guadalcanal Campaign and Battle of Iwo Jima combined, with the Japanese kamikaze effort causing the American Navy to suffer more casualties than any previous engagement in the Atlantic or Pacific -
The atomic bomb used at Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, was "Fat Man". The bomb was dropped by a USAAF B-29 airplane named "Bockscar", piloted by U.S. Army Air Force Major Charles Sweeney -
The main differences between the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" atomic bombs are their fissile material, detonation mechanism, and shape. "Little Boy" used uranium and a simple "gun-type" design, firing a subcritical mass into another to achieve critical mass. -
The next day, August 15th, 1945, was proclaimed Victory over Japan (VJ) Day, although the signing of the official instrument of surrender was not to occur until September 2nd, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay. There, representatives of nine Allied nations were present to accept the Japanese surrender. -
The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 military tribunals held by the Allied powers between 1945 and 1949 to prosecute prominent leaders and officials of Nazi Germany for war crimes. -
The Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated by the United States Army in April 1945. Upon arrival, Allied soldiers found thousands of surviving prisoners, though the camp had already been the site of immense suffering, with over 56,000 deaths from forced labor, starvation, and executions. -
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization founded in 1945 by 51 countries, with its headquarters in New York City. It was established after World War II to promote international peace and security and to encourage cooperation among nations. The UN now includes 193 member states. -
The Truman Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy established in 1947 that committed the United States to providing political, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations threatened by communist expansion. -
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a landmark international document that outlines the fundamental rights and freedoms to which all human beings are entitled. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948, following the horrors of World War II. -
The Marshall Plan was a U.S.-sponsored program that provided economic aid to Western Europe to help rebuild after World War II. Officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), it was initiated in 1948, named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. -
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military and political alliance of 32 member countries in Europe and North America. It was founded in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty.