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The Treaty of Versailles was the peace agreement that officially ended World War I in 1919, forcing Germany to accept blame for the war, pay massive reparations, disarm, and cede territory to Allied nations. -
Japan invaded Manchuria primarily to secure vital natural resources like coal and iron for its industrial economy, to expand its imperial power and create a buffer against the Soviet Union, and to find a solution to its growing population and economic hardship caused by the Great Depression. -
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. -
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. -
The remilitarisation of the Rhineland began on 7 March 1936, when military forces of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared for a military response, so they did not act. -
The Anschluss, also known as the Anschluß Österreichs, was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an Anschluss arose after the 1871 unification of Germany excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated German Empire. -
The Évian Conference was convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to flee persecution by Nazi Germany -
The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived -
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 carrying over 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, who were denied entry into Cuba, the United States, and Canada in 1939, forcing their return to Europe where many later perished in the Holocaust. The voyage, often called the "voyage of doom," highlighted the world's unwillingness to accept refugees from persecution. -
Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war" in German, was a World War II German military tactic involving a fast, concentrated, and mobile attack using armored tanks, mechanized infantry, artillery, and close air support to achieve rapid, decisive victories by bypassing and paralyzing the enemy's defenses -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact was a non-aggression agreement signed in August 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which included a secret agreement to partition Poland. This pact allowed Germany to invade Poland on September 1, 1939, without fear of Soviet interference. Subsequently, on September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, occupying the territory allocated to it by the secret protocol. The invasion divided Poland and marked the beginning of World War II. -
The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II -
Cash and carry -
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces.
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The destroyers-for-bases deal was an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom on 2 September 1940, according to which 50 Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson-class US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy from the US Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions. -
The Lend-Lease Act was a US program enacted in March 1941, allowing President Franklin Roosevelt to provide Allied nations with crucial military and economic aid during World War II without them having to pay in cash. -
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
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The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration made in August 1941 by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, outlining their shared war aims and vision for a post-World War II world. It called for principles such as self-determination, free trade, economic cooperation, and an end to the use of force, serving as a precursor to the Declaration by United Nations and influencing the foundation of the modern United Nations. -
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the time, the U.S. was a neutral country in World War II. -
The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. -
The War Refugee Board, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1944, was a U.S. executive agency to aid civilian victims of the Axis powers. -
The Fat Man was the plutonium implosion-type atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, with an explosive yield of about 21 kilotons, instantly killing an estimated 40,000 people and contributing to Japan's surrender in World War II. -
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings. -
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive or Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War, taking place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945 -
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by the United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
The liberation of Buchenwald refers to the capture and freeing of the Buchenwald concentration camp by American forces on April 11, 1945, near the end of World War II. The event exposed the horrors of the Nazi regime to the world and ended the suffering of more than 21,000 surviving prisoners. -
Little Boy was a type of atomic bomb created by the Manhattan Project during World War II. The name is also often used to describe the specific bomb used in the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima . -
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. -
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 to maintain global peace and security, promote friendly relations among nations, and foster international cooperation -
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries across Europe and committing atrocities against their citizens in World War II. -
The Truman Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy established in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman that committed the United States to support "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures". -
The Marshall Plan was a U.S. initiative to provide economic aid to help Western European countries rebuild after World War II. -
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that codifies some of the rights and freedoms of all human beings -
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 32 member states—30 in Europe and 2 in North America. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, NATO was established with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949.