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The Treaty of Versailles was the peace settlement ending World War I, signed by Germany and the Allied powers on June 28, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles -
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 -
Italy invaded Ethiopia in October 1935 under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, aiming to expand its colonial empire and boost national pride by conquering the last independent African nation. The invasion was preceded by a border incident at Wal Wal and led to brutal atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons and widespread bombings, which contributed to the failure of the League of Nations and signaled a rise in militaristic aggression -
The remilitarization of the Rhineland on March 7, 1936, was Adolf Hitler's violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties, where German troops re-entered the demilitarized Rhineland, a strip of German land bordering France, Belgium, and the Netherlands -
The Wagner-Rogers Bill was a 1939 proposal to admit 20,000 German refugee children, ages 14 and under, into the United States over two years, outside of existing immigration quotas -
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 German -
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 following a meeting of the two heads of government in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims -
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 MS St. Louis was a German luxury liner carrying 937 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution who were denied entry into Cuba in 1939 -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact, or Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was a 1939 non-aggression treaty signed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, committing each side to a decade of non-violence. Crucially, a secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence," which allowed Germany to invade Poland on September 1, 1939, without fear of Soviet intervention. This act triggered World War II, and the pact unraveled in June 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union -
Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war" in German, was 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 -
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. -
During World War II, the Cash and Carry policy was a 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 -
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939, was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. -
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. -
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 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 Lend-Lease Act was a US program during World War II that allowed President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide military and other supplies, such as food and materials, to Allied nations whose defense was deemed vital to the United States' own security, without requiring immediate cash payment -
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 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. -
The War Refugee Board (WRB) was a U.S. government agency created in January 1944 by President Roosevelt to rescue Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution during World War II. Led by officials from the Treasury Department, the Board coordinated efforts to provide relief, establish safe havens, and facilitate the rescue of approximately 200,000 people -
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 takeover of the Nazi concentration camp by prisoners on April 11, 1945, followed by the arrival of American forces. This event exposed the camp's horrific conditions and the scale of Nazi atrocities to the world. -
The United Nations is an international organization established in 1945 after World War II to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, and promote international cooperation -
"Little Boy" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, by the Enola Gay B-29 bomber. As the first nuclear weapon used in warfare, it was a gun-type uranium bomb that created a nuclear chain reaction, causing an explosion equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT -
The detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, resulted in an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 immediate deaths, with tens of thousands more dying in the subsequent months and years from injuries and radiation poisoning. By the end of 1945, the total death toll had likely reached approximately 70,000 people, with -
V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day, marks the formal end of World War II, celebrated on different dates depending on the country, though most often associated with the official surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay. -
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 that committed the United States to providing political, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations threatened by communist expansion -
The Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. initiative to provide economic aid to Western Europe following 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 -
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a political and military alliance established in 1949 for collective defense