world war ii

Omar Soto Blé

What was WWII?

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.

The Begining of WWII

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.

Important Events of WWII

Germany Invades Poland.

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. 

Stalingrad

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.

Battle of Midway

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.

D-DayOn 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.

Hiroshima and NagasakiThe 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.

Anti-semitism

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).

The HolocaustThe 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.

Axis  Germany

Japan (1937–45)

Italy (1940–43)

Hungary (1940–

45)

Romania (1941–

44)

Bulgaria (1941–

44)

Important CountriesCo-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

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)

Important People Commanders and leaders

Allied leaders

General Secretary of the Central Committee of

the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Joseph Stalin

32nd President of the United

States

Franklin D.

Roosevelt

Winston Churchil

lPrime Minister of the United Kingdom

Chiang Kai-shek

Chairman of the National

Government of China

Axis leaders

Führer of Germany

Adolf Hitler

HirohitoEmperor of

Japan

Benito Mussolini

Head of Government of

Italy andDuce of Fascism

End of World War II

Timeline of surrenders and deaths

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.

Fuentes: http://

www.sparknotes.com/history/european/ww2/summary.html

http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/causes.htm

http://www.solpass.org/7ss/standards/MajorEvents.htm

http://www.shmoop.com/wwii/timeline.html