The surprise
attack on
Pearl Harbor
by Japan on
December 7,
1941


This was the
beginning of
World War II
for the U.S.

Totalitarian states
were using
oppressive ways to
fight the Great
Depression
World War II
WWII: Significant Participants
World War II was the most
devastating event of the 20th
century and the lessons and events
still dominate current foreign policy.
It was a total war.
Fifty million people died.
Twenty-five million of them
were civilians.
WWII Terms
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Totalitarian dictator
Appeasement
Blitzkrieg
Third Reich
Lend-Lease
Pearl Harbor
rationing
8. D Day
9. Midway
10. Yalta Conference
11. Hiroshima
12. VE Day
13. VJ Day
14. United Nations
1. Totalitarianism—absolute and total rule (The Axis)
2. Appeasement—giving in to a dictator (Munich)
3. Blitzkrieg— “lightning war” (Luftwaffe in Poland)
4. Third Reich—Germany’s European Empire
5. Lend-Lease—U.S. loaned or rented weapons (FDR)
6. Pearl Harbor—Japan’s surprise attack on U.S.
7. Rationing—limits on consumer goods on home front
8. D Day—turning point in Europe (Normandy)
9. Midway—turning point in Pacific
10. Yalta Conference—The Big Three discuss the end of war
11. Hiroshima—use of atomic bomb against Japan (by U.S.)
12. VE Day—Victory over Europe (May 1945)
13. VJ Day—Victory over Japan (Aug./Sept. 1945)
14. United Nations—Allied nations form a peace-keeping
organization
Add terms as needed
• Mobilization--movement
• Flying Tigers—volunteer pilots in
China
• Office of War Information—
issued propaganda posters
• Executive Order 9066—
President’s order to intern
Japanese-Americans
• Rosie the Riveter—image of
strong female factory worker
• Tuskegee Airmen—African
American pilots
• Navajo Code Talkers—Native
Americans who created secret
codes
• Bataan Death March—huge
American loss in Philippines
• FDR and Truman—Presidents
during WWII
• G.I. Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944)—money
given to veterans after war
What is Historiography?
• How we study history
• Military
• Political
• Social
• Economic
• Psychological
• Biographical
• Focuses on how history is
written and interpreted
German Expressionism
(Kandinsky, 1911)
Events Leading to World War II
Rise of Totalitarianism in Italy, USSR,
Japan, and Germany
Why? To help countries fight uncertain
times of economic depression
“Isms”
• Socialism—You have two cows. Give one cow to your neighbor.
• Communism—You have two cows. Give both cows to the government,
and they may give you some of the milk.
• Fascism—You have two cows. You give all of the milk to the government,
and the government sells it.
• Nazism—You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes both
of the cows.
• Anarchism—You have two cows. Keep both of the cows, shoot the
government agent and steal another cow.
• Capitalism—You have two cows. Sell one cow and buy a bull.
Italy
• Benito Mussolini—
leader in 1922
• Fascism -national socialism)
enforced by “blackshirts”
• New Roman Empire
• “Il Duce”
• “Hail Caesar”
USSR
• Stalin replaced Lenin in
Communist Soviet Union
(USSR) in 1924
• Totalitarian dictator
• Enforced with “Purges”
Japan
• Emperor Hirohito
• Korea occupied since 1910
• 1931—invaded Manchuria
(state in China)
• 1937—invaded China
• (Note: The Anti-American military leader,
Tojo Hideki became prime minister in Oct.
1941)
Germany--Background
• Weimar Republic after WWI
• Unemployed veterans and resentments after
The Treaty of Versailles
• President Hindenburg
was elderly
Adolf Hitler
• Childhood in Austria
• Ambitions
• Fascism—Nazi Party,
swastika, brownshirts
• Beer Hall Putsch (1924)
• Show trial and imprisonment
• Mein Kampf—a bestseller
• Aryans—the “Master Race”
• Jews as scapegoats
• Norse gods and Wagner
operas
• Nazis elected to Reichstag
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Chancellor”– 1933
Burning of the Reichstag
Death of Hindenburg
“Messiah Complex”
“Der Fuhrer”
Hitler Youth
Gestapo enforcement
The Third Reich
Nuremberg Laws
Kristallnacht
Nuremberg Rally
1935
• Italy invaded Ethiopia
• Germany re-armed and dismissed The Treaty
of Versailles
1936
• Germany occupied The Rhineland
• France relied on The Maginot Line as a
defense
• Spanish Civil War—
Francisco Franco got military
help from Italy and Germany
• “blitzkrieg” and total warfare
Picasso’s Guernica
1936
• Rome-Tokyo-Berlin Axis Formed
Bush’s Speech in 2006
• Referred to an “Axis of Evil”
(Iran, Iraq, N. Korea)
1937
• Japan invaded China-(“Flying Tigers”)
• Closed “Open Door Policy” in 1938
1938
• Hitler conquered Austria
• Hitler conquered The Sudetenland (part of
Czechoslovakia)
Munich Conference--1938
Appeasement
• English Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain: “We
shall have peace in our
time”
• Advised by U.S. Ambassador
Joseph P. Kennedy and
• American hero, Charles A.
Lindbergh
• Hitler invaded and
occupied Czechoslovakia!
1939
• Italy conquered Albania
• Germany signed a secret non-aggression pact
with USSR
• On Sept. 1, Hitler invaded Poland with his
Luftwaffe (air force) and blitzkrieg (lightening
war)
• England and France declared war
1940, 1941
• Winston Churchill became prime minister of
England
• U.S. remained officially neutral
• Lend-Lease program supplied weapons to
countries fighting the Axis powers
WWII “Sides”
Axis Nations
• Germany
• Japan
• Italy (until 1945)
Allied Nations
• Great Britain
• France
• USSR (switched sides when
Hitler double-crossed them)
• U.S.A. (starting in 1941)
• 22 other nations around the
world (“united nations”)