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World War II
September 1939 –
January 1942
In the 1930s, events throughout the world
led to conditions that started World War II
High unemployment,
Fascist dictators Mussolini
desperation, & feelings
& Hitler threatened to
of betrayal led to the rise conquer new territories
of totalitarian dictators
for Italy & Germany
In the 1930s, events throughout the world
led to conditions that started World War II
Extreme nationalism & a need for
raw materials led to a desire to
expand in Japan under Hideki Tojo
By the 1930s, the world was moving towards another
war but few nations were in a position to prevent war
Britain & France were the leaders
The USA was
of the League of Nations but both focused on the
wanted to avoid another war
depression &
wanted to avoid
foreign affairs
Japan, Italy, & Germany In 1936, Germany, Italy, &
aggressively expanded Japan formed an alliance
in Africa, Asia, & Europe called the Axis Coalition
In 1931, Japan
In 1937, Japan conquered
invaded Manchuria northern China & killed 300,000
in order to seize its
unarmed soldiers & civilians
iron & coal mines
during the “Rape of Nanjing”
In 1935, Mussolini
began his campaign to
create an Italian Empire
by invading Ethiopia
The Italian army easily
defeated the Ethiopians
Ethiopian soldiers defending their
country from the Italian military
The League of Nations condemned Japanese &
Italian aggression but did nothing to stop the
attacks in an effort to maintain peace in the world
The failure of the League of Nations to stop Italy or
Japan, encouraged Hitler to expand Germany too
In 1935, Hitler defied the terms
of the Treaty of Versailles &
expanded the size of the German
military
In 1936, Hitler moved his
army to the Rhineland
Both times, the League of
Nations refused to stop
Hitler in order to keep
peace in Europe
The failure of the League of Nations to stop Italy or
Japan, encouraged Hitler to expand Germany too
In 1938, Hitler
annexed Austria
Next, Hitler
demanded that the
western border of
Czechoslovakia, an
area known as the
Sudetenland, be
given to Germany
Germany was allowed to keep
the Sudetenland if Hitler
promised to stop expanding
In 1938, leaders from England & France met with
Hitler & Mussolini at the Munich Conference in
order work out an agreement to avoid war
Britain & France used appeasement with Hitler:
they gave in to his demands in order to avoid war
Six months after the Munich Conference, Hitler
broke his promise & annexed all of Czechoslovakia
After the Munich Pact, British
Prime Minister declared he had
gained “peace for our time”
In 1939, Hitler demanded that western Poland
be returned to Germany but he did not want to
provoke a war with the Soviet Union
Stalin & Hitler agreed
to the Nazi-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact,
promising never to
attack each other
Secretly, Germany
& the USSR agreed
to divide Poland
On September 1,
1939, Hitler ordered
the German military
to attack Poland
Critical Thinking Decision #3:
How should Britain & France respond?
On September 3,
1939, Britain and
France declared
war on
Germany…
World War II had
begun
World War II was a two
“theater” war with
fighting taking place in
Europe & in the Pacific
The Allies & Axis Powers
converted to total war for
the second time in 20 years
World War II was a two
“theater” war with
fighting taking place in
Europe & in the Pacific
The Allies & Axis Powers
converted to total war for
the second time in 20 years
World War II was a two
“theater” war with
fighting taking place in
Europe & in the Pacific
The Allies & Axis Powers
converted to total war for
the second time in 20 years
When World War II began, Germany
used a “lightning war” strategy called
blitzkrieg that relied on fast, strong
attacks using air raids, artillery, & tanks
By 1940, Germany conquered Poland, Denmark,
Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, & France
When World War II began, Germany
used a “lightning war” strategy called
blitzkrieg that relied on fast, strong
attacks using air raids, artillery, & tanks
By 1940, Germany conquered Poland, Denmark,
Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, & France
When France fell to the Nazis, Britain
was the only nation at war with Germany
In 1940, Germany began a massive bombing
campaign using its air force called the Battle of Britain
The British air force fought
Prime Minister
German planes aided
Winston Churchill vowed
by radar & the ability to
that the British would
crack German codes
“never surrender”
After 8 months, Hitler called of the
attacks & focused on Eastern Europe
The United States vowed
to remain neutral when
World War II began
The United States vowed After the fall of France &
to remain neutral when attack on Britain, the U.S.
World War II began
began selling war supplies
to the Allied Powers
In 1940, Italian
& German
troops moved
to take control
of North Africa
Meanwhile,
Hitler took
control of the
Balkans
In 1941, Hitler
broke the NaziSoviet Pact &
invaded the
Soviet Union
In 1940, Italian
& German
troops moved
to take control
of North Africa
Meanwhile,
Hitler took
control of the
Balkans
In 1941, Hitler
broke the NaziSoviet Pact &
invaded the
Soviet Union
In 1940, Italian
& German
troops moved
to take control
of North Africa
Meanwhile,
Hitler took
control of the
Balkans
In 1941, Hitler
broke the NaziSoviet Pact &
invaded the
Soviet Union
By 1942, the Axis Powers controlled
most of Europe & North Africa but were
unable to defeat Britain & the USSR
Meanwhile, the Japanese were
expanding in throughout the Pacific
From 1939 to 1941,
Japan conquered
European colonies
in Asia including
French Indochina
Japan threatened to
take the U.S. colonies of
Guam & the Philippines
In 1941, the United States
Japan interpreted the
cut off sales of iron & oil
embargo as interfering
with the Japanese
with their right to expand
The surprise attack
crippled the U.S. navy &
killed 2,300 Americans
On December 7, 1941
Japan attacked the U.S.
naval base at Pearl
Harbor in Hawaii
After the attack, the USA
declared war on the Axis
Powers & entered WWII
After Pearl Harbor,
the Japanese took
the Philippines &
threatened to take
India and Australia
By 1942, Japan
controlled a
large empire in
the Pacific, “Asia
for the Asiatics”
From 1939 to 1942, the
But, 1942 was a turning
Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, point year for the Allies
Japan) dominated Europe,
who were able to win
North Africa, & Asia
the war by 1945
Germany used blitzkrieg tactics to
dominate Eastern & Western Europe
England was wounded
Hitler broke the
from German attacks in Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression
the Battle of Britain
Pact & marched into Russia
The German & Italian armies dominated
Northern Africa, threatened the Suez
Canal & the oil fields in the Middle East
The Japanese dominated Asia, crippled
the U.S. navy after the Pearl Harbor attack,
& seized most Western colonies in the Pacific
However, the Allied Powers began to turn the tide of
the war in 1942 & defeated the Axis Powers by 1945
When the USA entered
WWII, Stalin wanted the
Allies to open a Western
Front & divide German army
Instead, Britain & USA
agreed to fight the Axis
Powers in North Africa
(Stalin was angry )
American & British troops
invaded Italy, took Sicily in
1943, seized Rome in 1944
The Allies defeated Germany
at the Battle of El Alamein
in 1942 & then pushed the
Axis Powers out of Africa
In 1945, Mussolini
was captured &
executed by the
Italian resistance
Meanwhile, the Soviet army
The Soviets defeated
stopped the German attack at
the German army at
Moscow & Leningrad in 1942 the Battle of Stalingrad
The Soviet victory at Stalingrad was a turning point
in World War II because the Russians began pushing
towards Germany from the East by 1943
In 1943, Joseph Stalin (USSR),
At the Tehran
Franklin Roosevelt (USA), &
Conference, the “Big
Winston Churchill (Britain)
Three” agreed to open
met in Tehran to coordinate a second front to divide
a plan to defeat Germany
the German army
By 1944, the Allies
decided to open a
Western Front by invading
Nazi-occupied France
By 1944, the Allies
decided to open a
Western Front by invading
Nazi-occupied France
Operation Overlord
(called D-Day) in June
1944 was the largest land
& sea attack in history
The Normandy invasion
was deadly, but the
Allied victory created
a Western Front…
…and allowed the
Allies to push towards
Germany from the West
…and allowed the
At the same time, the Soviet
Allies to push towards
army pushed from the East
Germany from the West
Forced to fight a two-front war, By March 1945, the
Hitler ordered a massive
Allies were fighting in
counter-attack at the
Germany & pushing
Battle of the Bulge..but lost
towards Berlin
In February 1945,
the “Big Three”
met at the Yalta
Conference to
create a plan for
Europe after the
war was over
Stalin agreed to send troops to help
the U.S. invade Japan
They agreed to allow selfdetermination (free elections)
in nations freed from Nazi rule
They agreed to
create & join a
United Nations
They agreed to
occupy Germany
after the war
As the Allies pushed into Germany & Poland, troops
discovered & liberated concentration & death camps
In April 1945, the Soviet
army captured Berlin
On April 30, 1945,
Hitler committed suicide
On May 9, 1945, the
German government
signed an unconditional
surrender to the Allies
The world celebrated
V-E Day (Victory in Europe)
While the war was coming to an end in Europe, the
Allies continued to fight the Japanese in the Pacific
After the attack on
Pearl Harbor, the
USA sent troops to
the Pacific theater
The Pacific war
revealed a new kind
of fighting by using
aircraft carriers
The turning point
in the war in the
Pacific came at the
Battle of Midway
After Midway,
the Allies began
to regain islands
controlled by Japan
Japan did not play by traditional rules in war
“Kamikaze” pilots flew
planes into battleships
& aircraft carriers
Japanese soldiers refused
to surrender & tortured
Allied prisoners of war
The problem for the
Allies was the time &
troops it would cost to
retake the thousands of
islands the Japanese
controlled in the Pacific
The U.S. developed an
island-hopping strategy
to skip the heavily
defended islands & seize
islands close to Japan
The fight for Guadalcanal took 6 months
and cost 25,000 Japanese & 2,000 U.S.
lives
From 1943 to 1945,
the Allies took back
the Philippines & were
moving in on Japan
In 1945, the Allies
won the islands of
Iwo Jima & Okinawa
From these islands, the
U.S. began firebombing
Japanese cities
Aerial
Victims
view
ofof
Tokyo
Tokyo
firebombing
during bombing
Despite losing control of
the Pacific & withstanding
firebomb attacks, Japan
refused to surrender
By May 1945, the war
in Europe was over &
U.S. began preparing for
a land invasion of Japan
…But, perhaps a land invasion was not necessary…
In 1939, Albert Einstein
wrote U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt
about the potential to
build a nuclear weapon
FDR created a top-secret
program called the
Manhattan Project
The bomb was constructed in
a secret city in Oak Ridge, TN
Physicist Enrico Fermi at
the University of
Chicago developed the
nuclear reaction
In July 1945, the bomb
was successfully
tested at Los Alamos,
New Mexico during
Project Trinity
Nuclear plant
in Hanford, WA
developed the
plutonium
In April 945, FDR died & his VP Harry Truman
had to decide how to end the war in the Pacific
In July 1945, the
Truman learned the atomic
Big Three met at the
bomb was ready & issued the
Potsdam Conference to Potsdam Declaration to Japan:
discuss the end of WWII “surrender or face destruction”
When Japan refused to
surrender, Truman ordered
the bombing of Hiroshima
on August 6, 1945
After 3 days, Japan did
not surrender so a
2nd atomic bomb was
dropped on Nagasaki
After the second atomic
bomb, Emperor Hirohito
agreed to a surrender
World War II was over
Conclusions: The Impact of World War II
■ World War II was the biggest, most deadly,
& most impactful war in world history:
– Europe was destroyed by the war & lost its
place as the epicenter of power in the
world
– The USA & USSR emerged as super powers
& rivals competing for influence in the
world
– A United Nations was formed to replace
the League of Nations to help promote
peace
– Colonized nation began to demand
independence from Europeans
Conclusions: The Impact of World War II