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Terms Chapter 25
1. Enrico Fermi: Enrico Fermi was an Italian Physicist who led the team of scientists in Chicago to
work on the effects of splitting Uranium atoms as a means to be used as a weapon in the war. He
is famous for having producing the first fission reaction in Uranium 235 under the University of
Chicago’s football stadium. He won a Nobel Prize for this amazing feat.
2. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Robert Oppenheimer was the man to headed the Manhattan Project in
los Alamos New Mexico with the sole intention of developing a nuclear weapon capable of
ending the war. He was known for his deeply emotional self and helped his fellow scientists
overcome moral barriers about placing such a potentially harmful weapon in the hands of the
American government.
3. Benito Mussolini: Benito Mussolini was an Italian Fascist who seized power in Italy in 1922 and
declared that liberty was dead in his side of the world. As a result of the harsh penalties from the
Treaty of Versailles, Mussolini was inclined to support the war growing in the East with Japan
versus the rest of Asia.
4. Adolph Hitler: Adolph Hitler was the German dictator who led the third Reich during World
War II. He also was the head of the National Socialists, also known as the Nazis, and combined
his amazing rhetoric abilities with his obsession with a dominant Aryan race to persuade all of
Germany that all other races were inferior. Together with Mussolini, Hitler and him shared
Imperialistic views and thus strove together in conquest against the world with Japan.
5. Rome/Berlin Axis:
6. Nuremburg Laws: After 1935, the horrors in which Adolf Hitler was endorsing had reached
most of the world. The Nuremburg Laws were a set of laws laid down by Hitler denying civil
rights to Jews.
7. Kritallnacht: The brutality towards the Jews by the Nazis was shown all throughout the war with
constant gassings, murders, and beatings. Kritallnacht was an incident that occurred on November
8th, 1938; just three years after the Nuremburg Laws were passed. Nazi storm troopers rounded up
a great number of Jews and began beating them senselessly and murdering a countless number
more. This was known as “the Night of the Broken Glass”. This marked a point in time in which
the German government began taking all Jewish possessions and denying them all but the most
menial work available.
8. Isolationism: This was a belief that was still deeply embedded in American Culture during the
beginning of WWII. Many people still retained the idea of steering clear from foreign affairs
while keeping American issues to themselves. Thus many organizations and other anti-war
protest groups arose.
9. America First Committee: This was an antiwar committee formed by many arch-conservatives
who opposed U.S. intervention in the war. This committee became famous when it was endorsed
by many large businessmen like Sears executive Robert. E. Wood and many famous celebrities
like Henry Ford and Robert Young. Within a year of being founded, America first had recruited
over 850,000 members.
10. September 1st, 1939: This was a very important date because it was the day in which the war
took and ugly turn and escalated conflicts between more countries in Europe. On September 1st,
1939, Germany invaded Poland, but because of a treaty France and Britain shared with Poland,
they were compelled to declare war on Germany and thus did so two days later. However, also in
September, the Soviets entangled themselves in the war by signing a nonaggression pact with
Germany and split Poland after Hitler overran it.
11. Blitzkrieg: This was a type of warfare utilized by the Nazis which was also known as lightning
war in which massed, fast-moving columns of tanks supported by air power would rush at
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enemies and quickly overtake any position. This was the technique used to quickly and easily
conquer Poland.
Neutrality Act: After Hitler had began his conquest to conquer Europe, many Americans, along
with Roosevelt, felt that America’s security depended on the fall of Germany’s empire and the
persistence of a strong American military power. Thus Roosevelt was able to pass the Neutrality
Act of 1939 in which America would sell arms to Britain, France, and China in an attempt to help
all allies in every way but providing solid military support.
Axis of Powers: This was a term used to describe the opponents of the United States and its allies
in WWII. After Roosevelt had seized his election for a third term, he focused most of his
attention on aiding America’s allies.
Lend Lease Act: This was an act passed by FDR as a means of trying to aid America’s allies and
to bring down the Axis of Powers. The Act was presented to Congress and said that the president
would be given full power to sell, exchange, or lease arms to any country whose defense appeared
vital to United States security. The biggest beneficiary of this act was Great Britain, which
received massive aid from American armaments.
Atlantic Charter: This was a secret meeting between President Roosevelt and Britain’s Prime
Minister Winston Churchill in which they discussed military strategy and declared postwar goals
for the world. The American Charter was thus born and declared the right of all people to live in
freedom from fear, want, and tyranny. Also included in the charter was free trade between all
nations, disarmament, and an end to territorial seizures.
December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor: This was the first attack on United States forces by Japan. It
occurred in Pearl Harbor, which is in the Island of Oahu, Hawaii. On September 27th, 1940, Japan
had joined Germany and Italy in their conquest for world domination. From this moment on,
Roosevelt had begun working against Japan by freezing their assets and placing all United States
forces in the Pacific Ocean on high alert. However, on December 7th, Japanese carriers launched a
massive aerial assault on the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. This attack caught the fleet completely
off guard and within two hours; Japanese planes had killed over 2,400 Americans and badly
damaged the fleet. As a result of this attack, Roosevelt was able to swing all but one vote in
Congress to send America into war against the Axis of Powers.
War Powers Act: This was an act passed by Congress that allowed the President to reorganize
the federal government and create new agencies in a time of war. It allowed him to establish
programs censoring all news and information and abridging civil liberties; to seize property
owned by foreigners; and even to award government contracts without competitive bidding.
OSS: The Office of Strategic Services was a group created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a means
to assess the enemy’s strength, oversee espionage activities, and gather intelligence and
information.
“Rosie the Riveter”: During the time of massive production during the war, many races and
women were employed because many American men had gone off for war. Rosie the Riveter was
a woman who appeared on many posters and advertisements as the model female citizen, one
who was willing to work in place of a man. With war in the country, female employment surged
by 50 percent. This massive influx of women coupled with the huge increase in production rates
proved that they were just as capable as men in most jobs.
John L. Lewis: John L. Lewis was a man who led more than half a million coal miners in a
massive wildcat strike in 1943 due to poor wages and hours. This was at a time in which major
unions pledged not to strike during the war, but Lewis was part of the growing minority that saw
the war as an opportunity. However, once Roosevelt seized the coal mines of Lewis and his
workers, he retorted nothing would be mined by bayonets. As a result, Congress passed the first
federal antistrike bill, which gave the president the power to penalize strikes, even to draft them.
Victory Gardens: During the war, people grew their own food to reduce costs, it was encouraged
for people to make their own gardens and consume less to reduce demands on the United States
Army and its need for supplies.
22. Ex. Order 9066: This was an order signed by President Roosevelt on Febuary 19th, 1942, in
which over 112,000 Japanese Americans were excluded from American military areas, mainly in
California, but also in Oregon, Washington, and southern Arizona.
23. CORE: During the war, there were several civil rights movement gain that fought both
discrimination and Jim Crow practices including segregation in the United States armed forces.
The interracial Congress of Racial Equality was formed by pacifists in 1942 and staged sit-ins at
Chicago, Detroit, and Denver restaurants that refused to serve African Americans. The group
used many other means to challenge racial segregation in public facilities.
24. Zoot Suit: These were pieces of clothing worn by Mexican American teenagers who wore longdraped coats, pegged pants, pocket watches with oversized chains, and big floppy hats. This type
of fashion was seen as unpatriotic and signaled defiance. Thus many riots broke out between
Sailors and Marines with Latinos in mainly California because they saw it as disloyal to the
American military.
25. October 16th, 1940, National Registration Day: This was the day in which all men between the
ages of twenty one and thirty-six became legally obliged to register for military service. After the
United States entered the war though, the draft age was lowered to eighteen and local boards were
instructed to choose first from the youngest.
26. Gen. Douglas MacArthur: General Douglas MacArthur was the supreme commander of the
Pacific theater and was said to have admired the German army’s views and disparaged political
democracy.
27. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower: General Dwight Eisenhower was the supreme commander of the
Allied Forces in Europe and supported a contrary view of military morals to MacArthur. He was
viewed by his men as a model for leadership.
28. Army Chief of Staff George Marshall: During WWI, there was a massive shortage of officers
as a result of sudden great expansion of the armed forces. However, the counter this problem
before it occurred, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall opened schools for officer candidates
and 1942, these schools produced more than 54,000 platoon leaders.
29. GI (Government Issue): This was a term used for American privates, who were generally the
majority of draftees. During the war, these soldiers rarely saw higher leadership outside their own
platoon leaders and company commanders. Thus they formed close relationships with these
commanders and leaders as well as their fellow comrades because they felt they needed someone
to look up to in a time when terror seized them. Within these GI “communities”, there was an
overall mutual effort between soldiers to help pull each other through the war and support one
another full heartedly.
30. WAAC: This was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps which was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt
and Massachusetts Republican Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers in May 1942. This was part
of woman’s efforts to get more women involved in the actual war.
31. 761st Tank battalion: During the war for African Americans, there still existed a lot of racial
segregation and prejudice. The 761st Tank Battalion was the first all African American military
unit that won a Medal of Honor after 183 days in action.
32. Nisei 422nd: Because the United States Army needed every possible man to fight, they tapped
into the American Japanese population. When the time came to request volunteers, over 10,000
stepped forward, but only one in five were chosen to fight and were sent off far away from the
Pacific theater. The Nisei 422nd was an all Japanese regiment that proved its loyalty to America
by fighting heroically in Italy and France and became the most decorated regiment in the war.
33. Navajo Code Talkers: These were Indian peoples who had left reservations for the first time to
help join fellow Americans in fighting the war. These code talkers used a special code to
communicate to fellow Native Americans across the Pacific to carry out specific plans against the
Japanese. Because the Japanese were able to break every American code during the war, the
Navajo Code Talkers became the best code talkers because the Japanese were unable to break the
code in any way because it was an exclusively private code within a nearly lost language.
34. “Battle fatigue”: This was a mental problem that many soldiers in the army encountered at least
once in their time serving. Many soldiers who had been on the front lines for long periods of time
suffered some sort of mental disability as a result of seeing and feeling so many horrific things.
As a result, many soldiers resorted to hurting themselves to be taken out of service.
35. POWs: Throughout the course of the whole war, over 120,000 American soldiers were taken as
prisoners of war. German POWS were taken back to camps and sat out for the remainder of the
war. These soldiers received packages of supplies from the Swiss Red Cross and could
occasionally join work Brigades. Russian POWS were starved and occasionally murdered in
German camps.
36. Bataan Death March: On the Pacific front however, American POWs received the most
abysmal and worst treatment out of anyone. Of the 20,000 American POWs captured in the
Philippines, only 40 percent survived. They were constantly beaten and starved and many
notoriously died on the Death March of the Bataan peninsula.
37. Battle of Britain: This was Hitler’s last final push to seize Britain and claim victory over
conquering Europe, however, the Royal Air Force was able to fight the Luftwaffe to a standstill,
thus halting Hitler’s ambitions.
38. Luftwaffe: This was the German Air Force which Hitler combined with tanks to quickly and
efficiently take territories and route country’s armies early on in the war. However, a strong
opposition by the British Royal Air Force stopped his massive aerial assault in its steps.
39. El Alamein: This was an offensive by Italian and German forces against the British Eighth Army
in the desert of western Egypt, which held its own and managed to destroy the Italian North
African Army and much of Germany’s Afrika Korps.
40. Gen. Erwin Rommel “Desert Fox”: General Erwin Rommel was the German General who led
the offensive against the Eighth British Army at El Alamein.
41. Casablanca: Following the conquest to free North Africa from the Fascist Regime, the Allies
made it clear that they would accept nothing less than the unconditional surrender of their
enemies. In January 1943, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met in Casablanca,
Morocco, to rule out any possibility of negotiation with the Axis of powers. This was a clear
message from America and its allies to scourge fascism from the face of society and banish it
completely.
42. B-17/Flying Fortress: These were the largest bombers ever to have been built and were a proud
product of the United States Air Force. The B-17s were considered to be the most advanced and
powerful bombers of the war were possessed the ultimate weapon. The U.S. Army Air Corps
described the plane as humane as I cold strategically place bombs on specifically military targets.
43. D Day June 6th, 1944: D Day was the first ground offensive of Operation Overlord, which was a
campaign created by the Allies to retake the Continent with a decisive counterattack through
France. D Day was the first invasion that began on June 6th, 1944. The Allied fleet managed to
bring in more than 175,000 troops and over 20,000 vehicles while receiving heavy German
machine gun fire on the shores of Normandy. This move caught the Germans off guard, who had
prepared the bulk of their defense at Calais on Omaha beach. Over 2,500 soldiers died on D Day,
but ultimately, their supreme sacrifice paved the road to victory for the allied offensive.
44. General Charles DeGualle: Following the invasion of Normandy, French resistance grew to
such a point that many Nazis were overwhelmed and thus France began to overthrow Nazi bonds.
General Charles DeGualle was a French General who became president of the French Republic
on August 25th, when he arrived with the rest of the Allied Forces in Paris.
45. Battle of the Bulge: As hope seemed all but gone, Hitler made a last attempt to swing
momentum in his favor by sending his last reserves of over a quarter million men at Allied lines
in the Belgian forest of the Ardennes. This was known as the Battle of the Bulge, in which the
Germans took the Allies by complete surprise, driving them back 50 miles before they were
halted in their tracks. This was the bloodiest battle America had ever seen since Gettysburg, but
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had completely extinguished any hope of a German counterattack. As a result, the Germans were
beaten back into their own territory on Christmas Day 1944.
Battle of Coral Sea: This was a decisive naval battle that occurred on May 7th and 8th, 1943,
between two Japanese and American aircraft carriers. The ultimate winner was the American
carrier, which managed to block a Japanese threat to Australia.
Battle of Midway: This was a naval battle fought between the Americans and the Japanese.
Japan had moved its whole fleet to Midway Island, which was a strategic military defense point.
However, American strategists used broken Japanese codes to devise a massive counterattack, At
the battle of Midway on June 4th, the American carrier fleet assaulted the Japanese fleet, sinking
four of Japan’s aircraft carriers and destroying hundreds of planes, thus ending Japan’s threat
against the American west coast.
Guadalcanal: As Part of the massive Allied counteroffensive, the marines attacked the Japanese
stronghold of Guadalcanal. Here, American forces were able to pound out a victory despite low
rations on both sides by securing many important supply lines in costly naval battles.
Island Hopping: This was a strategy used by the United States Navy and Marines in which they
pushed to capture a series of important islands from Japanese defenders, thus opening a lane to
Japan.
Battle of Leyte Gulf: General MacArthur saw victory in his sight as he utilized the Navy and
marines to steadily push back Japanese influence. He led a force of 250,000 men to retake the
Philippines. In a last effort to try and preserve its influence there, Japan threw its whole naval
arsenal at American forces in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. This was the largest naval battle in history
in which Japan lost eighteen ships, resulting in American dominance of the Pacific.
Okinawa: This was another struggle for island control between Japan and the United States.
Okinawa was 350 miles southwest of the home islands of Japan and was a site of vital airbases.
The invasion of the island began on Easter Sunday on April 1st, 1945, in which America launched
the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific war. Here, more Americans died that at Normandy,
but like it, America arose victorious s
Kamikaze: At the battle of Okinawa, the Japanese grew so desperate in their attempts to drive
American forces back that they used planes loaded with explosives to fly suicide missions. This
type of warfare showed the true desperation of the Japanese and the crazed tactics they were
willing to resort to in order to win the war.
Holocaust: This was the extermination of mainly Jew, but also other “inferior races” all
throughout the war. As the Germans preached the importance of Aryan dominance, Hitler ordered
the extermination of over 6 million Jews, 250,000 Gypsies, and over 60,000 homosexuals over
the course of the war. The Holocaust was one of the worst events of human slaughter ever in the
history of the world. The Nazi genocide endorsed by Hitler was nothing short of Satanic.
Yalta: Yalta was a conference held between the “Big Three”, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. In
early February 1945, Roosevelt held his last meeting with Stalin and Churchill at a Crimean
resort on the Black Sea. Roosevelt made it known to them that prospects for postwar peace
depended on compromise. Thus the three came to an agreement that the Soviet Union would
retain the Baltic States and part of Poland as a buffer zone to protect against any future German
aggression. In return, Britain would regain its control in Asia and the United States would hold on
to several Pacific Islands in order to monitor any Japanese resurgence. However, the greatest
result of Yalta was the Soviet Union’s entrance into the Pacific war. He and Churchill were able
to convince Stalin with rights to territory in China to join the war a few months after the fall of
Germany.
April 12th, 1945: On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a surprise stroke which
greatly affected the morale for long-term, peaceful solutions to global problems.
Harry Truman: As a result of Roosevelt’s death, cooperation among Allied nations made things
more difficult. Harry Truman was President Roosevelt’s successor and had many political
credentials, but lacked the diplomatic experience as well as Roosevelt’s skill.
57. August 1945: Following the successful testing of the atomic bomb, Harry Truman realized that
successful cooperation with the Soviet Union was no longer necessary. On August 3rd, 1945, after
a demand by Allied forces for Japan to surrender unconditionally, Japan refused. Thus Truman
approved the use of the bomb and sent the Air Force to Bomb both Hiroshima (August 6th, 1945)
and Nagasaki (August 14th 1945).
58. Enola Gay: This was the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
59. Albert Einstein Manhattan Project: Albert Einstein proposed the idea of splitting an atom and
converting mass into energy with his theories on mass and energy equivalence. When the events
of Hiroshima occurred however, Einstein claimed that everything had changed in the world
except the nature of man. The use of the device was instantly seen as completely inhumane and
wrong by most.
60. Nagasaki: This was the city the second atomic bomb was dropped on in which 70,000 people
were killed. As a result of Japan not surrendering after the first bomb, the United States strove to
show Japan its true power with the second, showing them how serious they were about blowing
their asses to hell.