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World War II
Important
Events
AXIS VS. ALLIES
 AXIS POWERS
 GERMANY
 ITALY
 JAPAN
 ALLIED POWERS
 BRITAIN
 UNITED STATES
 SOVIET UNION
HITLER GAINS TERRITORY
 1936 RHINELAND (b/w France &
Germany, violates treaty of
Versailles)
 1938 ANNEXES AUSTRIA (violates
Treaty of Versailles)
 Munich Conference
 9/29/38-Britain & France agree to
let Germany take Sudetenland
 APPEASEMENT
 Allies give into Hitler to
avoid war & keep peace
 1939 takes ALL CZECHOSLOVAKIA!!!
Non-Aggression Pact
 Hitler & Stalin sign pact
promising to not attack
each other
 Secret part of pact: DIVIDE
POLAND
 Hitler could add to his Third
Reich in Eastern Europe
without opposition from
Soviet Union
BLITZKRIEG
Germany Invades
Poland
 WWII begins on September 1, 1939 when Hitler
invades Poland
 Hitler’s “lightning war”
 Fast, quick attacks taking enemy by surprise
 France & Great Britain declare war on Germany 2
days later
 Poland easily falls to Germany within weeks,
followed by invasion by Soviet Union
Phony War & Maginot Line
 Phony War: end 1939-beginning 1940 no real
fighting occurred (Hitler planning)
 Maginot Line: 125 mile long fortification
along French/German border
 Built after WWI to protect France’s eastern border
w/ Germany
 French think this will protect them
 Hitler attacks France from north instead of going
thru the Maginot line
Fall of France
& Miracle at Dunkirk
 Germany conquers Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands
& attacks France from North (going around Maginot line thru
the Ardennes forest w/ tanks)
 Miracle of Dunkirk (May 26-June 4 1940)
 370,000 French, British, Belgian soldiers pushed back to
small French beach Dunkirk
 Every British boat (battleships to row boats) spends days
crossing back & forth over English channel
 Attacks by Germans in the air
 Rescue 338,000 soldiers!!!
 France surrenders in June 1940
 Puppet gov’t set up in city of Vichy
 Charles de Gaulle (French general) set up gov’t-in-exile in
London & was committed to reconquering France
Battle of Britain
 Luftwaffe (German air force)
begins bombing airfields
 British have radar to detect
German attacks
 RAF (British Royal Air Force) is
outnumbered but fights
Luftwaffe & inflicts much
damage
 Hitler orders attacks on British
cities to force surrender
 Over 30,000 civilians killed
 Cities destroyed, people hiding
in underground subways,
children evacuated from cities,
gasmasks
 British will & determination stays
strong & British win Battle of
Britain!!!
Battle of the Atlantic
 Same time as Battle of Britain
 German U-Boats attempt to sink food/war
supplies from U.S.
 Uboats travel in packs of 15-20
 Convoys (cargo ships accompanied by
warships w/ radar for protection)
Operation Barbarossa
 June 1941, Hitler breaks nonaggression pact
& invades Soviet Union
 Codename: Operation Barbarossa
 Soviets shocked, Germans advance
 Battle of Leningrad-brutal, Hitler tries to
starve out Russians, 1 million die, city does
NOT fall
 Hitler turns his attention to Moscow (capital)
 Soviets burn everything (scorched earth…
like Napoleon!)
 During winter many Germans poorly equipped,
freeze & starve to death
Battle of Stalingrad
 1942-43 Nearly 1 million dead (most Russian)
 Germany bombs city, fighting in rubble
 Freezing Russian winter wrecks Germans
 Not enough supplies
 Many freeze & starve to death
 Typhus, suicide, cannibalism…horrible conditions
 Russians win b/c of the long winter
 MAJOR turning point of WWII
 Halts Hitler’s eastern expansion, again
showing Germany is not invincible, pushes
them back
North Africa & Erwin Rommel
 Mussolini (Italy) trying to conquer
much of Africa
 Ethiopia 1935 (revenge?)
 Want Suez Canal (controlled by
British)
 If control the Suez Canal, Italy
will control the Mediterranean
 Mussolini fails
 Germany comes to help Italy, leader:
General Rommel=“Desert Fox”
 He & his Afrika Korps (along w/
panzer tanks & air support) push
back the British, many victories
El Alamein &
The Atlantic Charter
 Rommel’s advance in Africa is
stopped in Egypt at El Alamein
 British & Americans (Allies) save Suez
Canal, invade Northern Africa, drive
Rommel & Germans out!!!!! 
 1941 Atlantic Charter:
 American President Franklin D.
Roosevelt & British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill meet
 Discuss end of war, lay foundation
for the United Nations
Invasion of Italy
 1943 Allied troops invade Italy (beginning w/
Sicily)
 Mussolini is overthrown, rescued by
Germany, captured, executed (1945)
 Italians want to surrender & demand peace
 Germany takes over control of war operations
in Italy
 Fighting between Allies & Germany is very
bloody
 Allies slowly gain, take over Rome June 4, 1944
 Italy is 1st Axis power to fall!!!
D-DAY INVASION
 Allies plan attack to retake France & Europe back
from the grasp of Nazis
 Largest land and sea attack in HISTORY!
 June 6, 1944: American, British, French, Canadian
troops invade the beaches of France
 Over 3 million troops
 Germans hid behind concrete walls firing w/
machine guns, rocket launchers, cannons
 Huge casualties: Allies 10,000, Germans 4000-9000
 Major turning point in war: Germany is on retreat
 By September Allies take back France, Belgium,
Luxembourg…time to invade Germany
War in the pacific
Japan Invades China
 Japan gives gov’t power to
military
 Emperor Hirohito is figurehead
 Wanted to solve Japan’s
economic problems through expansion
(raw materials,new markets)
 1931-Japan invades Manchuria (NE China, has natural
resources)
 1937-full invasion of China, easy victory
 Rape of Nanking
 December 1937-Japanese soldiers invade the city
 Murder over 200,000 civilians, rape thousands
PEARL HARBOR
“A day that will live in
infamy”
 Japan realized it needed to destroy American Pacific navy to
achieve goal of empire in the Pacific
 “a dagger point at Japan’s throat”-Admiral Yamamoto
 Dec. 7, 1941 Japan attacks U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii
 Destroy 200 planes,19 ships (8 battleships)
 Killed 2,400 Americans
 Isolationism (stay out of other political affairs of other countries)
is no longer popular feeling in U.S.
 Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Congress to declare war on Japan
(Dec. 8)
 2 days later, Italy & Germany (Axis Powers) declare war on U.S.
Japan Advances its Empire
 Label the following:
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China
French Indochina
Hawaii (Pearl Harbor)
Hong Kong
Guam
Thailand
Dutch East Indies
Burma
New Guinea
***Coral Sea
***Midway
***Guadalcanal
Bataan Death March
 Japanese take over Philippines,
Allies retreat to Bataan
Peninsula
 Allies (Americans & Filipinos)
taken as POWs, forced to march
50 miles, brutal treatment
 Died of fatigue, shot,
stabbed, bury soldiers alive
 Thousands die
 Camps
 Horrible conditions,
starvation, lack of medical
supplies, torture
 Some Japanese who committed
horrible acts were tried and
punished after war
Doolittle Raid &
Japanese Internment
 U.S. wants revenge for Pearl
Harbor
 Lieutenant Doolittle plans air
attack on Tokyo
 Though bombs do little
damage, this raid becomes
boosts morale for America
 Japan is vulnerable to attack
 Japanese Internment
 1942 FDR orders all Japanese
living in America to be moved
to relocation camps
 Fear that they would assist
Japanese invasion
 Lost homes & property
Battles of Coral Sea & Midway
 2 battles after the Doolittle Raid challenged
Japan’s march in Pacific
 Battle of Coral Sea
 May 1942 U.S. stopped Japan’s invasion of
Australia
 Battle of Midway
 June 1942 U.S. had crack Japanese naval codes,
knew they were coming
 America destroyed 332 Japanese planes, 20
Japanese ships
 Turning point in war in Pacific-Japanese on
defensive, U.S. on offensive
MacArthur, Island Hopping,
& Guadalcanal
 Japan had taken over hundreds
of islands
 General Douglas MacArthur,
commander of Allied forces in
Pacific
 Plan-island hop past islands
strongholds & takeover islands
closer to Japan
 Guadalcanal
 1942-huge losses on both
sides, U.S. wins
 “island of death”
Kamikazes
 “Bushido” (ancient warrior code)-
death in battle is honor, surrender is
disgrace
 Fall 1944-Japanese pilots suicide
attacks on American ships
 Honor to die for Emperor Hirohito
 Planes loaded with explosives to
inflict most damage
 Battle of Okinawa-1000
Kamikaze pilots sank or damaged
400 ships
 How to defeat an enemy who
would rather die?
 Huge casualties if war
continued
Atomic Bomb
 Experts predicted that half a million Americans and 2
million Japanese would die in an invasion of Japan to
end war
 “Manhattan Project”
 American, German, Japanese scientists were racing to
perfect atom bomb
 July 1945 U.S. successfully tests a-bomb
 President Harry Truman decides to drop bomb
 Aug 6, 1945 dropped on HIROSHIMA (80,000 dead)
 Aug 9, 1945 dropped on NAGASAKI (40,000 dead)
 Many more die later from radiation sickness, etc.-brutal
 August 14, 1945 Japan surrenders…WWII ENDS