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judges from the allied powers- great Britain, France the soviet union and the united states president over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals

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Trials of Nazis continued to take place both in Germany and many other countries. Simon Wiesenthal, a Nazi-hunter, provided leads for war crimes investigators about Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, who had helped plan and carry out the deportations of millions of Jews, was brought to trial in Israel.

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with the Japanese surrendered on September 2, the world war has been over

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When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, it was the second time the world went to war. With the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, World War II was over.

Here is some background information about the end of World War II, by the numbers.

3 -- Nations leading the Axis Powers at the start of World War II: Germany, Italy and Japan.

September 1, 1939 -- Germany invades Poland

December 7, 1941 -- Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and Manila, Philippines.

September 3, 1943 -- Day Italy signs an unconditional surrender with the Allied Powers in Sicily.

June 6, 1944 -- D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe

50 feet -- Depth underground of the bunker in which Adolf Hitler and partner Eva Braun committed suicide below the Chancellery in Berlin on April 30, 1945.

May 8, 1945 -- V-E Day (Victory in Europe), after Gen. Alfred Jodl of the German High Command signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces.

August 14, 1945 -- V-J Day (Victory in Japan), when the Japanese accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and unconditionally surrendered.

September 2, 1945 - Day the Japanese delegation formally signs the instrument of surrender on board the USS Missouri, marking the official ending of World War II.

255 -- Allied ships in Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremony.

18 minutes -- Time it took for representatives of Japan, the United States, China, Great Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, The Netherlands and New Zealand to each sign two copies of the Instrument of Surrender, from 9:04 a.m. to 9:22 a.m.

6 million -- Approximate number of people killed in Nazi concentration camps.

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by the numbers: end of world war ii - cnn

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When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, it was the second time the world went to war. With the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, World War II was over. Here is some background information about the end of World War II, by the numbers.

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codenamed operation overlord the battle ; when some americans british and canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50 mile stretch of heavily normandy

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During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany's control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
READ MORE: D-Day Facts About the Epic Invasion
Preparing for D-Day

After World War II began, Germany invaded and occupied northwestern France beginning in May 1940. The Americans entered the war in December 1941, and by 1942 they and the British (who had been evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in May 1940 after being cut off by the Germans in the Battle of France) were considering the possibility of a major Allied invasion across the English Channel. The following year, Allied plans for a cross-Channel invasion began to ramp up. In November 1943, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who was aware of the threat of an invasion along France's northern coast, put Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) in charge of spearheading defense operations in the region, even though the Germans did not know exactly where the Allies would strike. Hitler charged Rommel with finishing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile fortification of bunkers, landmines and beach and water obstacles.

In January 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) was appointed commander of Operation Overlord. In the months and weeks before D-Day, the Allies carried out a massive deception operation intended to make the Germans think the main invasion target was Pas-de-Calais (the narrowest point between Britain and France) rather than Normandy. In addition, they led the Germans to believe that Norway and other locations were also potential invasion targets. Many tactics were used to carry out the deception, including fake equipment; a phantom army commanded by George Patton and supposedly based in England, across from Pas-de-Calais; double agents; and fraudulent radio transmissions.

A Weather Delay: June 5, 1944

Eisenhower selected June 5, 1944, as the date for the invasion; however, bad weather on the days leading up to the operation caused it to be delayed for 24 hours. On the morning of June 5, after his meteorologist predicted improved conditions for the following day, Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord. He told the troops: "You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you."

Later that day, more than 5,000 ships and landing craft carrying troops and supplies left England for the trip across the Channel to France, while more than 11,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.

D-Day Landings: June 6, 1944

By dawn on June 6, thousands of paratroopers and glider troops were already on the ground behind enemy lines, securing bridges and exit roads. The amphibious invasions began at 6:30 a.m. The British and Canadians overcame light opposition to capture beaches codenamed Gold, Juno and Sword, as did the Americans at Utah Beach. U.S. forces faced heavy resistance at Omaha Beach, where there were over 2,000 American casualties. However, by day's end, approximately 156,000 Allied troops had successfully stormed Normandy's beaches. According to some estimates, more than 4,000 Allied troops lost their lives in the D-Day invasion, with thousands more wounded or missing.

Less than a week later, on June 11, the beaches were fully secured and over 326,000 troops, more than 50,000 vehicles and some 100,000 tons of equipment had landed at Normandy.

For their part, the Germans suffered from confusion in the ranks and the absence of celebrated commander Rommel, who was away on leave. At first, Hitler, believing the invasion was a feint designed to distract the Germans from a coming attack north of the Seine River, refused to release nearby divisions to join the counterattack. Reinforcements had to be called from further afield, causing delays. He also hesitated in calling for armored divisions to help in the defense. Moreover, the Germans were hampered by effective Allied air support, which took out many key bridges and forced the Germans to take long detours, as well as efficient Allied naval support, which helped protect advancing Allied troops.

In the ensuing weeks, the Allies fought their way across the Normandy countryside in the face of determined German resistance, as well as a dense landscape of marshes and hedgerows. By the end of June, the Allies had seized the vital port of Cherbourg, landed approximately 850,000 men and 150,000 vehicles in Normandy, and were poised to continue their march across France.

Victory in Normandy

By the end of August 1944, the Allies had reached the Seine River, Paris was liberated and the Germans had been removed from northwestern France, effectively concluding the Battle of Normandy. The Allied forces then prepared to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet troops moving in from the east.

The Normandy invasion began to turn the tide against the Nazis. A significant psychological blow, it also prevented Hitler from sending troops from France to build up his Eastern Front against the advancing Soviets. The following spring, on May 8, 1945, the Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Hitler had committed suicide a week earlier, on April 30.

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Codenamed Operation Overlord, the invasion began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region during World War II.

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guadalcanal campaign is the 10th most lethal american battle by estimated number of american killed

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The Battle of Guadalcanal : Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands : Basecamp International

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The 1942 battle of Guadalcanal against the Japanese troops in the Solomon Islands played a pivotal military role in World War II.

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an unexpected attack by japan

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The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.

Japan's Ambitions in the Pacific

Japan's efforts to establish clear naval and air superiority in the western Pacific first hit a snag in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, when the U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese invasion force headed for New Guinea. Despite the setback, Admiral Isaroku Yamamoto, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was convinced his forces enjoyed a numerical advantage over the Americans.

Hoping to replicate the success of the Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto decided to seek out and crush the rest of the U.S. Pacific fleet with a surprise attack aimed at the Allied base at Midway Island. Midway is located in the Pacific Ocean almost directly in between the United States and Japan.

After a diversionary attack by a smaller Japanese force on the Aleutian Islands, off the coast of Alaska, Yamamoto planned a three-pronged approach toward Midway. First, an air attack on the island launched from four first-line Japanese aircraft carriers, the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu, commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. Second, an invasion force of ships and soldiers led by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo. And finally, once expected U.S. reinforcements from Pearl Harbor arrived, a joint strike by Nagumo's forces and Yamamoto's own fleet, which would be waiting 600 miles to the west.

Did you know? Six months before the Battle of Midway, the islands were attacked on December 7, 1941, less than two hours after Pearl Harbor.

United States Military Academy's Department of History

U.S. Gains Advantage Thanks to Navy Codebreakers

U.S. Navy cryptanalysts had begun breaking Japanese communication codes early in 1942, and knew for weeks ahead of time that Japan was planning an attack in the Pacific at a location they called "AF." Suspecting it was Midway, the Navy decided to send out a false message from the base claiming it was short of fresh water. Japan's radio operators sent out a similar message about "AF" soon afterward, confirming the location of the planned attack.

With Japan's fleet so widely dispersed, Yamamoto had to transmit all strategy over the radio, enabling Navy cryptanalysts based in Hawaii to figure out when Japan planned to attack (June 4 or 5) and the planned order of battle of the Imperial Japanese Navy. With this information, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, could develop a plan to combat the invasion.

The Japanese assumed that the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown, which been damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea, would be unavailable at Midway. In fact, the damaged carrier was repaired in only two days at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, and left on May 30 to regroup with other U.S. ships near Midway in preparation for Japan's attack.

The Battle of Midway Begins

After the diversionary Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands on June 3, a group of U.S. B-17 Flying Fortress bombers flew from Midway to attack Kondo's invasion force, which they mistakenly assumed was the main Japanese fleet. This unsuccessful attack marked the first military engagement in the Battle of Midway.

Before dawn the next day, more B-17s left Midway for a second attack on the Japanese invasion force, also unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Nagumo launched the first phase of Japan's attack as planned, sending 108 Japanese warplanes from the four aircraft carriers to strike Midway. After inflicting severe damage to the U.S. base, the first Japanese attack ended by 7 a.m., leaving the airfield still useable and U.S. anti-aircraft defenses still functioning.

Shortly after that, just as his pilots informed Nagumo that another airstrike against the base would be necessary, U.S. aircraft launched from Midway began attacking the four Japanese carriers, without success. As Nagumo was rearming Japanese planes for a second air attack, a Japanese scout plane spotted portions of the U.S. fleet, including USS Yorktown, to the east of Midway. Nagumo switched tactics, ordering planes that were still armed to prepare to attack the U.S. ships once the rest of the Japanese planes returned from Midway.

Meanwhile, a wave of U.S. Devastator torpedo bombers from the U.S. carriers Hornet and Enterprise arrived to attack the Japanese ships. Unescorted by fighter planes, nearly all of them were shot down by Japanese Zero fighters. But about an hour later, as the Japanese refueled and rearmed their planes, another wave of U.S. carrier-launched bombers struck, hitting three Japanese carriers- Akagi, Kaga and Soryu -and setting them ablaze.

In response, Japan's surviving carrier, Hiryu, launched two waves of attacks on the Yorktown, which had to be abandoned but remained afloat. U.S. dive-bombers from all three carriers returned to attack the Hiryu and set it ablaze as well, putting all four Japanese carriers out of commission.

Significance of U.S. Victory in the Battle of Midway

Though major combat in the Battle of Midway was over by the evening of June 4, U.S. troops at sea and on Midway Island continued their attacks on the Japanese over the next two days.

The destroyer USS Hammann provided cover for the disabled carrier Yorktown during salvage operations, but a Japanese submarine arrived on June 6 and launched four torpedoes that struck both U.S. ships. The Hammann sank in minutes; the Yorktown eventually capsized and sank the following day.

On June 6, Yamamoto ordered his ships to retreat, ending the Battle of Midway. In all, Japan had lost as many as 3,000 men (including more than 200 of their most experienced pilots), nearly 300 aircraft, one heavy cruiser and four aircraft carriers in the battle, while the Americans lost the Yorktown and Hammann, along with around 145 aircraft and approximately 360 servicemen.

As a result of the U.S. victory in the Battle of Midway, Japan abandoned its plan to expand its reach in the Pacific, and would remain on the defensive for the remainder of World War II. The battle injected U.S. forces with confidence and drained Japanese morale, turning the tide of war in the Pacific strongly in favor of the Allies.

Sources

The Battle of Midway, National WWII Museum.

Andrew Lambert, "The Battle of Midway." BBC, February 17, 2011.

1942: The Battle of Midway, CBS News.

The Battle of Midway, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial.

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The Battle of Midway was an epic WWII clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.

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japanese  american interment camp - 1942-1945

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japanese  american interment camp - 1942-1945

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japanese internment camps were established during world war ii by president franklin roosevelt through his executive order 9066

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent would be interred in isolated camps. Enacted in reaction to Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war, the Japanese internment camps are now considered one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century.

Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon -states with a large population of Japanese Americans-and Roosevelt's executive order commanded the relocation of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 117,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, relocating 21,000 of its Japanese residents from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to facilities in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to camps on the U.S. mainland.

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle-damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass evacuation of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to Assembly Centers

Army-directed evacuations began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under 10, as well as several thousand elderly and handicapped.

Japanese Americans reported to centers near their homes. From there they were transported to a relocation center where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent wartime residence.

These centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 interred, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in Assembly Centers

Assembly centers offered work to detainees with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple of assembly centers were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

There were opportunities for farm work during a labor shortage, and over 1,000 internees were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 internees were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in Relocation Centers

There were a total of 10 permanent housing camps called Relocation Centers. Typically some form of barracks, several families were housed together, with communal eating areas. Residents that were designated as dissidents went to a special camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two relocation centers in Arizona were located on Indian reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each relocation center was its own town, featuring schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock, all surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several relocation centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different centers that manufactured items for use in other centers, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several centers had agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Relocation Centers

Violence occasionally occurred in centers. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, internees were delivered by trains and marched two miles at night to the camp.

An elderly man attempted to flee and was shot and killed. After settling in, at least two men were shot and killed while trying to escape.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita facility, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At Manzanar, California, tensions resulted in the beating of a Japanese American Citizens League member by six masked men. Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds, and one man was killed by police.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, a man was shot and killed by military police for going too close to the perimeter. Two months later, a couple was shot at for the same reason.

In 1943, a riot broke out at Tule Lake following an accidental death. Tear gas was dispersed, and martial law declared until agreements were reached.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese internment camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment. He lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the U.S. saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it would take another Supreme Court decision to halt the internment of Japanese Americans

Mitsuye Endo

The internment camps ended in 1945 following a Supreme Court decision.

In Endo v. the United States, it was ruled that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, CA. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese internment.

Two years later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave Roosevelt the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Roosevelt made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988 Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

SOURCES

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent would be interred in isolated camps.

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the first black military aviators in the U.S army air corps.

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japanese attacked uc and deatroyed

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Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

Japan and the Path to War
WATCH VIDEO: The Path to Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, but Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades.

The United States was particularly unhappy with Japan's increasingly belligerent attitude toward China. The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into its neighbor's territory and take over its import market.

To this end, Japan declared war on China in 1937, resulting in the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities.

American officials responded to this aggression with a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes. They reasoned that without access to money and goods, and especially essential supplies like oil, Japan would have to rein in its expansionism.

Instead, the sanctions made the Japanese more determined to stand their ground. During months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington, D.C., neither side would budge. It seemed that war was all but inevitable.
WATCH: Pearl Harbor: The Last Word on HISTORY Vault
Where Is Pearl Harbor?

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan. No one believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii.

Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the (relatively) nearby European colonies in the South Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Singapore or Indochina.

Because American military leaders were not expecting an attack so close to home, the naval facilities at Pearl Harbor were relatively undefended. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford Island in the harbor, and hundreds of airplanes were squeezed onto adjacent airfields.

To the Japanese, Pearl Harbor was an irresistibly easy target.

USS Arizona

The Japanese plan was simple: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. That way, the Americans would not be able to fight back as Japan's armed forces spread across the South Pacific. On December 7, after months of planning and practice, the Japanese launched their attack.

At about 8 a.m., Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below. At 8:10, a 1,800-pound bomb smashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona and landed in her forward ammunition magazine. The ship exploded and sank with more than 1,000 men trapped inside.

Next, torpedoes pierced the shell of the battleship USS Oklahoma. With 400 sailors aboard, the Oklahoma lost her balance, rolled onto her side and slipped underwater.

Less than two hours later, the surprise attack was over, and every battleship in Pearl Harbor- USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS California, USS West Virginia, USS Utah, USS Maryland, USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee and USS Nevada-had sustained significant damage. (All but USS Arizona and USS Utah were eventually salvaged and repaired.)

Impact of the Pearl Harbor Attack
WATCH VIDEO: Pearl Harbor Survivors Recall the Morning of the Attack
In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were likewise destroyed. Most importantly, more than 2,000 people died.

But the Japanese had failed to cripple the Pacific Fleet. By the 1940s, battleships were no longer the most important naval vessel: Aircraft carriers were, and as it happened, all of the Pacific Fleet's carriers were away from the base on December 7. (Some had returned to the mainland and others were delivering planes to troops on Midway and Wake Islands.)

Moreover, the Pearl Harbor assault had left the base's most vital onshore facilities-oil storage depots, repair shops, shipyards and submarine docks-intact. As a result, the U.S. Navy was able to rebound relatively quickly from the attack.

How Many People Died in Pearl Harbor?

The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. Additionally, 1,178 people were wounded. 129 Japanese soldiers were killed.

Half of the dead at Pearl Harbor were on the USS Arizona. Today the sunken battleship serves as a memorial to all Americans who died in the attack.
READ MORE: 8 Tales of Pearl Harbor Heroics
President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on December 8, the day after the crushing attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy-the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

He went on to say, "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again."
Click here to watch the full episode on Pearl Harbor and more from WWII in HD on HISTORY Vault
America Enters World War II

After the Pearl Harbor attack, and for the first time during years of discussion and debate, the American people were united in their determination to go to war.

The Japanese had wanted to goad the United States into an agreement to lift the economic sanctions against them; instead, they had pushed their adversary into a global conflict that ultimately resulted in Japan's first occupation by a foreign power.

Did you know? The single vote against Congress's declaration of war against Japan came from Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Rankin was a pacifist who had also voted against the American entrance into World War I. "As a woman," she said, "I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else."

On December 8, Congress approved Roosevelt's declaration of war on Japan. Three days later, Japan's allies Germany and Italy declared war against the United States.

For the second time, Congress reciprocated, declaring war on the European powers. More than two years after the start of World War II, the United States had entered the conflict.

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Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. The day after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

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this one classified photographfeatures thefirst atomic bomb.

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american women played important roles during wwii , both at home and in uniform.

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as part of their appeasement policy, have part of czechoslovakia in the munich betrayal.

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one of Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland.

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The Holocaust was the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. Start learning today.

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around 6 million of jews, using brodest definition. 17 million victims overall.

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Contents

1. Before the Holocaust: Historical Anti-Semitism & Hitler's Rise to Power

2. Nazi Revolution in Germany, 1933-1939

3. Beginning of War, 1939-1940

4. Towards the "Final Solution," 1940-1941

5. Holocaust Death Camps, 1941-1945

6. Nazi Rule Comes to an End, as Holocaust Continues to Claim Lives, 1945

7. Aftermath & Lasting Impact of the Holocaust

8. Photo Galleries

The word "Holocaust," from the Greek words "holos" (whole) and "kaustos" (burned), was historically used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an altar. Since 1945, the word has taken on a new and horrible meaning: the ideological and systematic state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of millions of European Jews (as well as millions of others, including Romani people, the intellectually disabled, dissidents and homosexuals) by the German Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945.

To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community. After years of Nazi rule in Germany, during which Jews were consistently persecuted, Hitler's "final solution"-now known as the Holocaust-came to fruition under the cover of World War II, with mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps of occupied Poland. Approximately six million Jews and some 5 million others, targeted for racial, political, ideological and behavioral reasons, died in the Holocaust. More than one million of those who perished were children.

Before the Holocaust: Historical Anti-Semitism & Hitler's Rise to Power

Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Though use of the term itself dates only to the 1870s, there is evidence of hostility toward Jews long before the Holocaust-even as far back as the ancient world, when Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave Palestine. The Enlightenment, during the 17th and 18th centuries, emphasized religious toleration, and in the 19th century Napoleon and other European rulers enacted legislation that ended long-standing restrictions on Jews. Anti-Semitic feeling endured, however, in many cases taking on a racial character rather than a religious one.

Did you know? Even in the early 21st century, the legacy of the Holocaust endures. Swiss government and banking institutions have in recent years acknowledged their complicity with the Nazis and established funds to aid Holocaust survivors and other victims of human rights abuses, genocide or other catastrophes.

The roots of Hitler's particularly virulent brand of anti-Semitism are unclear. Born in Austria in 1889, he served in the German army during World War I. Like many anti-Semites in Germany, he blamed the Jews for the country's defeat in 1918. Soon after the war ended, Hitler joined the National German Workers' Party, which became the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), known to English speakers as the Nazis. While imprisoned for treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler wrote the memoir and propaganda tract "Mein Kampf"(My Struggle), in which he predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."

Hitler was obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan," and with the need for "Lebensraum," or living space, for that race to expand. In the decade after he was released from prison, Hitler took advantage of the weakness of his rivals to enhance his party's status and rise from obscurity to power. On January 30, 1933, he was named chancellor of Germany. After President Paul von Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler anointed himself as "Fuhrer," becoming Germany's supreme ruler.
WATCH: Third Reich: The Rise on HISTORY Vault
Nazi Revolution in Germany, 1933-1939

The twin goals of racial purity and spatial expansion were the core of Hitler's worldview, and from 1933 onward they would combine to form the driving force behind his foreign and domestic policy. At first, the Nazis reserved their harshest persecution for political opponents such as Communists or Social Democrats. The first official concentration camp opened at Dachau (near Munich) in March 1933, and many of the first prisoners sent there were Communists.

Like the network of concentration camps that followed, becoming the killing grounds of the Holocaust, Dachau was under the control of Heinrich Himmler, head of the elite Nazi guard, the Schutzstaffel (SS), and later chief of the German police. By July 1933, German concentration camps (Konzentrationslager in German, or KZ) held some 27,000 people in "protective custody." Huge Nazi rallies and symbolic acts such as the public burning of books by Jews, Communists, liberals and foreigners helped drive home the desired message of party strength.

In 1933, Jews in Germany numbered around 525,000, or only 1 percent of the total German population. During the next six years, Nazis undertook an "Aryanization" of Germany, dismissing non-Aryans from civil service, liquidating Jewish-owned businesses and stripping Jewish lawyers and doctors of their clients. Under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a Jew, while those with two Jewish grandparents were designated Mischlinge (half-breeds).

Under the Nuremberg Laws, Jews became routine targets for stigmatization and persecution. This culminated in Kristallnacht, or the "night of broken glass" in November 1938, when German synagogues were burned and windows in Jewish shops were smashed; some 100 Jews were killed and thousands more arrested. From 1933 to 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany did, while those who remained lived in a constant state of uncertainty and fear.

Beginning of War, 1939-1940

In September 1939, the German army occupied the western half of Poland. German police soon forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews from their homes and into ghettoes, giving their confiscated properties to ethnic Germans (non-Jews outside Germany who identified as German), Germans from the Reich or Polish gentiles. Surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, the Jewish ghettoes in Poland functioned like captive city-states, governed by Jewish Councils. In addition to widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger, overpopulation made the ghettoes breeding grounds for disease such as typhus.

Meanwhile, beginning in the fall of 1939, Nazi officials selected around 70,000 Germans institutionalized for mental illness or disabilities to be gassed to death in the so-called Euthanasia Program. After prominent German religious leaders protested, Hitler put an end to the program in August 1941, though killings of the disabled continued in secrecy, and by 1945 some 275,000 people deemed handicapped from all over Europe had been killed. In hindsight, it seems clear that the Euthanasia Program functioned as a pilot for the Holocaust.

Towards the "Final Solution," 1940-1941

Throughout the spring and summer of 1940, the German army expanded Hitler's empire in Europe, conquering Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Beginning in 1941, Jews from all over the continent, as well as hundreds of thousands of European Romani people, were transported to the Polish ghettoes. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 marked a new level of brutality in warfare. Mobile killing units called Einsatzgruppenwould murder more than 500,000 Soviet Jews and others (usually by shooting) over the course of the German occupation.

A memorandum dated July 31, 1941, from Hitler's top commander Hermann Goering to Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (the security service of the SS), referred to the need for an Endlösung ( final solution) to "the Jewish question." Beginning in September 1941, every person designated as a Jew in German-held territory was marked with a yellow star, making them open targets. Tens of thousands were soon being deported to the Polish ghettoes and German-occupied cities in the USSR.

Since June 1941, experiments with mass killing methods had been ongoing at the concentration camp of Auschwitz, near Krakow. That August, 500 officials gassed 500 Soviet POWs to death with the pesticide Zyklon-B. The SS soon placed a huge order for the gas with a German pest-control firm, an ominous indicator of the coming Holocaust.
READ MORE: Horrors of Auschwitz: The Numbers Behind WWII's Deadliest Concentration Camp
Holocaust Death Camps, 1941-1945

Beginning in late 1941, the Germans began mass transports from the ghettoes in Poland to the concentration camps, starting with those people viewed as the least useful: the sick, old and weak and the very young. The first mass gassings began at the camp of Belzec, near Lublin, on March 17, 1942. Five more mass killing centers were built at camps in occupied Poland, including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the largest of all, Auschwitz-Birkenau. From 1942 to 1945, Jews were deported to the camps from all over Europe, including German-controlled territory as well as those countries allied with Germany. The heaviest deportations took place during the summer and fall of 1942, when more than 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto alone.

Fed up with the deportations, disease and constant hunger, the inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in armed revolt. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 19-May 16, 1943 ended in the death of 7,000 Jews, with 50,000 survivors sent to extermination camps. But the resistance fighters had held off the Nazis for almost a month, and their revolt inspired revolts at camps and ghettos across German-occupied Europe.

Though the Nazis tried to keep operation of camps secret, the scale of the killing made this virtually impossible. Eyewitnesses brought reports of Nazi atrocities in Poland to the Allied governments, who were harshly criticized after the war for their failure to respond, or to publicize news of the mass slaughter. This lack of action was likely mostly due to the Allied focus on winning the war at hand, but was also a result of the general incomprehension with which news of the Holocaust was met and the denial and disbelief that such atrocities could be occurring on such a scale.

At Auschwitz alone, more than 2 million people were murdered in a process resembling a large-scale industrial operation. A large population of Jewish and non-Jewish inmates worked in the labor camp there; though only Jews were gassed, thousands of others died of starvation or disease. And in 1943, eugenicist Josef Mengele arrived in Auschwitz to begin his infamous experiments on Jewish prisoners. His special area of focus was conducting medical experiments on twins, injecting them with everything from petrol to chloroform under the guise of giving them medical treatment. His actions earned him the nickname "the Angel of Death."

Nazi Rule Comes to an End, as Holocaust Continues to Claim Lives, 1945

By the spring of 1945, German leadership was dissolving amid internal dissent, with Goering and Himmler both seeking to distance themselves from Hitler and take power. In his last will and political testament, dictated in a German bunker that April 29, Hitler blamed the war on "International Jewry and its helpers" and urged the German leaders and people to follow "the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal poisoners of all peoples"-the Jews. The following day, Hitler committed suicide. Germany's formal surrender in World War II came barely a week later, on May 8, 1945.

German forces had begun evacuating many of the death camps in the fall of 1944, sending inmates under guard to march further from the advancing enemy's front line. These so-called "death marches" continued all the way up to the German surrender, resulting in the deaths of some 250,000 to 375,000 people. In his classic book "Survival in Auschwitz," the Italian Jewish author Primo Levi described his own state of mind, as well as that of his fellow inmates in Auschwitz on the day before Soviet troops arrived at the camp in January 1945: "We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside us. The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to conclusion by the Germans in defeat."
READ MORE: The Horrifying Discovery of Dachau Concentration Camp-And Its Liberation by US Troops
Aftermath & Lasting Impact of the Holocaust

The wounds of the Holocaust-known in Hebrew as Shoah, or catastrophe-were slow to heal. Survivors of the camps found it nearly impossible to return home, as in many cases they had lost their families and been denounced by their non-Jewish neighbors. As a result, the late 1940s saw an unprecedented number of refugees, POWs and other displaced populations moving across Europe.

In an effort to punish the villains of the Holocaust, the Allies held the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46, which brought Nazi atrocities to horrifying light. Increasing pressure on the Allied powers to create a homeland for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust would lead to a mandate for the creation of Israel in 1948.

Over the decades that followed, ordinary Germans struggled with the Holocaust's bitter legacy, as survivors and the families of victims sought restitution of wealth and property confiscated during the Nazi years. Beginning in 1953, the German government made payments to individual Jews and to the Jewish people as a way of acknowledging the German people's responsibility for the crimes committed in their name.

Photo Galleries

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Before the Holocaust: Historical Anti-Semitism & Hitler's Rise to Power Nazi Revolution in Germany, 1933-1939 Beginning of War, 1939-1940 Towards the "Final Solution," 1940-1941 Holocaust Death Camps, 1941-1945 Nazi Rule Comes to an End, as Holocaust Continues to Claim Lives, 1945 Aftermath & Lasting Impact of the Holocaust Photo Galleries The word "Holocaust," from the Greek words "holos" (whole) and "kaustos" (burned), was historically used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an altar.

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JAPAN INVADES MANCHURIA-SEPTEMBER 19, 193

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JAPAN INVADES MANCHURIA-SEPTEMBER 19, 193

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MANCHURIA, ON CHINA'S EASTERN SEABOARD WAS ATTACKED BY JAPANIN 1931.

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Citation: C N Trueman "Manchuria 1931"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 18 Apr 2015. 9 May 2018.

Manchuria, on China's eastern seaboard, was attacked by Japan in 1931. The League effectively did nothing.

What was the background behind this attack and the League's response ?

Just one week before Japan invaded Manchuria, Viscount Cecil, Britain's chief representative at the League of Nations, said in a speech to the League :
"I do not think there is the slightest prospect of any war."
Japan, the League's strongest member in the Far East, proved him wrong.

Why did Japan invade Manchuria ?

Japan was becoming increasingly crowded due to its limited size as a nation and its rapidly increasing population. Manchuria offered nearly 200,000 square kilometres which, as part of a Japanese empire, would easily accommodate any over-spilling population. The Japanese people had a very low opinion of the Chinese - a Japanese form of "untermenschen" - and, therefore, would have given no thought to the Manchurian people whatsoever. It was also believed in Japan that Manchuria was rich in minerals, forestry and rich agricultural land. With the problems that Japan was experiencing at home, Manchuria seemed an obvious solution to these problems.

By 1931, Japan had invested vast sums of money into the economy of Manchuria effectively controlled by the South Manchuria Railway Company. To guard all of its investments, Japan kept a large army in southern Manchuria.

The 1929 Depression hit Japan hard. The civilian government found that it had no solutions to the problems presented by the world-wide depression and to the army the civilian government looked weak. Many people admired the more robust response of the army. The unemployed of Japan looked to the strength of the army to assist their plight rather than to what weak politicians were doing. The voices of senior army generals were heard and they argued for a campaign to win new colonies abroad so that the industries there could be exploited for Japan. The most obvious target was a full-scale invasion of Manchuria.

An explosion on a section of the South Manchuria Railway, gave the army the excuse it needed to blame the local population of sabotage and to occupy the nearest Manchurian town of Shenyang. The League at China's request immediately ordered the Japanese army to withdraw. Japan's delegates at the League's headquarters in Geneva, agreed to this demand and blamed the event on army "hot-heads".

The Japanese government in Tokyo also agreed to this demand. However, the army did not listen and it launched a full-scale invasion of Manchuria and by the end of 1931, it had occupied the whole of the province. The civilian government had clearly lost control of the army, and the League's position was that it would deal with the government of the aggressor nation. But how could this succeed when the government had no control over the army which was the cause of the problem ?

The League could introduce three sanctions. Verbal warnings clearly did not work. However, the impact of the Depression meant that those nations that traded with Japan did not want to risk losing this trade. If a nation did give up trading with Japan, as Britain pointed out, their place would quickly be taken by another country willing to get trade started with the Far East's most powerful nation.

Britain was also concerned about her colonies in the Far East, particularly Hong Kong and Singapore. Would Japan attack them if Britain sided with those who wanted to carry out economic sanctions on Japan ?

How did the League deal with this problem of aggression ?

It established a Commission of Enquiry lead by Lord Lytton of Great Britain. This Commission, after a lengthy visit to the Far East including Manchuria, reported in October 1932. Lytton concluded that Japan should leave Manchuria but that Manchuria itself should be run as a semi-independent country instead of returning to Chinese rule. The report was accepted and approved by the League in 1933. In response to the report and the League accepting it, Japan resigned from the League and occupied a region around Manchuria called Jehol, which it claimed gave the Japanese army the ability to defend Manchuria.

What did this affair prove ?

The The League could not enforce its authority. A major power could get away with using force An issue so far from Europe was not likely to attract the whole-hearted support of the major European powers in the League - Britain and France. The affair had indicated that Britain was more concerned with her territories in the Far East than in the maintenance of law and order. Other powers would almost certainly see this episode as a sign that they too could get away with the use of force League also lost its most powerful member in the Far East and ultimately Japan was to unite with the two other nations that broke League rules - Germany and Italy.

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Manchuria, on China's eastern seaboard, was attacked by Japan in 1931. The League effectively did nothing. What was the background behind this attack and the League's response ? Just one week before Japan invaded Manchuria, Viscount Cecil, Britain's chief representative at the League of Nations, said in a speech to the League : "I do ...