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1. On September 1, 1939

2. Poland was invaded by Germany.

3. Over 5.6 million people died

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-poland-fall-1939#:~:text=In%20October%201939%2C%20Germany%20directly,Nazi%20Party%20lawyer%20Hans%20Frank.

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Hitler's Non-Aggression Pact with Poland

One of Adolf Hitler's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power in 1933 was to sign a non-aggression pact with Poland in January 1934. This move was unpopular with many Germans who supported Hitler but resented the fact that Poland had received the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan (Poznań), and Upper Silesia after World War I under the Treaty of Versailles. However, Hitler sought the non-aggression pact in order to neutralize the possibility of a French-Polish military alliance against Germany before Germany had a chance to rearm in the aftermath of the Great War.

Appeasement in Europe

In the mid- and late-1930s, France and especially Great Britain followed a foreign policy of appeasement. In fact, the policy of appeasement was closely associated with British prime minister Neville Chamberlain. The objective of this policy was to maintain peace in Europe by making limited concessions to German demands. In Britain, public opinion tended to favor some revision of the territorial and military provisions of the Versailles treaty. Moreover, neither Britain nor France felt militarily prepared to fight a war against Nazi Germany.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Britain and France essentially acquiesced as Nazi Germany

revoked the Versailles treaty's limitations on its military (1935);

remilitarized the Rhineland (1936);

and annexed Austria (March 1938).

In response to Hitler's threat to wage war against Czechoslovakia, British and French leaders signed the Munich Agreement in September 1938. This agreement ceded to Germany the Czech border region known as the Sudetenland in return for Hitler's promise to resolve all future conflicts peacefully.

Despite Hitler's promise at Munich and Anglo-French guarantees to defend Czechoslovakia, the Germans dismantled the Czechoslovak state in March 1939. Britain and France responded by guaranteeing the integrity of the Polish state. This did not deter Hitler, who was determined not to be dissuaded from war by either threats or concessions. On April 28, 1939, he announced Germany's withdrawal from the non-aggression pact signed with Poland just over five years earlier. Hitler went on to negotiate a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in August 1939. The German-Soviet Pact, which secretly provided for Poland to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention.

Invasion and Partition of Poland

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. To justify the action, Nazi propagandists accused Poland of persecuting ethnic Germans living in Poland. They also falsely claimed that Poland was planning, with its allies Great Britain and France, to encircle and dismember Germany. The SS, in collusion with the German military, staged a phony attack on a German radio station. The Germans falsely accused the Poles of this attack. Hitler then used the action to launch a "retaliatory" campaign against Poland.

Germany launched the unprovoked attack at dawn on September 1, 1939, with an advance force consisting of more than 2,000 tanks supported by nearly 900 bombers and over 400 fighter planes. In all, Germany deployed 60 divisions and nearly 1.5 million men in the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north, and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units quickly broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack.

Poland mobilized late, and political considerations forced its army into a disadvantageous deployment. The Polish army also lacked modern arms and equipment, had few armored and motorized units, and could deploy little more than 300 planes, most of which the Luftwaffe destroyed in the first few days of the invasion. Despite fighting tenaciously and inflicting serious casualties on the Germans, the Polish army was defeated within weeks. The world adopted a new term to describe Germany's successful war tactic: Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war." The tactic consisted of staging a surprise attack with massive, concentrated forces of fast-moving armored units supported by overwhelming air power.

Britain and France stood by their guarantee of Poland's border and declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. However, Poland found itself fighting a two front war when the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17. The Polish government fled the country that same day.

After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw officially surrendered to the Germans on September 28, 1939.

In accordance with the secret protocol to their non-aggression pact, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned Poland on September 29, 1939. The demarcation line was along the Bug River.

The last resistance of Polish units ended on October 6.

The German Occupation of Poland

In October 1939, Germany directly annexed former Polish territories along Germany's eastern border: West Prussia, Poznan (Poznań), Upper Silesia, and the former Free City of Danzig. The remainder of German-occupied Poland-including the cities of Warsaw, Krakow (Kraków), Radom, and Lublin-was organized as the so-called Generalgouvernement (General Government)-under a civilian governor general, the Nazi Party lawyer Hans Frank.

In June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded Soviet-occupied eastern Poland as part of its attack on the Soviet Union. Eventually, Nazi Germany occupied all of prewar Poland. The German occupation of Poland came to an end as the Soviet Red Army forced the German military to retreat through the country towards Berlin in 1944 and early 1945.

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The German invasion of Poland in the fall of 1939 triggered WWII. Learn more about key dates and events, causes, and related Holocaust history.

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1. On April 9th, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark.

2. There was sporadic fighting between the Danish and German armies.

3. Only 26 were killed and 23 wounded

4. https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/german-occupation-1940-1945/

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Armoured car at Nørrebrogade

Here is a short summary of the German occupation of Denmark:

DENMARK IS OCCUPIED
On the morning of 9 April 1940 Denmark was attacked by Germany. There was sporadic fighting between the Danish and German armies. However, the government in Copenhagen decided that the German military superiority was too great to justify further resistance. At the same time heavy bombardment of the Danish cities and towns was feared. Therefore after only a few hours it was decided to surrender. Denmark thus became an occupied country controlled by Nazi Germany.

COOPERATION WITH GERMANY
The Danish government then began to cooperate with the German occupiers. The political leaders' strategy was to preserve as much self-determination as possible for Denmark whilst still accommodating the wishes of the Germans. In pursuing this course the large Danish political parties also sought to protect Danish society from harsh measures which might be introduced by the occupiers and from the Danish Nazis (the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark).

DAILY LIFE CONTINUES
One consequence of the policy of cooperation was that most Danes could continue their daily lives much as before the German occupation. Eventually, however, the war meant shortages of goods, rationing, air-raid warnings, blackouts and closed national borders. However, although there were shortages of certain goods in Denmark, the Danes had one of the highest standards of living in Europe during the war years.

RESISTANCE
Even if most Danes supported the strategy of their political leaders, active resistance against the Germans and the policy of collaboration emerged, and became increasingly popular. The resistance movement was involved in an illegal press and carrying out sabotage operations. Such operations involved the destruction of German property, railways and companies that cooperated with the Germans.

THE MOOD CHANGES
During the course of 1943, however, the mood began to change amongst Danish population. Over the summer, as people heard about various German military defeats, numerous fights erupted between young Danes and German soldiers. Meanwhile, the resistance movement added to the turbulence with sabotage activities. In August the situation exploded with strikes taking place in Odense and Esbjerg, which then spread to many other towns. The workers at large workplaces lead the way, and soon there was large-scale unrest involving demonstrations and street battles with the Germans and Danish authorities.

THE END OF THE DANISH GOVERNMENT
To stop the August unrest the Germans demanded that the Danish government should impose the death penalty for sabotage. The government refused to agree to this. Therefore, the German occupiers imposed a state of emergency and on 29 August 1943 the government ceased to function. Meanwhile the Germans disarmed the Danish army and also tried to take over the navy. This led to fighting between Danish and German soldiers and the Danish navy sinking several vessels to prevent them falling into German hands.

INCREASED RESISTANCE AND GERMAN REPRESSION
After the August unrest the situation in Denmark was characterised by increased German repression. Arrests and executions became more common. The German occupiers used such repression in order to maintain control in Denmark and to respond to the sabotage activities of the resistance movement. Another consequence of the increase in German repression was the persecution of the Danish Jews. In October 1943 the German police were deployed to arrest the Jews, so that they could be sent to concentration camps. However, in a unique rescue operation more than 7000 Danish Jews were helped to neutral Sweden, where they could live in safety for the rest of the war. 485 Danish Jews were arrested though, and then sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia.

THE FINAL PHASE OF GERMAN OCCUPATION
In the summer of 1944 sabotage operations were carried out in the Copenhagen area, and strikes and civil unrest broke out in Denmark. On 19 September 1944 the Germans dissolved the Danish police, which was seen as a potential military threat. By 1945 Denmark was a run-down country characterised by shortages of goods, fear and conflict.

LIBERATION
On 4 May 1945 at 20.35 it was announced on British radio that the German troops in Holland, North-West Germany and Denmark had surrendered. This was without a single English, American or Russian soldier setting foot on Danish soil. The period of occupation thus ended reasonably peacefully, and in most places people could take to the streets and celebrate the new freedom. An exception to this, however, was the island of Bornholm, which was subjected to heavy Soviet bombardment at the time of Denmark's liberation.

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Denmark was subject to German occupation during World War Two (1940-45). The Danish government cooperated with the occupiers to start with, but a resistance movement grew and civil unrest occurred. On 4 May 1945 it was announced on British radio that the German troops in Denmark had surrendered.

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December 13 1937

The violence ended in February 1938

A new chinese government, influenced by Japan, was established.

over 300,000 people died

https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/nanjing-massacre

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1. April 1944

2. It was the largest Japanese campaign on land during the war comprising 500,000 troops.

3. 2.6 to 3.1 million people people died

4. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-proposed-invasion-of-japan

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April 1, 1945

In the following weeks more than 1,600 ships and 350,000 naval personnel would assemble to form the largest amphibious assault force of ww2

More than 240,000 people had died/lost their lives due to the war

Okinawa: The Costs of Victory in the Last Battle | New Orleans

The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org › war › articles

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1. 1939-1945

2. Hitler invaded Poland in the west then two days later France and Britain declared war on Germany beginning World War 2

3. 5.3 million German military soldiers died or went missing, and an additional 350,000 to 500,000 German civilians were killed.

4. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war

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September 10, 1939

Canada declares war on Germany, the first and only time Canada has declared war on another country on its own

The prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, declares that Canada should be the arsenal of the Allies and pledges not to institute conscription

More than 45,000 Canadians lost their lives and over 55,000 were wounded

Second World War - Veterans Affairs Canada

Veterans Affairs Canada

https://www.veterans.gc.ca › wars-and-conflicts › secon...

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1. 1941

2. 16,112,566 Americans served in the United States Armed Forces, 407,316 killed and 671,278 wounded

3. The Unites States entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , fighting on both the European and Pacific fronts against the Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan.

4. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/america-goes-war-take-closer-look

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December 7, 1941: A Day That Will Live in Infamy
America's isolation from war ended on December 7, 1941, when Japan staged a surprise attack on American military installations in the Pacific. The most devastating strike came at Pearl Harbor, the Hawaiian naval base where much of the US Pacific Fleet was moored. In a two-hour attack, Japanese warplanes sank or damaged 18 warships and destroyed 164 aircraft. Over 2,400 servicemen and civilians lost their lives.
America's Reaction
"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."
-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941

Though stunned by the events of December 7, Americans were also resolute. On December 8, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war against Japan. The declaration passed with just one dissenting vote. Three days later, Germany and Italy, allied with Japan, declared war on the United States. America was now drawn into a global war. It had allies in this fight--most importantly Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But the job the nation faced in December 1941 was formidable.

Joining the Military

The United States faced a mammoth job in December 1941. Ill-equipped and wounded, the nation was at war with three formidable adversaries. It had to prepare to fight on two distant and very different fronts, Europe and the Pacific.

America needed to quickly raise, train, and outfit a vast military force. At the same time, it had to find a way to provide material aid to its hard-pressed allies in Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

Meeting these challenges would require massive government spending, conversion of existing industries to wartime production, construction of huge new factories, changes in consumption, and restrictions on many aspects of American life. Government, industry, and labor would need to cooperate. Contributions from all Americans, young and old, men and women, would be necessary to build up what President Roosevelt called the "Arsenal of Democracy."

In the months after Pearl Harbor, the nation swiftly mobilized its human and material resources for war. The opportunities and sacrifices of wartime would change America in profound, and sometimes unexpected, ways.
Recruitment
The primary task facing America in 1941 was raising and training a credible military force. Concern over the threat of war had spurred President Roosevelt and Congress to approve the nation's first peacetime military draft in September 1940. By December 1941 America's military had grown to nearly 2.2 million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

America's armed forces consisted largely of "citizen soldiers",men and women drawn from civilian life. They came from every state in the nation and all economic and social strata. Many were volunteers, but the majority,roughly 10 million,entered the military through the draft. Most draftees were assigned to the army. The other services attracted enough volunteers at first, but eventually their ranks also included draftees.
Barracks Life
Upon their arrival at the training camps, inductees were stripped of the freedom and individuality they had enjoyed as civilians. They had to adapt to an entirely new way of living, one that involved routine inspections and strict military conduct, as well as rigorous physical and combat training. They were given identical haircuts, uniforms, and equipment, and were assigned to spartan barracks that afforded no privacy and little room for personal possessions.
The Draft
By late 1942 all men aged 18 to 64 were required to register for the draft, though in practice the system concentrated on men under 38. Eventually 36 million men registered. Individuals were selected from this manpower pool for examination by one of over 6,000 local draft boards. These boards, comprised of citizens from individual communities, determined if a man was fit to enter the military. They considered factors like the importance of a man's occupation to the war effort, his health, and his family situation. Many men volunteered rather than wait to be drafted. That way, they could choose their branch of service.

Potential servicemen reported to military induction centers to undergo physical and psychiatric examinations. If a man passed these exams, he was fingerprinted and asked which type of service he preferred, though his assignment would be based on the military's needs. After signing his induction papers, he was issued a serial number. The final step was the administration of the oath. He was now in the military. After a short furlough, he reported to a reception center before being shipped to a training camp. New recruits faced more medical examinations, inoculations, and aptitude tests.
Training
The training camp was the forge in which civilians began to become military men and women. In the training camps new servicemen and women underwent rigorous physical conditioning. They were drilled in the basic elements of military life and trained to work as part of a team. They learned to operate and maintain weapons. They took tests to determine their talents and were taught more specialized skills. Paratroopers, antiaircraft teams, desert troops, and other unique units received additional instruction at special training centers.

The Home Front

"I need not repeat the figures. The facts speak for themselves.... These men could not have been armed and equipped as they are had it not been for the miracle of production here at home. The production which has flowed from the country to all the battlefronts of the world has been due to the efforts of American business, American labor, and American farmers, working together as a patriotic team."
--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Navy Day speech, October 27, 1944

Raising an armed force was just part of America's war effort. That force had to be supplied with the uniforms, guns, tanks, ships, warplanes, and other weapons and equipment needed to fight. With its vast human and material resources, the United States had the potential to supply both itself and its allies. But first the American economy had to be converted to war production.

The war production effort brought immense changes to American life. As millions of men and women entered the service and production boomed, unemployment virtually disappeared. The need for labor opened up new opportunities for women and African Americans and other minorities. Millions of Americans left home to take jobs in war plants that sprang up around the nation. Economic output skyrocketed.

The war effort on the "Home Front" required sacrifices and cooperation. "Don't you know there's a war on?" was a common expression. Rationing became part of everyday life. Americans learned to conserve vital resources. They lived with price controls, dealt with shortages of everything from nylons to housing, and volunteered for jobs ranging from air raid warden to Red Cross worker.

Rationing and Recycling

"Food for Victory"
To conserve and produce more food, a "Food for Victory" campaign was launched. Eating leftovers became a patriotic duty and civilians were urged to grow their own vegetables and fruits. Millions of "Victory gardens," planted and maintained by ordinary citizens, appeared in backyards, vacant lots, and public parks. They produced over 1 billion tons of food. Americans canned food at home and consulted "Victory cookbooks" for recipes and tips to make the most of rationed goods.

"Make It Do or Do Without"
War production created shortages of critical supplies. To overcome these shortages, war planners searched for substitutes. One key metal in limited supply was copper. It was used in many war-related products, including assault wire. The military needed millions of miles of this wire to communicate on battlefields.

To satisfy the military's demands, copper substitutes had to be found to use in products less important to the nation's defense. The US Mint helped solve the copper shortage. During 1943 it made pennies out of steel. The Mint also conserved nickel, another important metal, by removing it from 5-cent coins. Substitutions like these helped win the production battle.

"Do With Less, So They'll Have More"
The military needed more than guns and ammunition to do its job. It had to be fed. The Army's standard K ration included chocolate bars, which were produced in huge numbers. Cocoa production was increased to make this possible.

Sugar was another ingredient in chocolate. It was also used in chewing gum, another part of the K ration. Sugar cane was needed to produce gunpowder, dynamite, and other chemical products.

To satisfy the military's needs, sugar was rationed to civilians. The government also rationed other foods, including meat and coffee. Local rationing boards issued coupons to consumers that entitled them to a limited supply of rationed items.

"Save Waste Fat for Explosives"
Ammunition for rifles, artillery, mortars, and other weapons was one of the most important manufacturing priorities of World War II. A key ingredient needed to make the explosives in much ammunition was glycerine.

To help produce more ammunition, Americans were encouraged to save household waste fat, which was used to make glycerine. Other household goods,including rags, paper, silk, and string,were also recycled. This was a home front project that all Americans could join.

Salvage for Victory

Canteens are a standard part of military equipment. Millions were produced during the war. Most were made of steel or aluminum, metals which were also used to make everything from ammunition to ships. At times, both metals were in short supply.

To meet America's metal needs, scrap was salvaged from basements, backyards, and attics. Old cars, bed frames, radiators, pots, and pipes were just some of the items gathered at metal "scrap drives" around the nation. Americans also collected rubber, tin, nylon, and paper at salvage drives.

"Share Your Cars and Spare Your Tires"
America's military needed millions of tires for jeeps, trucks, and other vehicles. Tires required rubber. Rubber was also used to produce tanks and planes. But when Japan invaded Southeast Asia, the United States was cut off from one of its chief sources of this critical raw product.

America overcame its rubber shortage in several ways. Speed limits and gas rationing forced people to limit their driving. This reduced wear and tear on tires. A synthetic rubber industry was created. The public also carpooled and contributed rubber scrap for recycling.

Dollars for Defense
To help pay for the war, the government increased corporate and personal income taxes. The federal income tax entered the lives of many Americans. In 1939 fewer than 8 million people filed individual income tax returns. In 1945 nearly 50 million filed. The withholding system of payroll deductions was another wartime development. The government also borrowed money by selling "war bonds" to the public. With consumer goods in short supply, Americans put much of their money into bonds and savings accounts.

Mobilizing the Economy

America's economy performed astonishing feats during World War II. Manufacturers retooled their plants to produce war goods. But this alone was not enough. Soon huge new factories, built with government and private funds, appeared around the nation. Millions of new jobs were created and millions of Americans moved to new communities to fill them. Annual economic production, as measured by the Gross National Product (GNP), more than doubled, rising from $99.7 billion in 1940 to nearly $212 billion in 1945.

Production Miracles In industry after industry Americans performed production miracles. One story helps capture the scale of the defense effort. In 1940 President Roosevelt shocked Congress when he proposed building 50,000 aircraft a year. In 1944 the nation made almost double that number. Ford's massive Willow Run bomber factory alone produced nearly one plane an hour by March 1944.

To achieve increases like this, defense spending jumped from $1.5 billion in 1940 to $81.5 billion in 1945. By 1944 America led the world in arms production, making more than enough to fill its military needs. At the same time, the United States was providing its allies in Great Britain and the Soviet Union with critically needed supplies.

Civilian Defense
Many Americans volunteered to defend the nation from enemy bombing or invasion. They trained in first aid, aircraft spotting, bomb removal, and fire fighting. Air raid wardens led practice drills, including blackouts. By mid-1942 over 10 million Americans were civil defense volunteers.

Though America's mainland was never invaded, there were dangers offshore. Several Japanese submarines were spotted near the Pacific coast, and German U-boats patrolled the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. At least 10 US naval vessels were sunk or damaged by U-boats operating in American waters.

A Workforce Changed by War: Unemployment Disappears
The war virtually ended unemployment in America. The need for workers led manufacturers to hire women, teenagers, the aged, and minorities previously excluded by discrimination from sectors of the economy. Plentiful overtime work contributed to rising wages and increased savings.

Military and economic expansion created labor shortages. To fill the gap, government and industry encouraged women to enter the workforce. Though most working women continued to labor in more traditional employment like waitressing and teaching, millions took better-paid jobs in defense factories.

African Americans and other minorities also took high-paying industrial jobs previously reserved for whites. In 1941, black labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened to organize a protest march on Washington, D.C. if the government didn't bar racial discrimination in defense plants with government contracts. Faced with this threat, President Roosevelt banned such discrimination and created the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to investigate bias charges.

Millions of women, including many mothers, entered the industrial workforce during the war. They found jobs in especially large numbers in the shipbuilding and aircraft industries. "Rosie the Riveter" became a popular symbol of patriotic womanhood. Though defense jobs paid far more than traditional "female" occupations, women were still often paid less than men performing comparable work. Moreover, at war's end, women were expected to leave the factories to make way for returning male veterans.

Higgins Boats

Higgins Industries designed and built two basic classes of military craft.

The first was landing craft, constructed of wood and steel and used to transport fully armed troops, light tanks, field artillery, and other mechanized equipment and supplies to shore. These boats helped make the amphibious landings of World War II possible.

Higgins also designed and manufactured supply vessels and specialized patrol craft, including high-speed PT boats, antisubmarine boats, and dispatch boats.

LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel)
The LCVP was the most famous landing craft designed and produced by Higgins Industries. It could land soldiers, and even jeeps, on a beach. LCVPs were used in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific during the war.

From the Eureka...
The LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel), the best-known landing craft designed by Andrew Higgins, evolved from a boat he created before the war for use in the swamps and marshes of Louisiana. Trappers and oil companies needed a rugged, shallow-bottomed craft that could navigate these waters, run aground, and retract itself without damaging its hull. Higgins developed a boat that could perform all these tasks: a spoonbill-bowed craft he called the Eureka. Over time he modified and improved his craft and found markets for it in the United States and abroad.

...to the LCP(L)
During the 1930s Higgins tried to interest the U.S. Navy in adapting his shallow-draft Eureka for use as an amphibious landing craft. The navy showed little interest, but Higgins persisted. After a long struggle, he finally secured a government contract to build modified Eurekas for military use. The new boat was called the LCP (Landing Craft, Personnel) and, later, the LCP(L) (Landing Craft, Personnel, Large). In its most advanced form the LCP(L) measured 36 feet in length. It could transport men from ships offshore directly onto a beach, then retract itself, turn, and head back to sea.

The LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) was developed because the U.S. Marines needed a boat capable of transporting vehicles to shore. Higgins adapted the LCP(L) to meet this requirement. He replaced the LCP(L)'s rounded bow with a retractable ramp. The new craft was tested for the first time on May 26, 1941, on Lake Pontchartrain. It carried a truck and 36 Higgins employees safely to shore. The LCVP became the military's standard vehicle and personnel landing craft. Thousands were in service during the war.

New Orleans" Home of the Higgins Boats
"If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different."
--General Dwight D. Eisenhower

The city of New Orleans made a unique and crucial contribution to America's war effort. This was the home of Higgins Industries, a small boat company owned by a flamboyant entrepreneur named Andrew Jackson Higgins. The story of Higgins' role in the war is little known today, but his contribution to the Allied victory was immeasurable.

World War II presented Allied war planners with a tactical dilemma--how to make large amphibious landings of armies against defended coasts. For America this was a particularly thorny problem, since its armed forces had to mount amphibious invasions at sites ranging from Pacific atolls to North Africa to the coast of France.

Higgins' contribution was to design and mass-produce boats that could ferry soldiers, jeeps, and even tanks from a ship at sea directly onto beaches. Such craft gave Allied planners greater flexibility. They no longer needed to attack heavily defended ports before landing an assault force. Higgins' boats were used in every major American amphibious operation of World War II. His achievements earned him many accolades. The greatest came from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who called Higgins "the man who won the war for us."

From the Bayou to the Battlefront
Before World War II Andrew Higgins operated a small boatyard, building workboats designed to operate in the shallow waters of Louisiana's bayous. During the 1920s and 1930s America's military began exploring ways to make amphibious landings. Higgins became involved in this effort, adapting designs for shallow-draft boats he had developed for peacetime uses. His company created amphibious assault craft capable of shuttling men and equipment quickly and safely from ship to shore. When the war came, business boomed. Higgins built new factories with mass production lines and employed thousands of workers. He even opened a training school for boat operators.

New Orleans Naval Giant During World War II Higgins Industries grew from a small business operating a single boatyard into the largest private employer in Louisiana. The company turned out astounding numbers of boats and ships. In September 1943 the US Navy had 14,072 vessels. Of these, 8,865 had been designed and built by Higgins Industries.

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Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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America's isolation from war ended on December 7, 1941, when Japan staged a surprise attack on American military installations in the Pacific.

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September 1939

Britain and France declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland

They had 217,600 military deaths but 567,600 deaths in total

Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II

The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org › student-resources

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June 10 1940

when France was about to fall and World War II seemed virtually over, did Italy join the war on Germany's side, still hoping for territorial spoils. Mussolini announced his decision—one bitterly opposed by his foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano—to huge crowds across Italy on June 10.

457,000 people died

https://www.britannica.com

Italy - WWII, Axis, Allies | Britannica

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Early March 1941

Bulgaria joined the Axis alliance and in April 1941, participated in the German-led attack on Yugoslavia and Greece in return German gave Bulgaria permission to occupy most of Greek Thrace, Yugoslav Macedonia, and Pirot country in eastern Serbia

Military deaths 22,000 and total deaths 25,000

Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II

The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org › student-resources

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1. 1941

2. Before officially joining the war, Hungary took advantage of Axis support to regain lost territories then Hungary gained Hungary gained parts of Czechoslovakia with German and Italian backing. The war caused massive destruction, economic collapse, and heavy civilian casualties, including the total extermination of Hungarian Jews.

3. Hungary lost around 900,000 to 1.2 million people

4. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-holocaust-in-hungary#:~:text=The%20First%20Jewish%20Law%20(May,between%20Jews%20and%20non%2DJews.

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In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Hungary's Jewish population experienced persecution and violence at the hands of the Hungarian government. But it was not until spring 1944-more than four years into World War II-that they faced the full force of the Nazi killing machine. By this time, the Nazis had honed the violent processes of discrimination, dehumanization, and deportation now known as the Holocaust (1933-1945). They had already murdered millions of European Jews.

The timing of the Holocaust in Hungary set the stage for a devastating increase in mass murder. The Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators murdered approximately 550,000 Jews living in Hungary during the Holocaust. The vast majority of these victims-about 500,000-were killed in the last year of the war. Many were murdered in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Photographs of the arrival of Jews from Hungary at Auschwitz have become iconic images of the Holocaust.

The timing of the Holocaust in Hungary also set the stage for extraordinary rescue efforts. The most famous is the international rescue operation led by Raoul Wallenberg. Approximately 250,000 Jews from Hungarian-controlled territories survived the Holocaust. Among these survivors were Livia Bitton-Jackson, the author of I Have Lived a Thousand Years , and Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel . Numerous survivors from Hungary also became United States Holocaust Memorial Museum survivor volunteers .

The First Stage of the Holocaust in Hungary, 1938-March 1944

The first stage of the Holocaust in Hungary began around 1938 and ended in March 1944. During this time, the Hungarian government persecuted Jews on its own initiative. Its anti-Jewish policies built on a longer history of antisemitism in Hungary.

Beginning in 1920, the Hungarian government was a right-wing and authoritarian regime. It was led by Miklós Horthy. Horthy and other Hungarian leaders were nationalist, antisemitic, and anticommunist.

Until March 1944, Hungary was a sovereign state that had friendly diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany. The two governments shared a similar worldview. In November 1940, Hungary joined the Axis alliance , becoming a formal ally of Nazi Germany.

Hungarian Antisemitic Legislation

During the Horthy regime (1920-1944), the Hungarian government passed anti-Jewish laws. The goal was to exclude Jews from the country's social, economic, political, and cultural life. According to the 1920 census, there were about 470,000 Jews living in Hungary at the time. The Jewish population made up almost 6 percent of Hungary's total population of nearly 8 million.

The earliest of Hungary's anti-Jewish laws was enacted in 1920, before the Holocaust began. That year, the Hungarian parliament passed the law. This law limited university enrollment for Jewish students. It was the first anti-Jewish law enacted in Europe after numerus clausus World War I (1914-1918).

Hungary's anti-Jewish persecution and legal discrimination began to escalate in 1938. Between 1938 and 1941, the Hungarian government enacted three main anti-Jewish laws:

The First Jewish Law (May 1938) established quotas restricting the number of Jews in certain sectors of the country's economy to 20 percent. These sectors included white-collar professions and business/industry.

The Second Jewish Law (May 1939) defined Jews in racial terms and restricted voting rights for certain Jews. It also tightened the quotas set in the previous year.

The Third Jewish Law (August 1941) banned marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Hungarian government passed numerous other anti-Jewish laws. Most of them excluded Jewish people from various aspects of economic and social life. As a result, tens of thousands of Jews lost their jobs, businesses, or livelihoods.

Hungarian Territorial Expansion, 1938-1941

In 1938, Hungary began to expand its territory beyond the . This effort helped Hungary's leaders achieve their geopolitical goal to reclaim territories the country had lost in the post-World War I peace treaties.1 borders agreed upon after World War I . It did so with German support and in conjunction with Nazi Germany's territorial expansion 1

Between 1938 and 1941, Hungary acquired territories (listed in Table 1) from the neighboring countries of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. These territories were home to multiethnic, multi-religious populations. Ethnic Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Serbs, Jews, and many others lived in these areas. In all of the annexed territories, the Hungarian government carried out persecutions, expulsions, and violence against non-Hungarian populations.

Jews living in the annexed territories faced Hungary's anti-Jewish laws and policies. The Hungarian census of 1941 counted 725,007 people who identified themselves as Jews. About 325,000 of them lived in Hungary's annexed territories. In 1941, the Jewish population made up about 5 percent of the total population of Greater Hungary (14,683,323). In addition, about 100,000 more people were considered racially Jewish under the Second Jewish Law (1939). This was the case even though they did not identify themselves as Jewish.
Table 1. Hungarian Territorial Expansion and Jewish Population Numbers, 1938-1941
Territory Annexed from Date Total Population of Annexed Territory (1941)Jewish Population (1941)

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Exploitation of Jewish Men in the Hungarian Forced-Labor Service System, 1939-1945

From 1939 to 1945, the Hungarian government exploited Jewish men of military age in the labor service system ( munkaszolgálat ).

The Hungarian government created the labor service system as a substitute for regular military service. It was intended for those men deemed unreliable by the government. Political opponents, members of certain Christian sects, Romanians, Serbs, and especially Jews were among those forced into the labor service system. At first, labor service was performed within Hungary and its annexed territories. Conditions were relatively good.

After Hungary entered World War II in spring 1941, the Hungarian Defense Ministry transformed the labor service system into a more repressive and overtly antisemitic institution. Jewish labor servicemen were separated from their non-Jewish counterparts. They were no longer given uniforms. Further, they were required to wear discriminatory armbands marking them as Jews.

Beginning in summer 1941, tens of thousands of Jewish labor servicemen were deployed near the front lines in Axis-occupied eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine. The Hungarian officers often treated these men poorly and subjected them to murderous violence. The Jewish men did not have adequate shelter, food, clothing, or medical care. A significant number of them ended up in Soviet captivity as prisoners of war.

Scholars estimate that approximately 100,000 Jewish men were forced to participate in the labor service. Between 25,000 and 42,000 of them died before Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944.

Deportation of Jews from Hungary and the Massacre at Kamenets-Podolsk, 1941

One of the most notorious acts of antisemitic violence in the first stage of the Holocaust in Hungary took place in the summer of 1941. It occurred in the wake of the Axis attack on the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). In July-August 1941, Hungarian officials rounded up and deported Jewish people whom they deemed "unsuitable aliens and foreign citizens." The Hungarian government deported more than 20,000 Jews across the border into Axis-occupied Galicia (then Poland, today Ukraine). The deportations were speedy, haphazard, chaotic, and inhumane.

Eventually, most of the Jews deported from Hungary (about 14,000-16,000) were taken to the town of . There, they were imprisoned in a Kamenets-Podolsk ghetto. On August 26-28, Nazi German SS and police units and their local Ukrainian collaborators carried out a mass shooting operation at Kamenets-Podolsk. They murdered 23,600 Jews. It is likely that some Hungarian military officials saw, and perhaps took part in, the roundup and mass shooting operation.

Many of those Jews deported from Hungary who were not killed at Kamenets-Podolsk were shot in subsequent massacres, died in ghettos, or were murdered in the Belzec killing center. Perhaps as many as 2,000 Jewish refugees managed to return to Hungary. Their reports of what had happened in Galicia were often met with disbelief.

The Bačka Raids in Hungarian-Occupied Yugoslavia

In January 1942, Hungarian military units carried out raids in the Hungarian-annexed Bačka region of Yugoslavia. These raids were supposedly in response to partisan activity. Violence took place in the city of Novi Sad (Újvidék in Hungarian) and other cities in the region. Hungarian authorities targeted Serbs, Jews, and others. About 1,000 Jews and 2,500 Serbs were killed. The perpetrators of the massacres were tried by Hungarian courts in 1943-1944.

Hungarian Refusals to Comply with German Deportation Requests, 1942-1944

In the first stage of the Holocaust in Hungary, the Hungarian government did not fully participate in the Nazi-led mass murder of Jews.

Nazi Germany's deadly treatment of Jews had escalated quickly after its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. German units began to murder entire Jewish communities in mass shooting operations. Then, in late 1941 and 1942, the Nazi German regime built killing centers designed to murder Jews using poison gas. Nazi German authorities deported Jews from all over Europe to these killing centers. They relied upon their allies and collaborators to assist them.

In 1942, the Nazi German government began to pressure the Hungarian government to deport all Jews from Hungary to German-controlled territory. However, Horthy and Prime Minister Miklós Kállay (in office March 1942-March 1944) refused. Horthy and Kállay responded that the fate of Hungary's Jewish population was a domestic issue. They argued that deporting Jews could have potentially devastating consequences for Hungary's economy.

This refusal to cooperate meant that hundreds of thousands of Jews remained alive in Hungary during the peak years of mass killing. Still, in this period, Jews in Hungary faced significant hardships because of the country's antisemitic laws and the forced labor service system. But, unlike Jews under direct Nazi occupation elsewhere, most Jews in Hungary remained in their own homes with access to enough food and other resources. Hungary even attracted thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi mass murder in neighboring countries.

Hungary's time as a relative safe-haven from Nazi mass murder came to an abrupt end in March 1944, when Nazi Germany occupied the country.

The Second Stage of the Holocaust in Hungary, March 1944-1945

In March 1944, Nazi Germany decided to occupy their ally Hungary for military reasons related to Hungary's role in the ongoing war effort. On March 19, 1944, the German military entered Hungary relatively unopposed. The Hungarians quickly complied with German demands. As a result, most German troops remained in Hungary for only a short period of time. The Germans, however, continued to play a dominant role in Hungarian politics.

The German occupation authorities permitted Horthy to remain in his position as regent of Hungary. Many other Hungarian officials also kept their positions. But, the Germans insisted that Horthy replace Prime Minister Kállay with the pro-German Döme Sztójay. As prime minister, Sztójay cooperated with the German authorities. Several radical right-wing antisemites received important positions in his government.

One of Nazi Germany's goals after occupying Hungary was to carry out the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the country. In March 1944, there were between 760,000 and 780,000 Jews living in Hungary. This was the largest Jewish population still alive in Europe.

The German occupation of Hungary was an important turning point. Within the next year, Germans and their Hungarian collaborators would murder about 500,000 Jews from Hungary.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

New Antisemitic Measures in German-Occupied Hungary, Spring 1944

After the German occupation, the Hungarian government enacted dozens of antisemitic decrees. Its goal was to completely isolate, stigmatize, and impoverish Jews in Hungary. New antisemitic regulations forced Jews to hand over property such as cars, telephones, radios, and bicycles. Other decrees banned them from attending movies or plays with non-Jews. Additional decrees decreased Jews' food rations.

In late March 1944, the Hungarian government announced that beginning on April 5, all Jews aged 6 and older would be required to wear a yellow Star of David badge on their clothing.

Across the country, Hungarian authorities-including mayors, police officers, and gendarmerie officials-cooperated in carrying out these measures. Following orders from the government, they instructed Jewish communities to create registration lists of all Jews in their jurisdiction.

Hungarian Transit Ghettos and the Deportation of Jews from Hungary, April-July 1944

German and Hungarian authorities quickly began to plan for the ghettoization and deportation of Jews from Hungary. Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann and his team of deportation experts came to Budapest to facilitate this process. In the spring and summer of 1944, Hungarian and German authorities divided Hungary into six operational zones. In each zone, the creation of ghettos preceded deportation.

Beginning in April 1944, Hungarian authorities set up transit ghettos in towns and cities. The Hungarian authorities included regional and district government officials, mayors, public health officials, policemen, and gendarmes. The ghettos were often established in Jewish neighborhoods or in large buildings like factories, warehouses, or brickyards. They were usually located near railroad facilities to simplify deportation. Jews from smaller towns and villages were concentrated in ghettos in larger cities. They were imprisoned in these transit ghettos for days or weeks. They were guarded by Hungarian authorities and provided with limited food, shelter, and medical care. A small number of German authorities participated in this process. Widespread plunder, theft, and torture accompanied the process of ghettoization.

Systematic deportations of Jews from the transit ghettos began in mid-May 1944.2 Zone by zone, German deportation experts and Hungarian gendarmes forced Jews from the transit ghettos onto freight cars. Between May 15 and July 9, 1944, approximately 437,000 Jews were deported from Hungary on 147 trains. About 420,000 of them were sent to the 3 About 100,000 Jews from Hungary were selected for 2 Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. forced labor at Auschwitz. The remainder-approximately 330,000 Jews (about 75 percent)-were murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival. The victims included men, women, and children. This was the deadliest period at Auschwitz-Birkenau. 3 When they arrived there, they underwent the selection process.

Horthy Halts the Deportations, June-July 1944

On July 7, 1944, Horthy ordered a halt to the deportations of Jews from Hungary. He did so because of Germany's worsening military position, international threats, and pressure from his inner circle. Nevertheless, deportations to Auschwitz from cities around Budapest continued for two more days. They were halted on July 9. Despite Horthy's orders, Eichmann, his German deportation experts, and their allies in the Hungarian government tried to keep going. They carried out a small number of deportations of Jews to Auschwitz from Hungarian internment camps in late July and August 1944.

The only Jewish community that remained mostly untouched by the deportations of the previous months was Budapest.

"Yellow Star Houses": Budapest, Summer 1944

In July 1944, the large Jewish community of Budapest numbered some 200,000 people.

That summer, conditions in Budapest were grim. The full force of the Hungarian government's antisemitic laws and measures was still in effect. News of deportations from the countryside made its way to the capital. The Hungarian government also introduced a form of dispersed ghettoization in the city. The Hungarian government and members of the Budapest municipal government forced Jews to live in designated "yellow star houses." The authorities also imposed a curfew and other restrictions.

Rescue Operations in Hungary

US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Lena Kurtz Deutsch

The timing of the Holocaust in Hungary allowed for several extraordinary rescue operations. Both Jews and non-Jews led these efforts.

Notably, Jewish leaders of the Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest tried to negotiate with and bribe Nazi leaders to save Jews in Hungary. The committee negotiated a rescue operation known as the Kasztner Transport . In exchange for money and valuables, Nazi officials agreed to allow a transport of Jews to go to safety. More than 1,600 Jews survived in this way.

In the summer and fall of 1944, a number of international rescue operations were underway in Budapest. They were led by members of diplomatic missions from neutral countries, especially those from Sweden and Switzerland. Raoul Wallenberg (Sweden) and Carl Lutz (Switzerland) coordinated the creation and distribution of protective passes. A protective pass (sometimes called a Schutzpass ) was a piece of paper that indicated a person (or family) was supposedly under the protection of the neutral power. The rescuers also created safe houses for Jews in the city. They often worked closely with Jewish organizations and rescue groups. Wallenberg was recruited by the American War Refugee Board.

Arrow Cross Takeover of Hungary

In August 1944, as the tide of the war shifted further in favor of the Allies, Horthy dismissed Prime Minister Sztójay. Horthy installed a new government. He also dismissed many of the most extreme right-wing antisemitic members of the Sztójay government. In September, the Red Army (the Soviet military) crossed the border into Hungary. Horthy sent representatives to negotiate a ceasefire with the Soviets.

On October 15, 1944, Horthy attempted to openly break with Nazi Germany. He announced a ceasefire with the Soviets. However, Horthy had planned poorly. The Germans and their Hungarian collaborators quickly took control of the situation. German authorities detained Horthy. They threatened his son's life and demanded that he install a new government. Horthy agreed. The new government was led by Ferenc Szálasi. Szálasi was the leader of the fascist and radically antisemitic Arrow Cross Party ( Nyilaskeresztes Párt ). Under Arrow Cross leadership, Hungary continued to fight against the Soviets alongside Nazi Germany.

Arrow Cross militias conducted a reign of terror against the Jews of Budapest. Arrow Cross members (called " Nyilas ") shot Jewish people into the Danube River.

Deportations from Budapest, Fall 1944

On October 20, Arrow Cross militias began rounding up Jews for forced labor. A day later, the Arrow Cross government issued an order that Jewish men and women would be required to perform forced labor. Tens of thousands of Jews were rounded up. Initially, they had to dig anti-tank ditches around the city. On November 6, the government began deporting them on foot about 100 miles west to Hegyeshalom (a village along the Austria-Hungary border). Many Jews died or were shot along the way. Jews who survived the trip were handed over to the Germans, supposedly on loan. The Hungarians also "loaned" Jewish labor service battalions. Diplomats (including Raoul Wallenberg and Carl Lutz), Jewish organizations, and ordinary Hungarians intervened as much as possible. They tried to provide aid or save people from deportations.

Tens of thousands of Jewish people from Hungary were handed over to the Germans in November-December 1944. The Germans required them to perform forced labor. Many forced laborers had to build defensive trenches. They worked under deadly and grueling conditions. Thousands died or were killed. Many others later died on death marches in spring 1945.

The Budapest Ghetto and the International Ghetto, November-December 1944

In late 1944, the Arrow Cross regime created two ghettos in Budapest.

One was a fenced-in ghetto in the traditional Jewish quarter of Budapest. The regime ordered Jews living in the "yellow star houses" to move into this ghetto. The Budapest ghetto was also called the "Pest ghetto" or the "large ghetto." It was extremely overcrowded. The ghetto was sealed in December 1944. It held about 70,000 people. Approximately 3,000 Jewish people died there.

Jews with international protective passes were housed in what became known as the "international ghetto." This ghetto was also called the "protected ghetto" or the "small ghetto." The area was not fenced in, but included a cluster of apartment buildings under international protection. Officially, 15,600 people lived in the international ghetto. In reality, thousands more sought safety there. This included people with forged protective papers or those without any actual papers.

Thousands of Jews in Budapest went into hiding rather than move into either ghetto.

The End: The Liberation of Jews in Hungary, 1944-1945

As the Red Army (the Soviet military) advanced westwards, they liberated Jews from Hungary. Among those liberated were Jews serving in labor service battalions and Jews in hiding.

On November 2, 1944, the Soviets began their attack on Budapest. In the winter of 1944-1945, the Soviets encircled Budapest and laid siege to the city. German and Hungarian forces fought fiercely to defend the capital. During this time, Arrow Cross militias continued to perpetrate violence against Jews. The Soviets liberated the international ghetto on January 16, 1945, and the Budapest ghetto on January 17-18. They conquered the rest of the city in February. By April 1945, the Soviets had completely taken over Hungary.

The Soviets liberated approximately 119,000 Jews in Budapest. They freed a small number in the rest of the country.

Number of Victims of the Holocaust in Hungary

Yad Vashem Photo Archives

In 1941, approximately 825,000 Jews were living in Hungary and its annexed territories. More than 65 percent of them (about 550,000 people) were murdered in the Holocaust.

Between 44,000 and 63,000 Jewish people died or were killed in the first stage of the Holocaust in Hungary.

About 500,000 Jews from Hungary were killed in the second stage. Of these, approximately 330,000 were murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Tens of thousands more died while imprisoned in Auschwitz or other German concentration camps and forced labor camps, as well as on death marches. Thousands were murdered in Budapest by Hungarian Arrow Cross militiamen.

Approximately 250,000 Jews from Hungary survived the Holocaust. Their survival was only possible because of a confluence of factors, most notably timing, rescue, and luck.

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Learn more about the history of the Holocaust in Hungary.

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started October 8 1940

German troops began crossing into Romania, they soon numbered over 500,000

on the 23rd of November Romania joined the axis powers

They had a lost of 167,000 people deceased

Romania in WWII: An Important Part of the Eastern Front

TheCollector

https://www.thecollector.com › History

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September 1939

When Germany invaded Poland, France and Britain declared war on Germany

New Zealand also declared war and became part of the Allies

It agreed to supply produce to Britain and provide troops

11,900 people have deceased during this war

Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II

The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org › student-resources

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The Shocking History of New Zealand's Incredible Maori Soldiers

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May 1940

Luxembourg government fleeing into exile in London for the duration of ww2

more than 3,000 Jews lived in the Country

1,000 German-Jewish refugees had found shelter in Luxembourg

5,000 people confirmed to be deceased which is 2% of the population

Luxembourg - United States Department of State

U.S. Department of State (.gov)

https://www.state.gov › just-act-report-to-congress › lux...

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March 12 1938

Austrians were served loyally as Soldiers from Germany proper and were just as responsible for Nazi atrocities on the Eastern front

They had 261,000 Military deaths and 384,700 deaths all together

Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II

The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

https://www.nationalww2museum.org › student-resources

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1. 1940

2. Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany on April 9, 1940, in Operation Weserübung, despite being a neutral country. The invasion was swift, and within two months, Norway fell under German occupation which lasted until 1945.

3. 10,262 people died

4. https://www.britannica.com/place/Norway/World-War-II

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With the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Norway again declared itself neutral. On April 9, 1940, German troops invaded the country and quickly occupied Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik. The Norwegian government rejected the German ultimatum regarding immediate capitulation. The Norwegian Army, which received help from an Allied expeditionary force, was unable to resist the superior German troops, however.

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1. 1940

2. Belgium was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 Despite being neutral, Belgium was quickly overrun, and King Leopold III surrendered on May 28 However the Belgian government fled to exile and continued to support the Allies.

3. 88,000 People died

4. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-III-king-of-Belgium

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Leopold III (born November 3, 1901, Brussels, Belgium-died September 25, 1983, Brussels) was the king of the Belgians, whose actions as commander in chief of the Belgian army during the German conquest of Belgium (1940) in World War II aroused opposition to his rule, eventually leading to his abdication in 1951.

The son of Albert I and his consort Elisabeth of Bavaria, Leopold served as a private soldier during the final campaign of World War I. On November 10, 1926, he married Princess Astrid of Sweden (died August 1935); their children were Joséphine-Charlotte, Baudouin, and Albert. Leopold became king of the Belgians following his father's death on February 17, 1934. Favouring an independent foreign policy, but not strict neutrality, he withdrew Belgium from its defensive alliance with France and from the Pact of Locarno-a peace agreement among Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, and Great Britain-after German occupation of the Rhineland (1936). Determined to resist aggression with help from Britain and France, he sponsored construction of a fortified defense line from Antwerp to Namur, facing Germany.

After the outbreak of World War II, Leopold assumed supreme command of the Belgian army. In May 1940, as the Allies undertook the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of troops from the French seaport of Dunkirk, Belgian forces at the Leie (Lys) River in Belgium battled the advancing Germans. Leopold was forced to surrender his encircled forces on May 28. The Belgian government's repudiation of his decision to remain with his troops, rather than join the London government in exile, laid the foundation for the postwar conflict over his claim to the throne. Leopold was held prisoner by the Germans at his royal château near Brussels until 1944 and then in Austria to the end of the war. His letter to Adolf Hitler in 1942 is credited with saving an estimated 500,000 Belgian women and children from deportation to munitions factories in Germany. He married Mary-Lilian Baels on September 11, 1941, whom he made princesse de Réthy; their children were Alexandre, Marie-Christine, and Maria Esmeralda.

After his brother Charles was appointed regent in 1944, Leopold remained in Switzerland (1945-50), awaiting resolution of the "royal question," the controversy over his pending return to the throne. In a plebiscite held March 12, 1950, nearly 58 percent of the voters favoured the king's return, largely reflecting Catholic Fleming support. But unrest fomented by Liberal, Socialist, and Walloon opposition led Leopold to renounce his sovereignty on August 11, 1950, in favour of his son Baudouin, who became king the following year. Leopold and the princesse de Réthy continued to live in Laeken, however, the traditional home of Belgian kings, until his son's marriage in 1960. Critics of Leopold felt that his residence in Laeken gave him too much influence over King Baudouin.

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Leopold III | King of the Belgians, Abdication

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Leopold III was the king of the Belgians, whose actions as commander in chief of the Belgian army during the German conquest of Belgium (1940) in World War II aroused opposition to his rule, eventually leading to his abdication in 1951.

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1. 1937

2. China was one of the first countries to be involved in WW2 .It started with the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7 when Japan launched a full invasion of China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, But China had been facing Japanese aggression since the Manchurian Incident in 1931 when Japan occupied Manchuria and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo.

3. 15-20 million people died

4. https://www.britannica.com/event/Second-Sino-Japanese-War

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Second Sino-Japanese War, (1937-45), conflict that broke out when China began a full-scale resistance to the expansion of Japanese influence in its territory (which had begun in 1931). The war, which remained undeclared until December 9, 1941, may be divided into three phases: a period of rapid Japanese advance until the end of 1938, a period of virtual stalemate until 1944, and the final period when Allied counterattacks, principally in the Pacific and on Japan's home islands, brought about Japan's surrender.

The establishment of Manchukuo and the creation of the United Front

For much of the early 20th century, Japan had exercised effective control of Manchuria, initially through the terms of the Twenty-one Demands (1915) and later through its support of Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin. However, a serious conflict was developing, and the Chinese in Manchuria were especially restive under the privileges held by the Japanese. Chinese citizens formed the vast majority of the population, and the legal title of the region was held by China. Yet Japan controlled much of south Manchuria through its railways and its leasehold on the Liaodong Peninsula and in other ways that compromised Chinese sovereignty.

In an attempt to assert their independence, the Chinese began building a series of railroads that would in part encircle the Japanese lines and terminate at Huludao, a port which the Chinese were developing. Zhang Xueliang, Zhang Zuolin's son and the ruler of Manchuria after his father's murder by Japanese officers in 1928, was increasingly disposed to ally himself with the Kuomintang ( Nationalist Party) and its desire to rid China of foreign control. In the summer of 1931 the friction expressed itself in minor incidents. Those in control of the main body of Japanese forces in Manchuria believed that the time had passed for temporizing and compromise. On the night of September 18-19, 1931, alleging that Chinese had blown up part of the track of the South Manchuria railway near the city, the Japanese seized Mukden ( Shenyang). Facing little resistance from Nationalist forces, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932 and installed the deposed Qing emperor Puyi as its titular head. Japan soon demonstrated that it was not content with confining its control of China to regions north of the Great Wall, and in the spring of 1934 a pronouncement from Tokyo in effect declared all China to be a Japanese preserve in which no power could take important action without its consent.

In 1935 the Japanese forced the withdrawal from Hebei and Chahar (now part of Inner Mongolia) of any officials and armed forces that might prove unfriendly to Japan. These territories passed partly into Japanese control, and Suiyuan, Shansi ( Shanxi), and Shantung ( Shandong) were threatened. Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek did not offer open opposition, preferring instead to pursue his campaign against Chinese communist forces. In December 1936, in what came to be known as the Xi'an Incident, Chiang was seized by forces under the command of his own generals and compelled to ally with the communists in a United Front against Japan.

What proved to be a life and death struggle soon broke out between China and Japan. The opening engagement was a minor clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge, not far from Peiping ( Beijing) on July 7, 1937. The conflict quickly ceased to be localized. The Japanese came to feel that since Chiang and the Nationalist government would not yield to their wishes they must be eliminated. To the Japanese, the rising tide of nationalism in China-directed, as much of it was, against them-had become intolerable.

Initial Japanese conquests

By July 1937 practically all Chinese regional military and political groups had rallied to support the Nationalist government and Chiang Kai-shek in their decision to oppose Japan by every means. The communists, who had urged a united front against Japan since 1935, pledged their support and put their armies nominally under command of the government.

From a strictly military point of view, however, Japan was so much better prepared than China that its armies achieved rapid initial success. Within the course of two years Japan obtained possession of most of the ports, the majority of the chief cities as far west as Hankow ( Hankou), and the larger part of the railways. Peiping and Tientsin ( Tianjin) were occupied in July 1937. After fierce fighting, the Chinese armies were driven out of the Shanghai area by the middle of November 1937. Nanking ( Nanjing), the Nationalist capital, fell in mid-December 1937, and the liquidation of that city and its inhabitants became known as the Nanjing Massacre. As many as 300,000 Chinese civilians and surrendered troops were killed. Moreover, tens of thousands of women were raped on the orders of Japanese commander Matsui Iwane. The capital was moved west to Hankow. The Japanese followed and took that city in October 1938. In the same month, the Chinese lost Canton ( Guangzhou). The Japanese pressed northward and westward from Peiping along the railway lines into Shansi and Inner Mongolia. They dominated Shantung and took possession of the Peiping-Hankow, Tientsin-P'u-k'ou, and Lung-hai railways and of the rail lines in the lower part of the Yangtze valley. They had complete command of the sea. Always superior in the air, before many months they had all but destroyed the Chinese air force and bombed Chinese cities at will. The loss of life, particularly for the Chinese, was enormous.

Yet the Chinese did not yield, and the war was prolonged far beyond Japan's expectations. Chiang Kai-shek moved his capital to Chungking ( Chongqing), in Szechwan ( Sichuan), at the western end of the Yangtze gorges. Much of China's leadership migrated to the far west, to Szechwan and Yünnan ( Yunnan). Unoccupied China prepared for prolonged resistance. In occupied China, Japan was unsuccessful in inducing many Chinese to take office in the governments that it endeavoured to set up. Even there, Japan's control was confined to the cities and the railway lines; outside these it was challenged by guerrilla bands that professed allegiance to the Nationalist government. The communists were particularly successful in using guerrilla methods to resist Japan. The rapid Japanese advances broke down the established patterns of politico-military control. Communist troops and organizers moved into the vast rural areas behind Japanese lines. They organized village self-defense units, created local governments, and expanded their own armies, the Eighth Route Army, operating in the mountains and plains of north China, and the New Fourth Army in the lower Yangtze valley.

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Second Sino-Japanese War | Summary, Combatants, Facts, & Map

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Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), conflict that broke out when China began a full-scale resistance to the expansion of Japanese influence in its territory. The war remained undeclared until December 9, 1941, and ended after Allied counterattacks during World War II brought about Japan's surrender.

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1. 1939

2. The United Kingdom entered World War II after Germany invaded Poland. Britain had pledged to defend Poland so Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany.

3. 450,000 deaths

4. https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom/Britain-from-1914-to-the-present

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The political situation

The British declaration of war on Germany on August 4, 1914, brought an end to the threat of civil war in Ireland, which since March had occupied Prime Minister H.H. Asquith's Liberal cabinet almost to the exclusion of everything else. Formally at least, party warfare came to an end. The Conservatives agreed not to contest by-elections and to support the government in matters pertaining to the war.

The Asquith coalition

Such compromises were easy to make in autumn 1914, when the excitement over the outbreak of war was high, causing a crush of enlistments, and when it was still generally believed that the war would be over within six months. By spring 1915, however, enthusiasm for the war began to cool and recruiting fell off. Moreover, Asquith's government seemed to have lost its grip on affairs; newspapers carried reports of an inadequate supply of ammunition on the Western Front, and on May 15 the first sea lord, Adm. John Fisher, resigned. The Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar Law, under pressure from his followers to take a stronger stand, announced that his party would demand a debate on the conduct of the war. Asquith quickly offered to form a coalition, thereby ending the last Liberal government. The coalition consisted of Liberals, Conservatives, and one Labourite.

Bonar Law BBC Hulton Picture Library

In the new cabinet, announced on May 25, Arthur James Balfour replaced Winston Churchill as first lord of the Admiralty. More important, a new department, the Ministry of Munitions, was established with the Liberal David Lloyd George at its head.

The coalition, which was supposed to allay tension among parties over the conduct of the war, worked badly. Although the Ministry of Munitions did indeed resolve the armament crisis surprisingly quickly, dissatisfaction with Asquith's relaxed management of affairs continued and centred in the autumn of 1915 upon the rising demand, in the press and among the Conservatives, for compulsory military service. With apparent reluctance, the prime minister allowed an inadequate measure for the conscription of unmarried men to be passed in January 1916. But it was not until May 1916, after more controversy and threats of resignation, that a comprehensive bill was passed for compulsory enlistment of all men between ages 18 and 41.

Meanwhile, on April 24, 1916, Monday of Easter Week, a rebellion broke out in Dublin directed at securing Irish independence. Violence was suppressed within six days, and the surviving rebels were arrested amid general derision from the Irish population. But Britain's punishment of the rebels, including 14 summary executions, quickly turned Irish sympathy toward the men, who were now regarded as martyrs. The Easter Rising was the beginning of the Irish war for independence.

Even though the rebellion was quelled, the problems of Ireland needed to be addressed. Prime Minister Asquith called upon Lloyd George to try to arrange for an immediate grant of Home Rule to be shared by the Irish nationalist and unionist parties (the former being fully committed to the principle of Home Rule, the latter only partially). Although a compromise was in fact reached, discontent among senior unionists prevented a bill from going forward. Thereafter Home Rule ceased to be an issue because southern Ireland now wanted nothing but independence. Asquith was further weakened.

The government also drew criticism for its war policies. For one, Britain was unable to help Romania when it declared war upon the Central Powers in the summer of 1916. More significantly, Britain launched its first major independent military operation, the Battle of the Somme (July 1 to November 13, 1916), with disastrous results. On the first day of battle, the British suffered almost 60,000 casualties. Although little of strategic significance was accomplished, the battle brought the reality of war home to Britain. (For details on the military aspects of the war, see World War I.) Dissatisfaction with the government mounted until, in the first week of December, Asquith and most of the senior Liberal ministers were forced to resign. Lloyd George became prime minister with a cabinet consisting largely of Conservatives.

Lloyd George governed Britain with a small "War Cabinet" of five permanent members, only one of whom was a politician of standing. Although Lloyd George had to take note of the opinions of Parliament and of those around him and pay attention to the tides of public political sentiment, the power to make decisions rested entirely with him. He was faced with the same sentiments of apathy, discontent with the country's leadership, and war weariness that had brought down the Asquith government. Not only had Britain's supreme military effort in 1916 failed, but the war had lost its meaning. The British commitment to defend Belgium (which had brought Britain into the war in the first place) was forgotten, still more the Austro-Hungarian actions against Serbia (which had not particularly troubled Britain anyway). Thus, in the next two years, Lloyd George set out to reinvest the war with meaning. Its purpose would be to create a better Britain and a safer world. Victory promised hope for the future. Toward that goal he established new ministries and brought workingmen into government. Lloyd George's reconstruction program was built on principles that were later enunciated by U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points and his slogan of "making the world safe for democracy." Lloyd George's own slogan of 1918 was "to forge a nation fit for heroes to live in."

Lloyd George controlled the government but not the Liberal Party; only a minority of Liberals in the House of Commons supported him, the rest remaining loyal to Asquith. Worse, Lloyd George had no party organization in the country. The division within the Liberal Party hardened during the controversy over a statement he made in April 1918 concerning the strength of troops in France. Although this controversy, the so-called Maurice Debate (which took place on May 9), strengthened Lloyd George temporarily, it also made clear his dependence upon the Conservatives. Soon afterward, in the summer of 1918, he began to plan what he expected to be a wartime general election to be entered into in coalition with the Conservatives. The sudden armistice of November 11, 1918, however, intervened, and the wartime election became a victory election. Meanwhile, the Labour Party had withdrawn its support from the coalition and called upon Labour members to resign. Most, but not all, did.

Between the wars

The election of 1918

The general election of December 14, 1918, was a landmark in 20th-century British history and may have helped to set the course of politics through the interwar period. To begin, the Representation of the People Act of 1918, which gave the vote to all men over age 21 and all women over age 30 and removed the property disqualifications of the older household franchise, tripled the electorate. Ironically, the election registered the lowest voter turnout of any election in the 20th century, reflecting in part the teething troubles of the Labour Party, whose share of the vote was only 20 percent. Further, 37 seats were added to the House of Commons. Even though the coalition was returned to office, the real winners of the election were the Conservatives. Lloyd George's Liberals and the Conservatives, who had arranged not to contest seats against each other, together won 473 of the 707 seats. Liberals loyal to Lloyd George won 127 seats, while the Asquithian Liberal Party was nearly wiped out, returning only 36 members as compared with the Labour Party's 57. (Similarly, the old Irish Nationalist Party was destroyed and replaced by Sinn Féin, the party of independence.) Thus, despite the coalition's overwhelming victory, Lloyd George remained dependent on the Conservatives. The Liberal organization in the country was in shambles. Finally, the election had focused not upon the reconstruction of Britain, as the leaders of each party had intended, but on the punishment of Germany after the war, a matter the government had hoped to defer. The election had committed the British government to a harsh peace.

Harsh peace and hard times

The peace treaty with Germany-drawn up far too rapidly and without German participation, between January and May 1919-went into effect on June 28. Even as peace with Germany was declared, the British people, as well as members of the government, were beginning to realize that the punitive treaty, burdening Germany with the responsibility and much of the cost of the war, was a mistake. Accordingly, British foreign policy for much of the decade of the 1920s aimed at rehabilitating Germany and bringing it back into the family of nations. In general, this attempt was opposed by France and resulted in a rupture between Britain and its wartime ally, forcing France into a position of isolation that would have prodigious consequences for Europe and indeed for the rest of the world with the rise of Adolf Hitler in the early 1930s.

Lloyd George spent a great deal of time in the four postwar years of his administration on foreign affairs. As a consequence, issues within the United Kingdom, such as unemployment, poor housing, Irish separatism, and the revival of industry, were too frequently neglected. Many of the promises for reconstruction made in speeches and papers during the war were never carried out. The government, however, tried to diminish the habitual confrontation between newly powerful organized labour and industry. Unemployment insurance was extended to virtually all workers, and a serious attempt was made to begin a public housing program. Railroads were reorganized, and for three years after the war coal mines remained in public hands. This restructuring of industry, however, came to an end with the serious rise in unemployment that began in 1920 and culminated in 1921 in a full-scale industrial depression with nearly one-fourth of the labour force out of work. One of the factors in the depression was a disastrous coal strike in April 1921, caused in considerable measure by the collapse of world coal prices resulting from German coal reparations to France. The immediate effect of the economic depression was a demand by the Conservatives for government economy that the prime minister could not ignore.

Ireland and the return of the Conservatives

In 1919 revolutionary disorder broke out in the south of Ireland when the provisional government of Ireland, organized by the Sinn Féin party, began guerrilla military operations against the British administration. Through 1920 the British government attempted to put down violence with violence, while passing an act allowing Home Rule for both the south of Ireland and for Ulster. The six Protestant unionist counties of the north accepted Home Rule and in 1921 set up in Belfast an autonomous government. In the 26 counties of the south, Home Rule was defiantly rejected. By the spring of 1921, however, with the Belfast government in operation and with demands both in Britain and in the rest of the world that the fighting in Ireland come to an end, compromise became possible. In the summer a truce was arranged, and on December 6, 1921, after prolonged negotiations, the British government and the Irish rebels signed a so-called treaty allowing the establishment of what was, in effect, a dominion government in Dublin.

Lloyd George's insistence that the Irish be granted the substance, if not the letter, of their demands, as well as the clearly declining popularity of the coalition government, caused general unhappiness, not among the Conservative leadership but among the members of the Conservative back bench in the House of Commons. Finally, in October 1922, when the proposal to join forces in a second coalition election was decisively rejected, largely by the Conservative rank and file, the Conservative Party withdrew from the coalition. Lloyd George resigned on October 20, and George V invited the Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar Law, to form a government. On November 15, 1922, the hastily established Conservative government won a solid victory in a general election. The decline of the Liberal Party was confirmed by the fact that the two wings of the party together returned only 116 members of Parliament compared with Labour's 142.

The Baldwin era

Law remained prime minister only until May 20, 1923, when, ill with cancer, he resigned. He was succeeded by an almost unknown politician, Stanley Baldwin, who would nonetheless dominate British politics until his resignation from his third government, in May 1937. Baldwin seemed an unlikely leader for a major party; he had been in Parliament for 15 years without making a mark. Yet behind the unassuming demeanour was a crafty politician. Baldwin understood, as perhaps his predecessors had not, that the British voter, certainly the middle-class voter, desired not excitement and reform but tranquillity. Nostalgia for the assumed stability of prewar Britain was strong and indeed a key to the politics of the 1920s. This frame of mind would contrast sharply with Britain's mood after World War II.

Stanley Baldwin Bassano and Vandyk

The new Conservative government was faced with high unemployment, industrial stagnation, foreign debts, and continuing demand for economy in government. Baldwin's response was to abandon Britain's historic policy of free trade and to return to import duties. Although he was supported in this by a majority of his party, he nonetheless promised to hold an election on the subject before implementing such a policy. Consequently, on December 6, 1923, a second election was held in which the Conservatives lost their comfortable majority; indeed, though they controlled the largest number of seats (258) in the House of Commons, the now-united Liberal Party (159) and Labour (191) combined to win a majority. As a result, on January 22, 1924, the first Labour government in British history, under Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald, came to power with Liberal support.

MacDonald remained in office only nine months and accomplished little except the revival of the public housing program abandoned by the Lloyd George administration under Conservative pressure. During his time in office he was continually charged in the House of Commons and in the newspapers with unseemly weakness toward the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union and with an unwillingness to deal firmly with purported revolutionary socialist conspiracies within the United Kingdom. Over this matter the Liberals finally turned against him, and on October 29, 1924, in an election dominated by charges of Soviet influence, MacDonald was heavily defeated. Baldwin returned to the prime ministership, backed by a majority of more than two to one over Labour and the Liberals combined. The Liberal representation in the House of Commons was reduced to 40.

Baldwin's return to office coincided with the French evacuation of the Ruhr valley in Germany and the revival of Germany as an economic power. In the nearly five years of the second Baldwin government, Britain experienced relative economic prosperity, although unemployment never went below the 10 percent of the working population covered by unemployment insurance. A new collapse in domestic coal prices, however, caused by the revival of German coal mining, produced the threat of a second strike by British coal miners. It erupted in May 1926 with a walkout in the coal industry and a sympathy strike by the rest of Britain's organized labour. Except as a monument in the history of British labour, however, this so-called general strike is as unimportant as it was unsuccessful. As a general strike, it lasted only 10 days, from May 3 to May 12. The miners themselves held out for nearly eight months and were finally starved into returning as winter began, at lower wages and with longer hours. Economically, the chief effect of the strike was to hasten the decay of the huge British coal industry. However, Baldwin's handling of it-he prepared emergency services but then did nothing-greatly increased his popularity; indeed, he is remembered as a peacemaker, although his government passed an act declaring general strikes to be revolutionary and hence illegal. Yet beyond that his administration, particularly the ministry of health under Neville Chamberlain, accomplished a good deal; it vastly extended old-age pensions and pensions for widows and orphans, reformed local government, and, finally, in 1928, extended the franchise to women ages 21 to 30 on the same terms as those for men.

Baldwin dissolved the House of Commons in the spring of 1929, expecting to be returned. Instead, on May 30 MacDonald's Labour Party received 288 seats compared with the Conservative Party's 260, with the Liberals again holding the balance of power, with 59 seats. Thus, MacDonald formed his second government, again with Liberal consent, if not support. The Liberals could do little else. In 1924 Labour, by its inaction, had proved itself as a responsible rather than a revolutionary party. In the minds of Britons, Labour had replaced the Liberals as the natural alternative party.

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United Kingdom - Britain from 1914 to the present

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United Kingdom - United Kingdom - Britain from 1914 to the present: The British declaration of war on Germany on August 4, 1914, brought an end to the threat of civil war in Ireland, which since March had occupied Prime Minister H.H. Asquith's Liberal cabinet almost to the exclusion of everything else.

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1. 1942

2. Brazil officially entered World War II declaring war on Germany and Italy after multiple Brazilian merchant ships were sunk by German U-boats in the Atlantic.

3. 55,000 deaths

4. https://www.britannica.com/place/Brazil/The-Vargas-era

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Brazil - The Vargas era: Getúlio Vargas, the losing candidate in the 1930 presidential election, led a revolt that placed him in power. Vargas, formerly the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, remained central to Brazilian national life for the next 24 years, holding office as chief executive on two occasions, 1930-45 and 1951-54.

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1. 1940

2. The Netherlands was invaded by Nazi Germany during Operation Weserübung, which also targeted Denmark and Norway. Other than being a neutral country, the Netherlands was quickly overrun by German forces. The Dutch government and royal family fled to London to form a government-in-exile.

3. 200,000 deaths

4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-the-Netherlands

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history of the Netherlands, a survey of notable events and people in the history of the Netherlands, from its founding in 1579 to the present. For information concerning the period prior to that date, see history of the Low Countries.

"Netherlands" means low-lying country; the name Holland (from Houtland, or "Wooded Land") was originally given to one of the medieval cores of what later became the modern state and is still used for 2 of its 12 provinces ( Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland). A parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch, the Kingdom of the Netherlands includes its former colonies in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten.

The Union of Utrecht

On January 23, 1579, an agreement at Utrecht was concluded, forming a "closer union" within the larger union of the Low Countries led by the States General sitting in Brussels. Included in the Union of Utrecht were the provinces and cities committed to carrying on resistance to Spanish rule: Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland (Guelders), and Zutphen (a part of Overijssel) as the first signatories, followed in the next year by the whole of Overijssel, most of Friesland, and Groningen, all in the north, and in the south by the cities of Antwerp and Breda in Brabant and Ghent, Brugge (Bruges), and Ypres (Ieper) in Flanders. Designed to establish a league for conduct of a war of independence from Spain and ultimately to strengthen the central government in Brussels, the Union of Utrecht became in fact the foundation of a separate state and a distinct country in the northern Netherlands. The new state was named the United Provinces of the Netherlands, or, more briefly, the Dutch Republic, and its government was known in the international community as the States General.

The people of the northern Netherlands began to be distinguished from the inhabitants of the south (to whom the name Flemings continued to cling) by the appellation Hollanders (French: Hollandais; Italian: Olandese; German: Holländer; and so forth), after their principal province. The English, however, came to apply exclusively to the Hollanders the term Dutch, which previously they had applied to all German speakers (from German Deutsch, Dutch Duits). The name Netherlanders, which remained in use in the Low Countries for the inhabitants of the United Provinces specifically and for all those, north or south, who spoke Dutch (Netherlandic), passed out of currency in most foreign countries or came to be restricted to the northerners. The transformation had a price: the erosion of the bond of historical identity between northerners and southerners-or Dutch and Belgians, as they would be called beginning in the 19th century.

The treaty that formed the basis of the new northern union established a military league to resist the Spaniards on a "perpetual" basis, and it provided for closer political arrangements between the provinces than those of "allies" in the ordinary sense. The provinces united "for all time as if they were a single province"; each remained sovereign in its internal affairs, but all acted as a body in foreign policy. Decisions on war and peace and on federal taxation could be made only unanimously. The union did not throw off the formal sovereignty of the king of Spain, but it confirmed the effective powers of the provincial stadtholders (formally the "lieutenants," or governors, of the king) as their political leaders (there was no "stadtholder of the United Provinces," as foreigners often assumed, although several of the provincial stadtholderates were often united in the same person). The union moved away from the religious settlement embodied in the Pacification of Ghent of two years before and toward a predominance of the Calvinists and their monopoly of public practice of religion in the key provinces of Holland and Zeeland.

The immediate political significance of the union was that it complemented the Union of Arras, concluded earlier in January, which began the reconciliation of the southerners with King Philip II of Spain. The two "unions," parallel but opposite, thus undermined the policy of William I (Prince William of Orange) of collaboration between Roman Catholics and Calvinists throughout the Low Countries in resistance to Spanish domination, which required mutual toleration between the religions. But it took some time before the "general union," with its base in the States General at Brussels, fell apart irrevocably.

For another half decade the prince struggled to keep intact the broader union and at the same time to ensure its military and political support from abroad. Although Archduke Matthias of Habsburg, named governor-general by the States General in 1577 after the deposition of Don Juan, remained the formal head of state until 1581, Prince William continued to exercise his leadership. That the prince was the head and heart of the rebellion was recognized by Philip II in 1580, when he put him under the ban of outlawry. William's Apology in defense of his conduct was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration (Akte van Afzwering), by which the States General declared that Philip had forfeited his sovereignty over the provinces by his persistent tyranny. This was a declaration of independence for the whole of the Low Countries, but the military and political events of the next decade limited its permanent effect to the northern provinces under the "closer union" of Utrecht.

Foreign intervention

Yet independence did not become William's objective even after the proclamation of the Act of Abjuration. Archduke Matthias returned home in 1581 after William turned to François, duke of Anjou, who agreed to take over the "lordship" of the Low Countries in 1580. The prince hoped for assistance from the duke's brother, King Henry III of France, and considered the lordship of Anjou as only a kind of limited, constitutional sovereignty like that which the rebels had hoped to impose on Philip II at the beginning of their rising. Anjou, however, saw the lordship as a means to total dominion over the Netherlands. Irritated by restraints upon his authority, he even attempted the seizure of power by military force, which resulted in the so-called French Fury of January 17, 1583, when his troops tried to capture Antwerp. The coup misfired, but William managed to keep Anjou (who returned to France) in his post despite the outraged feelings of the Netherlanders.

Holland and Zeeland were on the verge of offering the title of count to William when he was assassinated on July 10, 1584, at Delft, by Balthasar Gérard, a fanatical young Roman Catholic from Franche-Comté, spurred by the promises of the ban of Philip II. William's death did not end the rebellion, as Philip had hoped, but it did result in the almost unnoticed disappearance of the central government in Brussels. The States General, which now met at The Hague in Holland, represented only the provinces in the Union of Utrecht.

As the Spaniards steadily overran Flanders and Brabant, the Dutch in their plight did not immediately abandon William's policy of seeking foreign assistance. But after Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England both refused sovereignty over the country, the States General in 1586 named as governor-general Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, whom Elizabeth had sent to command Dutch and English auxiliary forces against the Spaniards after the fall of Antwerp. Leicester, like Anjou before him, endeavoured to make himself absolute master of the country, relying on the support of popular Calvinism and of the outlying provinces that were jealous of Holland to create a strong centralized government under his authority. Holland thwarted Leicester's efforts, which culminated in an attempted invasion of Holland from Utrecht in 1587. Upon Leicester's departure, the United Provinces put aside all efforts to obtain a foreign protectorate and stood forth as an independent state.

The formation of a new government

Although derived from historical institutions, the government of the United Provinces was in practice largely a new set of institutions, not created but confirmed by the Union of Utrecht. Their primary force lay in the provinces, seven in number (Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Friesland, and Groningen), which were ruled by assemblies of provincial States representing the towns and the landed nobility. Although the stadtholders (who after a few years came to be drawn exclusively from the house of Orange) were elected by the States of the provinces, they at the same time possessed important prerogatives in the selection of members of the town governments from which the provincial assemblies ultimately derived their authority, and they were the acknowledged military leaders of the republic. Central government passed from the Council of State to the States General, which was more explicitly subordinated to provincial authority. Although it conducted the military and diplomatic work of the republic, the States General failed to obtain effective rights of direct taxation (except for import and export duties assigned to the admiralties), and its major decisions were taken under the rule of unanimity.

In practice, the province of Holland, by far the wealthiest province in the union and the contributor of more than half the revenues of the central government, became the preponderant political force in the country, along with the stadtholders of the house of Orange. The relationship between Holland and the house of Orange governed the republic's politics for the two centuries of its existence. As collaborators, Holland and the princes of Orange could make the clumsy governmental system work with surprising effectiveness; as rivals, they imperiled its potency as a state, at least until one or the other emerged a temporary victor, but neither force was able to rule permanently without the other.

The decades immediately after 1587 were marked by close collaboration between Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, "advocate" of Holland (the legal and executive secretary of the provincial States), and Maurice of Nassau, William I's second son (the first, Philip William, became prince of Orange and remained loyal to Spain). Maurice was named stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland and became the commander of the republic's armies. The result was a series of military triumphs over the Spanish forces under Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza. Maurice recaptured the Dutch territories north of the Rhine, Lek, Waal, and Maas (Meuse) and extended them southward into much of Brabant and enough of Flanders to cut off Antwerp from the sea. These victories are recorded in the historical memory of the Dutch as "the closing of the garden," the territory that became the republic of the United Provinces and then (with a few additions) the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. These victories were accompanied by England's and France's diplomatic recognition of the States General as the government of an independent state.

Ascendancy of the Dutch economy

The military prowess of the fledgling republic rested upon the wealth of Holland-which managed in wartime to maintain and extend its trade to all Europe and, after the turn of the century, even to East Asia. Amsterdam replaced Antwerp, the great port on the Schelde River, as the principal warehouse and trading centre for all Europe, even while Holland maintained the leadership in shipping it had already garnered during the 16th century. The foundation of Dutch economic prosperity lay in the fishing and shipping industries. Even during the period of Antwerp's ascendancy, ships from Holland and Zeeland had carried a large portion of the goods that passed through the Schelde, and now that Amsterdam had taken over from Antwerp, Dutch shipping only expanded its predominance. Dutch fishermen had harvested the North Sea for centuries, and the salted cargoes were sold widely throughout western and central Europe.

Dutch trade benefited, as had that of Flanders, from the location of the country at the nexuses of the great north-south and east-west trade routes of Europe. To these was added the route to the East Indies early in the 17th century. Amsterdam and the lesser ports of Holland and Zeeland became the principal European suppliers of grain and naval stores from the Baltic, to which they shipped manufactured goods and wines from the south. Germany's principal exports were now shipped down the Rhine, as Dutch ports replaced the Hanseatic towns of northern Germany. The bulk of French exports were carried in Dutch ships, and even Spain and Portugal depended on the Dutch for grain and naval stores (thereby enabling the Dutch to finance their war of independence). During the 17th century the Dutch assumed a major role in supplying grain and other northern commodities to the countries of the Mediterranean and also became the principal importer of spices and other luxury goods from the East. England too relied to a great extent upon Dutch shipping. The Dutch advantages lay not only in their situation but also in the efficient design of their bulky flyboats ( fluiten), manned by small crews at less cost than any of their competitors.

Modern banking institutions developed to meet the needs of the vastly expanding trade. Amsterdam's "exchange bank" was instituted in 1609 to provide monetary exchange at established rates, but it soon became a deposit bank for the safe settling of accounts. Unlike the Bank of England, established almost a century later, it neither managed the national currency nor acted as a lending institution (except to the government in emergencies). Private bankers met the need for credit, as well as acting as brokers in financial transactions. The need for commercial exports, as well as a growing population at home, spurred industry in many towns. Although the shipbuilders on the Zaan, northwest of Amsterdam, and the sugar refiners in particular developed large-scale operations, sometimes including machinery, Dutch industry generally remained small in scale, as indeed nearly all manufacturing was in the 17th century.

Dutch industry was heavily dependent on trade, and major manufactures grew up in the western towns connected with international commerce. In processing and finishing textiles, Dutch manufacturers were often capable of undercutting competition abroad. Agricultural products were also traded. Of particular note was the tulip bulb market, which experienced explosive growth in the early 17th century as so-called " Tulip Mania" gripped northern Europe. The speculation-fueled bubble burst spectacularly in early 1637, leading to the financial ruin of many of those involved. Grain was produced on Dutch farms, especially in the inland provinces, but, rather than compete with the massive grain imports from the Baltic, coastal agriculture focused on cash crops for use in industry (flax, hemp, dyes, etc.), dairy and livestock farming, and market gardening. This kind of market-oriented agriculture was more profitable than the traditional production of basic foodstuffs.

The Twelve Years' Truce

The Twelve Years' Truce, which began in 1609, arose out of political controversies that were to dominate the republic for the next two centuries. The collaboration between the house of Orange and the leaders of the province of Holland, which had thwarted Spain in its reconquest of the Netherlands north of the great rivers, was replaced by an intermittent, but often fierce, rivalry between them, in which the other tensions of Dutch political life were reflected and incorporated: the jealousy among the lesser provinces of a Holland that they considered too wealthy, too mighty, and too arrogant but that they knew they needed for their own defense; the misunderstanding between maritime and landward provinces; the annoyance of landed nobles that they were dependent upon the goodwill of burghers in Holland (they preferred the prince of Orange, whom they saw as one of themselves); the resentment of the popular classes, men of small property and of none, toward the town regents (members of government), from whom they looked to the princes of Orange to protect them; and the antipathy of the Reformed clergy toward the regents, who obstructed their desire to make the state serve the church. The debate over whether to conclude a peace with Spain mingled these various interests with that of the house of Orange, partly because Maurice opposed peace, partly because it involved making some compromise with Spain, and partly because it would mean a reduction of his influence in the state; but the province of Holland in particular, under Oldenbarnevelt's leadership, felt that the independence and security of the United Provinces had been sufficiently assured to permit a reduction of the immense expenditures for the war. When Spain reduced its immediate proposal to a truce rather than permanent peace, agreed to treat the United Provinces as independent and sovereign, which was just short of outright recognition, and put aside efforts to win guarantees for Dutch Catholics, the pressure for conclusion of a truce could not be withstood.

The Twelve Years' Truce did not, however, end controversy within the republic. If anything, it only sharpened Maurice of Nassau's opposition to Holland and Oldenbarnevelt. The staunch Calvinists endeavoured to hold the Reformed Church to the strict orthodoxy expounded by Franciscus Gomarus, a Leiden professor of theology, against the broader, less rigorous tenets upheld by his colleague Jacobus Arminius. The Gomarists demanded that the government uphold their principles because the Reformed Church was the only true church, but they reserved for themselves the right to declare what the correct doctrines were; and they vigorously asserted that other religious groups, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish alike, should be suppressed or at least penalized and restricted. On the other hand, the Arminians had the support of the leaders of Holland and a majority of its towns, who felt that what was in effect the state church had to be under the authority of the government. Both out of principle and out of a desire not to hamper trade with men of all religions, they favoured a broadly inclusive Reformed Church and toleration for those outside its ranks.

The efforts of Gomarists to seize churches for their own use in defiance of town authorities led to incipient civil war. Maurice broke openly with the dominant party in Holland when it attempted to set up little provincial armies in Holland and Utrecht. In 1618 he acted under the authority of the States General-in which the majority of provinces favoured the Gomarists (now called the Contra-Remonstrants because they had opposed an Arminian petition) over the Remonstrants (Arminians)-to crush the resistance of Oldenbarnevelt's party. Oldenbarnevelt, two of his chief supporters in Holland (including the great jurist Hugo Grotius), and an ally in Utrecht were arrested and tried for treason by a special court instituted by the States General. The defendants affirmed that they were subject only to the authority of the sovereign province that they served. The sentence, which to foes of the house of Orange over the centuries became an act of judicial murder, sent Oldenbarnevelt, then aged 71, with almost four decades of service as Holland's leader, to his death by beheading in May 1619. Grotius and another defendant (the third had committed suicide) were sentenced to life imprisonment, although Grotius escaped, sensationally, a few years later.

During those fateful months, the Reformed Church held a national synod at Dordrecht. Dominated by the Contra-Remonstrants, the synod expelled the Remonstrants, reaffirmed the doctrines of the church along Gomarian lines, and ordered the preparation of a new translation of the Bible (the famous States Bible, which consolidated the Dutch language much as the contemporary King James Version consolidated English). The triumph of Maurice and the Contra-Remonstrants meant that war with Spain would be a virtual certainty upon the expiration of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1621-all the more because the Spanish authorities in the southern Netherlands insisted upon including rights for Dutch Catholics in a permanent treaty and even sought an acknowledgment by the States General of the nominal overlordship of the king of Spain. Maurice did not use his new uncontested power to reform the complicated incoherence of the Dutch constitution; the structure of government and the distribution of formal power remained the same. Maurice was not a politically minded ruler and was satisfied as long as he had his way in military matters. The United Provinces remained essentially republican in character.

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History of the Netherlands | Flag, Maps, Facts, & World War II

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History of the Netherlands, a survey of notable events and people in the history of the Netherlands, from its founding in 1579 to the present. For information concerning the period prior to that date, see history of the Low Countries. "Netherlands" means low-lying country; the name Holland (from

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1. 1940

2. Greece entered World War II when Italy invaded Greece after an ultimatum from Mussolini was rejected. The date known as Oxi Day (No Day), marks Greece’s refusal to surrender.

3. 500,000 deaths

4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Greece-Byzantine-to-modern

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Learn about this topic in these articles:

Assorted References

major treatment

Makarios III's policies
In Makarios III
...struggle for enosis (union) with Greece during the postwar British occupation, and, from 1959 until his death in 1977, he was the president of independent Cyprus.
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foreign affairs

Balkan Entente
In Balkan Entente
9, 1934), mutual-defense agreement between Greece, Turkey, Romania, and Yugoslavia, intended to guarantee the signatories' territorial integrity and political independence against attack by another Balkan state ( i.e., Bulgaria or Albania). The agreement provided for a Permanent Council, composed of the members' foreign ministers, that would coordinate legislation and foster economic...
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Macedonia naming dispute

Ottoman Empire

Truman Doctrine

In Truman Doctrine
...aid to the governments of Greece, threatened by communist insurrection, and Turkey, under pressure from Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean area. As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during the Cold War that followed World War II, Great Britain announced that it...
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Truman's address to Congress

World War II

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major treatment Makarios III's policies In Makarios III ...struggle for enosis (union) with Greece during the postwar British occupation, and, from 1959 until his death in 1977, he was the president of independent Cyprus.

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1. 1939

2. Germany invaded Poland which made Britain declared war to stop Hitler.Britain gained an important ally when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and later, the U.S. joined after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

3. About 450,700 people died

4. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war

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1. 1939

2. South Africa entered World War II , when its parliament voted to join the Allies and declare war on Nazi Germany. This decision was controversial, as some Afrikaner nationalists sympathized with Germany, but Prime Minister Jan Smuts strongly supported the Allied cause.

3. 11,900 deaths

4. https://www.britannica.com/place/South-Africa/World-War-II

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When Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the United Party split. Hertzog wanted South Africa to remain neutral, but Smuts opted for joining the British war effort. Smuts's faction narrowly won the crucial parliamentary debate, and Hertzog and his followers left the party, many rejoining the National Party faction Malan had maintained since 1934. Smuts then became the prime minister, and South Africa declared war on Germany.

South Africa made significant contributions to the Allied war effort. Some 135,000 white South Africans fought in the East and North African and Italian campaigns, and 70,000 Blacks and Coloureds served as laborers and transport drivers. South African platinum, uranium, and steel became valuable resources, and, during the period that the Mediterranean Sea was closed to the Allies, Durban and Cape Town provisioned a vast number of ships en route from Britain to the Suez.

The war proved to be an economic stimulant for South Africa, although wartime inflation and lagging wages contributed to social protests and strikes after the end of the war. Driven by reduced imports, the manufacturing and service industries expanded rapidly, and the flow of Blacks to the towns became a flood. By the war's end, more Blacks than whites lived in the towns. They set up vast squatter camps on the outskirts of the cities and improvised shelters from whatever materials they could find. They also began to flex their political muscles. Blacks boycotted a Witwatersrand bus company that tried to raise fares, they formed trade unions, and in 1946 more than 60,000 Black gold miners went on strike for higher wages and improved living conditions.

Although the 1946 strike was brutally suppressed by the government, white intellectuals did propose a series of reforms within the segregation framework. The government and private industry made a few concessions, such as easing the industrial color bar, increasing Black wages, and relaxing the pass laws, which restricted the right of Blacks to live and work in white areas. The government, however, failed to discuss these problems with Black representatives.

Afrikaners felt threatened by the concessions given to Blacks and created a series of ethnic organizations to promote their interests, including an economic association, a federation of Afrikaans cultural associations, and the Afrikaner Broederbond, a secret society of Afrikaner cultural leaders. During the war many Afrikaners welcomed the early German victories, and some of them even committed acts of sabotage.

The United Party, which had won the general election in 1943 by a large majority, approached the 1948 election complacently. While the party appeared to take an ambiguous position on race relations, Malan's National Party took an unequivocally pro-white stance. The National Party claimed that the government's weakness threatened white supremacy and produced a statement that used the word to describe a program of tightened segregation and discrimination. With the support of a tiny fringe group, the National Party won the election by a narrow margin.

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South Africa - WWII, Apartheid, Mandela | Britannica

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South Africa - WWII, Apartheid, Mandela: When Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the United Party split. Hertzog wanted South Africa to remain neutral, but Smuts opted for joining the British war effort. Smuts's faction narrowly won the crucial parliamentary debate, and Hertzog and his followers left the party, many rejoining the National Party faction Malan had maintained since 1934.

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1. 1942

2. Mexico officially entered World War II after Germany sank two Mexican oil tankers (Potrero del Llano and Faja de Oro) in the Gulf of Mexico. This led Mexico to declare war on the Axis powers.

3. 300-500 deaths

4. https://www.britannica.com/place/Mexico/World-War-II-1941-45

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World War II brought profound changes to Mexico. Its basic economic structure was transformed, as to a lesser degree were its political, social, and cultural institutions. To offset wartime shortages, industrialization and urbanization were accelerated.

Even before Mexico entered the war, it supplied vital raw materials to the United States. Mexico and the United States in November 1941 signed a general agreement that resolved most of their outstanding quarrels. The old problem of U.S. agrarian claims was settled, a reciprocal-trade treaty was outlined, and the Mexican peso was stabilized and supported to maintain a constant dollar ratio. The United States agreed to continue silver purchases at world prices and to provide long-term loans to buttress Mexico's economy. Separate agreements were reached on military aid, primarily to professionalize the Mexican army and its small air force. To that end, the military sector was dropped from the official party, eliminating the army as a separate bloc in politics.

Mexico became an active belligerent in World War II in 1942 after Germany sank two of its tankers. The Mexican foreign secretary, Ezequiel Padilla, took the lead in urging other Latin American countries to support the Allies as well. A Mexican-North American joint defense committee planned cooperative operations to be carried out in case the Japanese attacked Mexico's west coast. Former president Lázaro Cárdenas served on the committee and became minister of defense when that post was created in 1944. A small Mexican air unit operated with the United States in the Philippines. But Mexico's major contribution to the war effort was the steady supply of raw materials for U.S. industry. It also contributed hundreds of thousands of temporary farmworkers ( braceros) and railroad men under the Bracero Treaty, which was negotiated by the United States in 1942 to alleviate labour shortages occasioned by the military draft. (By the time the program was finally terminated in the 1960s, millions of Mexicans had participated.)

If Mexico had only a minor impact on the outcome of the war, the war exerted a major impact on Mexico. With most of the free world producing war matériel, imports to Mexico became scarce or were unavailable. To fill this vacuum, Mexican light industry developed, almost exclusively with Mexican capital. As a result, the social revolution of the 1920s and '30s was replaced by an industrial revolution in the postwar years.

Mexico since 1945

Prosperity and repression under the PRI

Mexico's population exploded at the end of World War II. The industrialism spawned by the war became a major element in the economy. The military increasingly faded into the background as arbiters of national policy, and Mexico had an unbroken line of civilian presidents, beginning with the election of Miguel Alemán in 1946. With him the emphasis shifted from the Cárdenas approach-dividing Mexico's small agricultural land area among many persons-to the development of new resources. Massive hydraulic projects were undertaken to furnish electric power, open new lands, provide flood control, and become the nuclei of regional agricultural-industrial complexes. The nationalized oil industry became a major producer of natural gas and petrochemicals in an effort to meet burgeoning domestic needs. Economic integration was accomplished by the extension of railroad, highway, and airline networks to nearly all regions.

Postwar Mexico was marked by a continuity of basic policies unprecedented in Mexican history and by the peaceful constitutional transfer of presidential power from one civilian regime to the next. President Alemán was the chief architect of new departures in the official party, including the change of its name from the Party of the Mexican Revolution to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional; PRI). Suffrage in Mexico doubled when President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines enfranchised women with a constitutional amendment in 1953, though they did not actually vote until 1958. Electoral reform laws broadened the political base, but opposition parties grew slowly as the PRI dominated the political power mechanisms of the state. As late as the 1980s, only the conservative National Action Party (Partido de Acción Popular; PAN) constituted any kind of a threat to the PRI. It was only a minor threat, however, with its strength limited to a few northern states. But by the 1990s PAN and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática; PRD) had become significant political forces.

Mexico experienced unprecedented prosperity during the half century following World War II, despite some notable periods of economic strain. Mexico's economic growth in the 1970s was financed with massive international loans. Government planners calculated easy repayment from projected oil revenues, including income from the huge reserves discovered in 1976 in Tabasco and Chiapas states. They were unable, however, to predict the world oil glut of the early 1980s and the sharp fall in oil prices. The Mexican government struggled increasingly to pay even the interest on its huge foreign debt.

Other problems included high unemployment and underemployment, an unfavourable balance of trade, and an alarming inflation rate. Wealthy Mexicans reinvested their assets abroad because they lacked confidence in the economy. The Mexican peso declined rapidly in foreign-exchange markets. President José López Portillo, elected in 1976, nationalized the country's banks and imposed strict foreign-currency controls to achieve some economic stability. Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, who was elected to succeed López in 1982, established a program of economic austerity that gradually restored international confidence in the Mexican economy.

The country also endured its share of political violence. Mexico, like many other Latin American countries, was considered a U.S. ally in the Cold War. However, Mexican society embraced a wide political spectrum with a range of outspoken activists, including members of leftist political parties who believed the government had abandoned the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. At the other end of the political spectrum were reactionary forces in the military who viewed such dissension as a serious threat to national security. Within this tense climate, the country experienced numerous public protests, police crackdowns, and escalating violence-including the shooting of demonstrators just days before the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City-along with allegations of antigovernment plots and terrorism. The climate of fear degenerated into a "dirty war" from the 1960s through the 1980s, during which right-wing government forces were responsible for the "disappearance" of hundreds of peasant organizers, student activists, and other dissidents. Many were taken into custody merely on the suspicion of subversion and suffered human rights abuses including torture, imprisonment without trial, and extrajudicial execution. However, the fates of many were unknown until the 21st century, when the administration of President Vicente Fox released formerly secret government documents from the period.

In September 1985 an earthquake killed thousands of people in Mexico City, and many blamed the federal government for the slow pace of reconstruction. Economic liberalization, narcotics traffic, and the flow of immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border were also major concerns. In the 1988 presidential election, which was allegedly marred by widespread fraud, de la Madrid was succeeded in 1988 by PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Salinas's policies signaled a great departure from the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. He favoured neoliberal (free market-driven) trade policies, criticized labour unions and the ejido system of agriculture, and set aside much of the anticlericalism that had typified the revolution. In 1992 Salinas signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada. When it went into effect on January 1, 1994, it had already fostered a wave of neoliberal trade and the opening of additional maquiladoras (export-oriented manufacturing plants). But there was a price to pay for declaring the Mexican Revolution dead. That same day, a long-simmering rebellion erupted when the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional; EZLN), commonly called the Zapatistas, seized several towns in Chiapas state and demanded social justice for Mexico's impoverished indigenous peoples. More than 145 people died in the initial fighting. Over the following years, the Zapatistas found sympathy among large segments of the Mexican populace even as the government attempted to extinguish the rebellion with a mixture of military offensives and negotiations.

After decades of one-party rule and numerous accusations of rigged election results, opposition parties made increasing calls for free and fair elections. In 1994, significant electoral reforms were finally enacted; however, that year was also marked by the assassination of the PRI presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, and of the PRI secretary-general, José Francisco Ruíz Massieu. (The brother of former president Salinas was imprisoned from 1995 to 2005 while being investigated for the latter's murder.) Colosio's campaign manager, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, was designated the new PRI candidate and went on to win the election.

Beyond single-party rule

Zedillo struggled with economic and social issues. In late 1994 and 1995 Mexico reeled from the "tequila crisis," which resulted from a rapid devaluation of the peso. The government instituted an economic austerity program-which was particularly detrimental for the poor-to secure billions of dollars in emergency loans from the United States and the International Monetary Fund, and the economy slowly began to improve. Zedillo continued to promote the neoliberal policies of his predecessor; however, the Mexican Congress resisted calls for the sale of Pemex. Zedillo broke with tradition by appointing a non-PRI cabinet member, by cooperating with opposition parties to enact electoral reforms, and by refusing to select his successor-insisting instead that the party choose its next presidential candidate. Many of Zedillos's reforms effectively loosened the PRI's grip on power, and in 1997 opposition parties won several seats in municipal, state, and national elections-including control of the Chamber of Deputies-while the leftist politician Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano became Mexico City's first elected mayor. In addition, the government's popularity declined after anti-Zapatista paramilitary groups massacred dozens of peasants in Chiapas.

In 2000 the PAN candidate Vicente Fox Quesada was elected president. Fox's term (2000-06) marked the end of 71 years of PRI presidential rule, although his leadership suffered from divisions within PAN and from the party's failure to win a congressional majority in 2000 and in the 2003 midterm elections. Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive and state governor, continued to promote neoliberal economics while promising to fight corruption and drug trafficking. He also called for a human rights commission to report on abuses committed by the PRI government during Mexico's "dirty war" of the 1960s to '80s. Fox's efforts regarding the rebellion in Chiapas met with mixed results, although he named an indigenous rights coordinator and allowed a caravan of Zapatista delegates to meet with him in Mexico City. However, the Zapatistas charged that Fox failed to address the deepest inequalities and abuses-many of which, they believed, were linked with free-trade policies and were root causes of the rebellion.

In the controversial 2006 presidential election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known widely as AMLO), the popular PRD governor of the Federal District, squared off as the candidate of a leftist coalition against the conservative PAN candidate, Felipe Calderón. Both López Obrador and Calderón initially claimed victory in the closely contested race, which was marred by evidence of irregularities and allegations of fraud. Massive protests (including the sustained occupation of central Mexico City) resulted from the declaration of Calderón as the winner; even after the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Branch confirmed Calderón's election, López Obrador announced the formation of a parallel government, with himself as the "legitimate" president. Nonetheless, Calderón was inaugurated in December and took power. Moreover, in the 2006 election, PAN garnered the greatest number of seats in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, although it did not win an outright majority.
Howard F. Cline Michael C. Meyer
During his term Calderón passed legislation to reform Mexico's judicial system, and he worked to strengthen the energy sector, increase the number of jobs, and fight crime and drug gangs. Although Pemex (and government coffers) benefited from soaring oil prices associated with U.S. consumption and wars in the Middle East, oil reserves were in decline. In 2008 the Mexican Congress passed a series of energy reforms that included provisions to allow limited indirect private investment in Pemex. (The approval was highly controversial, as the oil industry is required by the Mexican constitution to remain state-owned.) Meanwhile, escalating drug violence and cartel warfare, most notably in U.S.-Mexican border towns and cities, resulted in annual death tolls that climbed as high as more than 15,000 people in 2010. In December 2006 Calderón had responded to the drug cartels by launching widespread security operations that grew to involve tens of thousands of members of the military. As the violence increased and the number of those killed mounted (by September 2011 surpassing a total of 47,000 related deaths since the Calderón administration began its assault on the cartels), the confrontation became a national security crisis widely characterized as Mexico's Drug War. Brutal massacres and beheadings appeared in the headlines as the cartels (some of whose forces included former soldiers) battled each other and the government. In the process the government was also accused of human rights violations.

As if this crisis were not enough, Mexico was also struck with an outbreak of H1N1 flu, with 2,000 cases reported in Mexico City by the end of April 2009. Although in June the outbreak was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, the Mexican government was generally praised for its response to the threat ( see influenza pandemic [H1N1] of 2009). The Mexican economy was also rocked as a consequence of the Great Recession of 2008-09 that pummeled the economy of Mexico's biggest trading partner, the United States. By 2010 Mexico's economy had begun to bounce back, but wages remained static, and the gap between rich and poor continued to widen.

The Drug War and the economy were the main issues in the federal elections held on July 1, 2012. Seemingly tired of 12 years of executive rule by PAN, the Mexican electorate appeared to return the PRI to the presidency in the person of Enrique Peña Nieto, the youthful (age 45), telegenic former governor of the state of México, who, according to preliminary results, won a plurality by outdistancing López Obrador, who finished second again as the candidate of the PRD, and PAN's candidate, Josefina Vázquez Mota, a former cabinet member who was vying to be the first woman to be elected the country's president. Responding to López Obrador's allegations of violations of election law and voting fraud (including vote buying by the PRI), however, the Federal Electoral Institute ordered a recount of more than half of the country's polling places. A recount of the vote in the federal legislative elections was also mandated in roughly two-thirds of the polling places. The recount of the presidential contest confirmed Peña Nieto's victory. He was inaugurated on December 1.

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World War II brought profound changes to Mexico. Its basic economic structure was transformed, as to a lesser degree were its political, social, and cultural institutions. To offset wartime shortages, industrialization and urbanization were accelerated. Even before Mexico entered the war, it supplied vital raw materials to the United States.

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1. 1941

2. The attack on Pearl Harbor took place December,1941 when Japan launched a surprise military strike against the U.S. naval base in Hawaii. This event led directly to the United States entering World War II.

3. 2,403 died

4. https://www.britannica.com/event/Pearl-Harbor-attack

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Pearl Harbor attack, (December 7, 1941), surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan.

Prelude to war

In the late 1930s, American foreign policy in the Pacific hinged on support for China, and aggression against China by Japan therefore necessarily would bring Japan into conflict with the United States. As early as 1931 the Tokyo government had extended its control over the Chinese province of Manchuria, and the following year the Japanese cemented their hold on the region with the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo. A clash at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing on July 7, 1937, signaled the beginning of open warfare between Japan and the United Front of Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communist Party. In response, the United States government extended its first loan to China in 1938.

In July 1939 the U.S. announced the termination of the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan. Beginning in the summer of 1940, the U.S. began to restrict the export to Japan of materials useful in war. Between June 1940 and the fateful crisis of December 1941, the tension constantly mounted. In July 1941, by which time the Japanese had occupied all of Indochina and had entered into an alliance with the Axis powers ( Germany and Italy), the U.S. government severed all commercial and financial relations with Japan. Japanese assets were frozen, and an embargo was declared on shipments to Japan of petroleum and other vital war materials. Militarists were steadily gaining in influence in the Tokyo government; they bitterly resented U.S. aid to China, which by this time had been stepped up. They saw in the German invasion of the Soviet Union an unrivaled opportunity to pursue a policy of aggression in the Far East without danger of an attack upon their rear by the forces of the Red Army. Nonetheless, negotiations looking to find some kind of understanding between the United States and Japan took place through the autumn of 1941, and not until near the end of November did it become clear that no agreement was possible.

Although Japan continued to negotiate with the United States up to the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the government of Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki decided on war. Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku, the commander in chief of Japan's Combined Fleet, had planned the attack against the U.S. Pacific Fleet with great care. Once the U.S. fleet was out of action, the way for the unhindered Japanese conquest of all of Southeast Asia and the Indonesian archipelago would be open. The order for the assault was issued on November 5, 1941, and on November 16 the task force began its rendezvous in the Kuril Islands. Commanders were instructed that the fleet might be recalled, however, in case of a favourable outcome of the negotiations in Washington, D.C. On November 26, Vice Adm. Nagumo Chuichi led a fleet including 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, and 11 destroyers to a point some 275 miles (440 km) north of Hawaii. From there about 360 planes in total were launched.

Warnings and responses

The U.S. Pacific Fleet had been stationed at Pearl Harbor since April 1940. In addition to nearly 100 naval vessels, including 8 battleships, there were substantial military and air forces. As the tension mounted, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lieut. Gen. Walter C. Short, who shared command at Pearl Harbor, were warned of the possibility of war, specifically on October 16 and again on November 24 and 27. The notice of November 27, to Kimmel, began, "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning," went on to say that "negotiations have ceased," and directed the admiral to "execute an appropriate defensive deployment." Kimmel also was ordered to "undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary." The communication of the same day to Short declared that "hostile action is possible at any moment" and, like its naval counterpart, urged "measures of reconnaissance."

In response to these warnings, the measures taken by the army and navy commanders were, as the event proved, far from adequate. Short ordered an alert against sabotage and concentrated most of his fighter planes at the base on Wheeler Field in an effort to prevent damage to them. He also gave orders to operate five of the mobile radar sets that had been set up in the island from 4:00 am to 7:00 am, considered to be the most dangerous period. (Radar training, however, was in a far-from-advanced stage.)

Kimmel, despite the fact that his intelligence had not been able to locate substantial elements in the Japanese fleet-especially the first-line ships in carrier divisions 1 and 2-did not expand his reconnaissance activities to the northwest, the logical point for an attack. He moored the entire fleet (save that part which was at sea) in the harbour and permitted a part of his personnel to go on shore leave. Neither of these officers suspected that the base at Pearl Harbor would itself be subjected to attack. Nor, for that matter, is there any indication that their superiors in Washington were in any way conscious of the approaching danger. In the 10 days between the war warning of November 27 and the Japanese attack itself, no additional action was taken by Washington.

Early on Sunday morning, December 7, Washington learned that the Japanese ambassadors had been instructed to ask for an interview with the secretary of state at 1:00 pm (7:30 am Pearl Harbor time). This was a clear indication that war was at hand. The message took some time to decode, and it was not in the hands of the chief of naval operations until about 10:30. It was delivered to the War Department between 9:00 and 10:00 am. Gen. George C. Marshall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, was out horseback riding and did not see the dispatch until he arrived at his office about 11:15 am. The chief of naval operations, Adm. Harold Stark, even then did not think that the communication called for any additional instructions to Kimmel. However, Marshall did decide to send a new warning and gave orders to the military command to communicate with the navy. He did not telephone, fearing that his words might be intercepted, and instead sent his dispatch by telegram. There was a mix-up in communication, however, and the warning did not reach Hawaii until after the attack had begun. It is important to note that it had not been filed until noon, only an hour before the Japanese planes moved in on the base.

At Pearl Harbor itself, there were incidents that, properly interpreted, might have given a brief warning. Four hours before the decisive moment, a Japanese submarine was sighted by the minesweeper USS Condor. About two and a half hours later, the commander of the destroyer USS Ward sent a message saying that he "had attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area" near Pearl Harbor. While Kimmel waited for confirmation of this report, the Japanese opened hostilities. In these same morning hours, U.S. Army Pvt. George Elliott, practicing on the radar set after its normal closing time, noticed a large flight of planes on the screen. When he telephoned his lieutenant, he was told to disregard the observation, as a flight of B-17 bombers from the United States was expected at that time. Once again an opportunity was missed.

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Pearl Harbor attack | Date, History, Map, Casualties, Timeline, & Facts

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Pearl Harbor attack, surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, which precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. Learn more about the details and significance of the attack in this article.