# data[].attributes.body
Below is a post World War II article.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At the end of World War II, huge swaths of Europe and Asia had been reduced to ruins. Borders were redrawn and homecomings, expulsions, and burials were under way. But the massive efforts to rebuild had just begun. When the war began in the late 1930s, the world's population was approximately 2 billion. In less than a decade, the war between the Axis the Allied powers had resulted in 80 million deaths -- killing off about 4 percent of the whole world. Allied forces now became occupiers, taking control of Germany, Japan, and much of the territory they had formerly ruled. Efforts were made to permanently dismantle the war-making abilities of those nations, as factories were destroyed and former leadership was removed or prosecuted. War crimes trials took place in Europe and Asia, leading to many executions and prison sentences. Millions of Germans and Japanese were forcibly expelled from territories they called home. Allied occupations and United Nations decisions led to many long-lasting problems in the future, including the tensions that created East and West Germany, and divergent plans on the Korean Peninsula that led to the creation of North and South Korea and -- the Korean War in 1950. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine paved the way for Israel to declare its independence in 1948 and marked the start of the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. The growing tensions between Western powers and the Soviet Eastern Bloc developed into the Cold War, and the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons raised the very real specter of an unimaginable World War III if common ground could not be found. World War II was the biggest story of the 20th Century, and its aftermath continues to affect the world profoundly more than 65 years later. (This entry is Part 20 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II)

View this page Hints: full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ←/→.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Part 20 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II

# data[].attributes.body
Here is a good list of WWII data for your paper.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The carnage of World War II was unprecedented and brought the world closest to the term "total warfare." On average 27,000 people were killed each day between September 1, 1939, until the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Western technological advances had turned upon itself, bringing about the most destructive war in human history. The primary combatants were the Axis nations of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the Allied nations, Great Britain (and its Commonwealth nations), the Soviet Union, and the United States. Seven days after the suicide of Adolf Hitler, Germany unconditionally surrendered on May 7, 1945. The Japanese would go on to fight for nearly four more months until their surrender on September 2, which was brought on by the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese towns of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Despite winning the war, Britain largely lost much of its empire, which was outlined in the basis of the Atlantic Charter. The war precipitated the revival of the U.S. economy, and by the war's end, the nation would have a gross national product that was nearly greater than all the Allied and Axis powers combined. The USA and USSR emerged from World War II as global superpowers. The fundamentally disparate, one-time allies became engaged in what was to be called the Cold War, which dominated world politics for the latter half of the 20th century.
What Happened in WWII?
Facts & Information

September 1, 1939

September 2, 1945

Latest Stories about World War II

What Happened in World War II:

When did World War II begin?

Some say it was simply a continuation of the First World War that had theoretically ended in 1918. Others point to 1931, when Japan seized Manchuria from China. Others to Italy's invasion and defeat of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, Adolf Hitler's re-militarization of Germany's Rhineland in 1936, the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 are sometimes cited. The two dates most often mentioned as "the beginning of World War II" are July 7, 1937, when the " Marco Polo Bridge Incident" led to a prolonged war between Japan and China, and September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, which led Britain and France to declare war on Hitler's Nazi state in retaliation. From the invasion of Poland until the war ended with Japan's surrender in September 1945, most nations around the world were engaged in armed combat.

Origins of World War II

No one historic event can be said to have been the origin of World War II. Japan's unexpected victory over czarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) left open the door for Japanese expansion in Asia and the Pacific. The United States U.S. Navy first developed plans in preparation for a naval war with Japan in 1890. War Plan Orange, as it was called, would be updated continually as technology advanced and greatly aided the U.S. during World War II.

The years between the first and second world wars were a time of instability. The Great Depression that began on Black Tuesday, 1929 plunged the worldwide recession. Coming to power in 1933, Hitler capitalized on this economic decline and the deep German resentment due to the emasculating Treaty of Versailles, signed following the armistice of 1918. Declaring that Germany needed Lebensraum or "living space," Hitler began to test the Western powers and their willingness to monitor the treaty's provision. By 1935 Hitler had established the Luftwaffe, a direct violation of the 1919 treaty. Remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936 violated Versailles and the Locarno Treaties (which defined the borders of Europe) once again. The Anschluss of Austria and the annexation of the rump of Czechoslovakia was a further extension of Hitler's desire for Lebensraum. Italy's desire to create the Third Rome pushed the nation to closer ties with Nazi Germany. Likewise, Japan, angered by their exclusion in Paris in 1919, sought to create a Pan-Asian sphere with Japan in order to create a self-sufficient state.

Competing ideologies further fanned the flames of international tension. The Bolshevik Revolution in czarist Russia during the First World War, followed by the Russian Civil War, had established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a sprawling communist state. Western republics and capitalists feared the spread of Bolshevism. In some nations, such as Italy, Germany and Romania, ultra-conservative groups rose to power, in part in reaction to communism.

Germany, Italy and Japan signed agreements of mutual support but, unlike the Allied nations they would face, they never developed a comprehensive or coordinated plan of action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World War II: Facts & Info About the Bloodiest War in History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Facts, information, and stories about World War II, the global conflict that killed tens of millions between 1939 and 1945.

# data[].attributes.body
Use these flashcards to study for a quiz coming soon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The security system for this website has been triggered. Completing the challenge below proves you are a human and gives you temporary access.

# data[].attributes.body
This youtube channel can help you sum up

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World War II: Crash Course World History #38

# data[].attributes.body
These images can help you in you presentation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From Pearl Harbor to D-Day to the momentous events you may not know so well, these World War 2 photos bring history's worst cataclysm to life.

Robert F. Sargent, U.S. Coast Guard/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons

Paris Bureau of The New York Times/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons

Department of Defense/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons

Paris Bureau of The New York Times/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons

Jerry J. Jostwick/U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Navy/National Archives and Records Administration

Like this gallery?
Share it:

Powerful World War 2 Photos That Most People Haven't Seen

Both during and soon after World War 1, politicians and pundits began referring to the devastating conflict as "the war to end all wars."

One can hardly blame them for such a grandiose name. The West had never seen anything like World War 1 before. Between 1914 and 1918, approximately 17 million soldiers and civilians died while another 20 million lay seriously wounded.

Yet even this was not in fact "the war to end all wars." Just two decades later, most of the same countries waged war on much of the same ground. This time, however, the casualties were more than four times worse.

With combined civilian and military death toll estimates ranging as high as 85 million, World War 2 remains the single deadliest cataclysm in human history.

Between 1939 and 1945, the world endured not only its bloodiest and most far-reaching military campaigns, but also some of its deadliest famines, civilian exterminations, and epidemics. In Nazi concentration camps across Eastern Europe, those years saw the worst genocide ever on record.

Yet, today, the devastation of any one of these facets of World War 2 -- let alone all of them taken together -- is so vast that it becomes unfathomable.

As the famous quote widely misattributed to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, one of World War 2's most important figures, goes: "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic."

Perhaps, however, the best way to attempt to drag World War 2's 85 million deaths out of the realm of statistics and back into the realm of tragedy is not with words, but images.

From the battlefields to the faces of the civilians who never set foot on one but whose lives were shattered all the same, the World War 2 photos above bring history's greatest catastrophe to life.
After viewing these World War 2 photos, check out 31 of the most fascinating little-known World War II facts, and 21 of the most surprising World War II myths. Then, read up on the worst war crimes that U.S. forces committed during World War II.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rarely-Seen World War II Photos That Bring History's Greatest Cataclysm To Life

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Robert F. Sargent, U.S. Coast Guard/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons Paris Bureau of The New York Times/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons Department of Defense/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons Paris Bureau of The New York Times/National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons Jerry J.