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The Nazi party was campaigning very extensively for votes. In 1932, the Nazi party won 37% of the votes. They still lost by 33%, but received more votes than any other party. Since the Nazi party had such electoral success, it made it hard to govern Germany without their input. Hitler demanded to be named as Chancellor in order for his help. Then president Hindenburg died and Hitler became the dictator of Germany.

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https://www.britannica.com/list/9-things-you-might-not-know-about-adolf-hitler

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Photos.com-Getty Images/Thinkstock

Adolf Hitler is one of the most well-known-and reviled-figures in history. As the leader of Nazi Germany, he orchestrated both World War II and the Holocaust, events that led to the deaths of at least 40,000,000 people. In the ensuing decades, he was the subject of countless books, documentaries, and TV shows. This list presents some notable, and a few lesser-known, facts about him.

Heil Schicklgruber?

Adolf Hitler was almost Adolf Schicklgruber. Or Adolf Hiedler. His father, Alois, was born out of wedlock to Maria Anna Schicklgruber and given her surname. However, when he was about 40 years old, Alois decided to adopt the last name of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler, who some speculated was actually his biological father. On the legal documents, Hitler was given as the new last name, though the reason for the spelling change is unknown. Alois Hitler was married twice and had several children before taking Klara Pölzl as his third wife. The couple had six children, though only Adolf and a sister reached adulthood. Adolf had a difficult relationship with his father, who died in 1903, but he adored his mother and was reportedly grief-stricken by her death from breast cancer in 1907.

World War I Service

When he committed suicide in 1945, Hitler was wearing the Iron Cross First Class medal, earned for his service in World War I. The honor was especially important to Hitler, who had portrayed himself as a hero during the conflict. Although he was wounded during the First Battle of the Somme (1916), recent research challenges Hitler's account of his war experience. Some believe that he saw little if any front-line action and instead was a runner at the relatively safe regiment headquarters. This would counter his claims that he was in danger "probably every day." In addition, while he stated that he was temporarily blinded during a mustard-gas attack in 1918, purported medical documents state that he suffered from "hysterical blindness." He was recuperating when Germany surrendered. Oddly, his citation for the Iron Cross First Class fails to mention a specific incident of bravery, leading some researchers to speculate that it was given to honor Hitler's length of service and his general likability with officers, notably Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish lieutenant who recommended that Hitler receive the award.

Mein Kampf: Banned Best Seller

Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, Volumes 1 and 2 (ed. 855), 1943

In 1924, while in prison for high treason, Hitler began writing what would later be considered one of the world's most dangerous books. In Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), which was initially published in two volumes (1925, 1927), Hitler chronicled his life and presented his racist ideology; he claimed to have become "a fanatical anti-Semite" while living in Vienna. Although it initially had only limited success, Mein Kampf's popularity grew as did that of Hitler and the Nazis. A bible of National Socialism, it was required reading in Germany, and by 1939 more than five million copies had been sold. After Hitler's death, the work was banned in Germany and other countries, and the German state of Bavaria, which held the copyright, refused to grant publishing rights. However, some foreign publishers continued to print the work, and in 2016 it entered the public domain after the copyright expired. Days later a heavily annotated Mein Kampf was published in Germany for the first time since 1945. It became a best seller.

From Fire to Führer

Reichstag fire National Archives, Washington, D.C. (ARC Identifier: 535790)

Following a series of maneuverings and intrigues, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in January 1933. However, he aspired to even greater power, and that was achieved when Germany's parliamentary building caught fire and was severely damaged on February 27, 1933. While Hitler's involvement in the Reichstag fire remains uncertain-a lone communist was later convicted of the crime-he used the event to solidify his authority. The day after the blaze, he oversaw the suspension of all civil liberties, and in the following month's election, the Nazis and their allies secured a majority in the Reichstag. On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which sanctioned Hitler's dictatorship. Then, in August 1934, shortly after the death of Pres. Paul von Hindenburg, the German people voted to give Hitler complete authority, combining the offices of chancellor and president to create the post of " Führer und Reichskanzler" ("Leader and Chancellor").

Art Critic

Nazi art theft National Archives, Washington D.C

While much has been made of Hitler's failed career as an artist-he was rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and lived in poverty trying to sell his work-his interest in art seemed only to increase after he became führer. While Hitler favored the idealized work of Classical Greece and Rome, he was highly critical of contemporary movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, and Dada. In the 1930s Nazis began removing such " degenerative art" from German museums. Modern works by Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Emile Nolde were later shown in a 1937 multicity exhibition and described as "culture documents of the decadent work of Bolsheviks and Jews." Throughout the war, Hitler ordered the systematic looting of artworks on an unprecedented scale; reportedly his most coveted stolen item was the Ghent Altarpiece. This and other works were intended to fill a planned "super museum" in Linz, Austria, known as the Führermuseum.

Teetotaler, Vegetarian, and Drug User?

In attempting to build a master " Aryan" race, the Nazis were known for promoting health-conscious policies. So, it is perhaps not surprising that Hitler was reportedly a teetotaler, nonsmoker, and vegetarian. However, his healthy habits were undermined by his alleged use of opiates. According to recent research, in 1941 his personal physician, Theodor Morell, began injecting him with various drugs, including oxycodone, methamphetamine, morphine, and even cocaine. In fact, drug use was reportedly prevalent throughout the Nazi Party, and soldiers were often given meth before battle. Near the end of his life, Hitler was prone to shaking, and, while some have attributed this to Parkinson disease, others have speculated it was withdrawal from drugs, which by then were hard to obtain.

Billionaire

Adolf Hitler Photos.com/Jupiterimages

Perhaps spurred by his earlier poverty, Hitler seemed determined to amass a personal fortune. Much of his money came from predictable sources-siphoning off government money and accepting "donations" from corporations. However, he also undertook more creative schemes. After becoming chancellor, he notably ordered the government to buy copies of his Mein Kampf to give as state wedding gifts to newlyweds, leading to hefty royalties for Hitler. In addition, he refused to pay income tax. He used his vast wealth-which some estimated was about $5 billion-to amass an extensive art collection, purchase fine furnishings, and acquire various properties. After the war, his estate was given to Bavaria.

Nobel Prize Scandal

In 1939 a Swedish legislator nominated Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although he intended it as a joke, few found it amusing. Instead, it created an uproar, and the nomination was quickly withdrawn. Not that Hitler would have wanted-or even been able to accept-the award. In 1936 German journalist Carl von Ossietzky, a vocal critic of Hitler, had been named the winner of the 1935 peace prize. The gesture was seen as a censure of Nazism and an "insult" to Germany. As a result, Hitler barred all Germans from accepting a Nobel Prize and created the German National Prize for Art and Science as an alternative. The three Germans who subsequently won Nobels during the Third Reich were forced to decline their awards, though they later received the diplomas and medals.

Death and Conspiracy Theories

On April 30, 1945, with the war lost and Soviet troops advancing, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin, shooting himself. Eva Braun, whom he had recently married, also took her own life. According to Hitler's wishes, their bodies were burned and then buried. At least, that is the widely accepted version of his death. Almost immediately conspiracy theories began-thanks in part to the Soviets. They initially claimed that they were unable to confirm that Hitler was dead and later spread rumors that he was alive and being protected by the West. When pressed by U.S. Pres. Harry Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin stated that he did not know Hitler's fate. According to later reports, however, the Soviets recovered his burnt remains, which were identified through dental records. The body was secretly buried before being exhumed and cremated, the ashes being scattered in 1970, though a piece of skull-bearing a single gunshot wound and not found until 1946-was kept. Such news failed to stem the doubts, however, and they only increased in 2009, when researchers determined that the skull fragment actually belonged to a woman.

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9 Things You Might Not Know About Adolf Hitler

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Adolf Hitler was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He has been the subject of books, documentaries, TV shows, and films. Learn more about this reviled and notorious dictator, including claims about his art career, vegetarianism, and conspiracy theories about his death.

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Fact #1 - Hitler was imprisoned in Munich Germany for trying to overthrow the German government. During his time in jail, he started writing a book called Mein Kampf which talked about his racist ideology.

Fact #2 - His racist ideology catapulted him up the chain of command in the government. Soon enough he became chancellor and started plans based on his ideas.

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Leader of Nazi Germany

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Leader of the Soviet Union

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Fact #1 - In 1941, Hitler launched a full scale invasion of Russia. He wanted to conquer the Soviet Union. This violated the non-aggression pact both Stalin and Hitler signed. Stalin had no other choice but to declare war on his once buddy and join the Allies.

Fact #2 - Stalin encouraged Hitler to invade Poland and begin World War 2. He and his new partner worked together to conquer country after country. Stalin invaded Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania.

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Stalin served in the Russian civil war in 1922. His leadership and bravery struck good with the hearts of the Russian people. In 1924, the leader of Russia Vladimir Lenin died. Joseph Stalin took over as leader of the Soviet Union.

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Fascist dictator of Italy

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Fact #1 - Mussolini signed the Pact of Steel in 1939. This united Germany and Italy politically and militarily. The promise was to support Hitler if a war broke out.

Fact #2 - In 1943, the citizens of Italy saw them as losing the war. After years of fighting, they were in no position of power. They plotted a plan to get Mussolini out of power. He was shot by a firing squad 1945.

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In 1922, Mussolini led a coalition of fascist soldiers and stormed to Rome. They forced the King of Italy to surrender and Mussolini took over. He was appointed Prime Minister. By 1925, Mussolini dismantled the democratic government.

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https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/benito-mussolini#:~:text=Mussolini%2C%20fearful%20of%20being%20handed,of%20thousands%20of%20Italian%20Jews.

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Benito Mussolini was an Italian political leader who became the fascist dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945. Originally a revolutionary socialist and a

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Prime Minister of Japan

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Fact #1 - On December 7th, 1941; Tojo ordered the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He said he wanted to start war with the US. Tojo joined the war in October and was supported in his decision to bomb the US.

Fact #2 - In 1944, he was forced to retire when he lost Saipan to the Allied Forces in July.

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In July 1940, Tojo became minister of war. He immediately clashed with the prime minister. The prime minister wanted to have a less military presence, while Tojo wanted more military power. In October, the prime minister resigned because of the growing tension of Tojo. Hideki Tojo became the next prime minister of Japan.

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https://schoolhistory.co.uk/modern/hideki-tojo/#:~:text=In%201938%2C%20Tojo%20became%20army,of%20the%20Army%20General%20Staff.

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Let's know more about Hideki Tojo!

Hideki Tojo was an Imperial Japanese Army general and Prime Minister of Japan through most of WWII, most famous for his attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Pearl Harbor attack marked the beginning of the Pacific War, which would continue until 1945.

America and Britain began to take action that suggested they were close to war with Japan in late 1941, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tojo became known as 'Razor Tojo' because he was efficient, and rose quickly up the army ranks.

Hideki Tojo led Japanese forces in Manchuria during the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s.

Tojo became Kwantung Army chief of staff in 1937.

Key Facts

In 1938, Tojo became army vice minister and in 1940 he became army minister.

Tojo wanted an alliance between Japan, Germany and Italy and pushed for it in the government.

Tojo served as the Prime Minister and army minister during WWII, and in 1944 he took the additional command of chief of the Army General Staff.

Tojo wanted to create a dictatorship like those of Joseph Stalin in Russia and Adolf Hitler in Germany but he was not successful.

While serving as Prime Minister, Tojo also held the positions of Foreign Minister, Education Minister, Home Minister, and Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Hideki Tojo began to lose popularity in the later years of WWII. He was forced to resign on 18 July, 1944, after the fall of Saipan to the Allied Forces on 9 July, 1944.

Assassination plots began to surface in the summer of 1944, but they were not successful.

Many expected Tojo to commit suicide.

Tojo was tried for war crimes, found guilty and sentenced to death. Hideki Tojo was hanged on 23 December, 1948.

Prologue

A politician and a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, Hideki Tojo also served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.

Tojo's voice was among the loudest concerning the preventive war against the United States during deliberations leading up to Pearl Harbor. Upon becoming Prime Minister, he presided over much of the conquest of the West's territories in Asia and the Pacific until the defeat of Japanese forces at Midway and Guadalcanal.

His years in power gave him the tools for perpetuating numerous war crimes including the systematic massacre and starvation of civilians and prisoners of war. But the war's tide increasingly turned against Japan, leading to Tojo's late resignation as Prime Minister. Japan's surrender was inevitable, soon after Tojo was sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. He was hanged on 23 December 1948.

Hideki Tojo

Born in the Kojimachi district of Tokyo on 30 December, 1884, Tojo was the third son of Hidenori Tojo, a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army.

In this period, Japanese society was divided into four castes: Merchants, Artisans, Peasants and Samurai. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the caste system was slowly abolished, ending in 1871 but the distinctions remained and persisted. This somehow ensured the former Samurai caste's traditional prestige. Tojo's family came from such a caste, though they were relatively low warriors for the great daimyos.

His father was turned from samurai to army officer while his mother was the daughter of a Buddhist priest, making the family respectable, but poor.

The typical education for a Japanese youth in the Meiji era, including Tojo's, was the purpose of training boys to be soldiers as adults. This message was relentlessly drilled into Japanese students.

They made the generation believe that war was the most beautiful thing, that the Emperor was a living god and that the greatest honour was to die for him. The girls were taught that the highest honour for a woman was to have many sons so that they could die for the Emperor.

The schools in the Meiji era were very competitive, and there was no tradition of sympathy for failure. Failure was not tolerated and even the teachers would bully those who failed. Tojo didn't stand out with his grades in school, however he was known for his willingness to work extremely hard. One of his heroes was the shogun Tokugawa who issued the injunction: "Avoid the things you like, turn your attention to unpleasant duties."

He followed in his father's footsteps and graduated from the Japanese Military Academy. In 1905 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry and was outraged upon hearing of the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended the war with Russia and thus did not end with Japan's annexation of Siberia.

The Treaty of Portsmouth can be considered the start of anti-American sentiments among the Japanese though they did not know that this war almost bankrupt their country. They saw the treaty as unfair for Japan's rightful gains.

In 1909, Tojo married and had three sons and 1918 went to serve in Siberia as part of the Japanese expeditionary force to intervene in the Russian Civil War. He also served as military attaché to Germany until 1922. The Japanese were very influenced by the intellectual developments of Germany and often imitated them in a sense. Also in 1922, Tojo took a train ride across the United States, his first and last visit. From his travels he deduced that the Americans were very materialistic, soft and devoted to money-making and other hedonistic pursuits.

In 1924, the Immigration Control Act was passed by the American Congress which banned all Asian immigration to the United States. The reason for this was that Asians worked harder than whites, a statement issued openly by Congressmen and Senators.

This was very offensive to the Japanese and Tojo wrote that American whites would never accept Asians as equals and that the act showed that they put their own interests first.

Ascension

By 1928, Tojo was already bureau chief of the Japanese Army and shortly after, colonel. He would often visit his men's homes and assisted them with their personal problems and made loans to officers who were short on money.

By 1934 he was promoted to major general and served as Chief of the Personnel Department within the army ministry.

Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Tojo wrote a chapter in

the book "Essays in time of national emergency".

He called for Japan to become totalitarian in order to prepare for the next war.

He attacked Britain, France and the United States for waging "ideological war" against Japan since 1919.

Politically, he was a nationalist and militarist, and was nicknamed "Razor" for his reputation as a strict by-the-book mentality as well as his cold-bloodedness.

Tesions

The relations between Japan and China reached a crisis point. In 1937, a skirmish at Beijing's Marco Polo Bridge, called the "China Incident", started the Second Sino-Japanese War over Western objections.

Japan successfully captured the Chinese capital Nanking. The army proceeded to systematically rape and kills its people for six weeks in what is known as the Rape of Nanking. Economic sanctions were imposed on Japan by the United States in order to cripple it, but it had a different effect.

The sanctions emboldened Japan to align against the US. Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in September 1940.

Japanese soldiers marched into Southeast Asia to secure strategic resources and France's Vichy regime allowed Japan to stage troops in northern Indochina aka Vietnam. This led to China's complete locking, preventing the import of arms and good through its southern neighbours.

By this time Tojo was appointed Army Minister in the second Fumimaro Konoe regime. Prince Konoe had chosen Tojo to secure his armies backing with foreign policy. Konoe favoured Germany in mediating an end to the Sino-Japanese War.

Tojo was a supporter of the Tripartite Pact and continued to expand the war with China. He declared that any withdrawal from Indochina would make them seem weak.

They were, however, unsure whether to wage war or pursue diplomatic negotiations in order to regain gasoline supplies.

In October, Konoe was politically isolated and resigned, with Tojo later assuming the command. In November, Emperor Hirohito received the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and later approved the war with the West.

The Hull note was proposed to the Japanese by the American Secretary of State Cordell Hull, in which he proposed to Japan to withdraw all military forces from China and Indochina in exchange for the lifting of the oil embargo. However, some inconsistencies remained. Tojo chose to misinterpret the Hull Note as an ultimatum thus the war with the United States began.

World War II

It was now publicly announced that Japan would go to war with the United States, the British Empire and the Netherlands. Tojo continued to hold his position as Prime Minister while also concurrently serving as the minister of Home, Foreign, Education, Commerce and Industry.

Emperor Hirohito was advised by Konoe to choose Prince Naruhiko as Prime Minister, however he chose Tojo. Under Tojo's and his cabinet's advice, Hirohito consented to the Pearl Harbor attack and carried it out on 7 December leading to the official war with the United States and the British Empire.

Initially, the Japanese were overjoyed by their victory after victory experience. This greatly increased Tojo's popularity and made him solidify his power in 1942, by holding a special election to fill Japan's legislature with his pro-war supporters. Difficulties lay with the Japanese army, however. Throughout the war, Tojo was hamstrung by the ineffective bureaucracy and infighting among the armed forces.

While trying to consolidate power in his hands, he would be often criticised by people telling him that Germany's errors in the war were due to Hitler's micromanagement. Tojo reportedly said, "Hitler was an enlisting man. I am a general." Allied propaganda portrayed him as an equivalent to Hitler and Mussolini. His image became the poster for all of Japan's militarism and it was widely thought that he was solely responsible for all the atrocities and warmongering. Although one cannot blame one man
for these actions, some of Tojo's actions were indeed atrocious.

The death rate of Western prisoners in Japan, for example, was seven times higher than the ones in Germany. Biological experiments were consented upon the prisoners and Tojo also approved the forced prostitution of so-called 'comfort girls'. On the other hand, Tojo did approve the resettlement of Russian-Jewish refugees into Manchuria, despite German protestations.

The fall of Tojo Hideki

Japan's success in the war would soon come to an end. After the battle of Midway in June 1942, the tide turned to the American's advantage and thus Tojo's popularity rapidly declined. The Japanese were pushed back from all their conquered territories and confidence in the Prime Minister slipped even further. It became clear to many Japanese in positions of power that

Japan lost the war. They forced Tojo to resign due to the fact that he was in no position to negotiate a peace treaty or ensure the survival of Japan.

Tojo resigned on 18 July, 1944 after the Japanese suffered defeat at Saipan. Japan's unconditional surrender was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August, 1945, but it was formalised on 2 September.

A week later, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the arrest of Tojo, who had gone into seclusion. He was easy to find but he did not submit and decided to kill himself. However, this failed as he missed his heart. He was nursed back in a military hospital and then
the trial arrived.

Branded as a class-A war criminal, Tojo was accused of murdering, ill-treating prisoners of war, imposing labour on civilians, destroying cities beyond justification, mass murder, pillage, torture and many other things upon the civilian population of the overrun countries. In a sense, Tojo achieved what he wished for. That is to die for his Emperor while taking all the blame of the war. He was sentenced to die on 12 November, 1948, and was hanged six weeks later.

Aftermath

The work done by General MacArthur was heavily criticised by the historians Herbert P. Bix and John W. Dower, who stated that MacArthur and his staff exonerated Emperor Hirohito and all the other members of the imperial family. According to them, MacArthur worked to protect the Emperor and shift ultimate responsibility onto Tojo. Tojo was survived by his descendants who would go on and pursue military or media careers. In the movie Pride, Tojo is portrayed as a national hero, forced against his will by the Hull Note into attacking America and executed after a rigged trial, a picture of Tojo that is widely accepted in Japan while causing offence abroad.
Image sources:

1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HidekiTojoColor.jpg

2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_Policeman_circa_1875.JPG

3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor_Japanese_planes_view.jpg

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Hideki Tojo Facts, Worksheets, Military Life & Role in World War II

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Hideki Tojo was an Imperial Japanese Army general and Prime Minister of Japan through most of WWII, most famous for his attack on Pearl Harbor. The Pearl Harbor attack marked the beginning of the Pacific War, which would continue until 1945.

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President of the United States of America

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Fact #1 - Roosevelt didn't enter the war until December 1941.  Before then he signed the Lend Lease Act. This allowed for military vehicles to be lended to allies for support.

Fact #2 - Roosevelt entered the war when the Japanese bombed pearl harbor. The bombing killed around 2,400 Americans.

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Franklin Roosevelt served as a governor for 4 years to help combat the economic crisis going on in the country. In 1932, Roosevelt beat republican Herbert Hoover. He served for the longest time out of any other president.

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/franklin-d-roosevelt/

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Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York-now a national historic site-he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.

Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.

In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy.

Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.

As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

For more information about President Roosevelt, please visit Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum

Learn more about Franklin D. Roosevelt's spouse, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression as our 32nd President (1933-1945), Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves.

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Prime Minister of Great Britain

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Fact #1 - Winston Churchill was left alone in the war against the axis powers for a year. He was able to rally the British people and convince them not to lose faith. He brought them back from the brink of defeat to victory.

Fact #2 - Churchill was very outspoken about his dislike for Hitler from the beginning. He knew that something terrible could happen and did not want unneeded death.

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The following prime minister Neville Chamberlain retired and chose Churchill to succeed him. He served for 5 years as the prime minister and won WW2 for his country.

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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Winston-Churchill

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Table of Contents

What did Winston Churchill do during World War II?

What was Winston Churchill's family background?

Where was Winston Churchill educated?

Read a brief summary of this topic

Winston Churchill, in full Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (born November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England-died January 24, 1965, London), British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940-45, 1951-55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.

After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World War I, Churchill acquired a reputation for erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade that followed. Politically suspect in consequence, he was a lonely figure until his response to Adolf Hitler's challenge brought him to leadership of a national coalition in 1940. With Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin he then shaped Allied strategy in World War II, and after the breakdown of the alliance he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the Soviet Union. He led the Conservative Party back to office in 1951 and remained prime minister until 1955, when ill health forced his resignation.

In Churchill's veins ran the blood of both of the English-speaking peoples whose unity, in peace and war, it was to be a constant purpose of his to promote. Through his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the meteoric Tory politician, he was directly descended from John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, the hero of the wars against Louis XIV of France in the early 18th century. His mother, Jennie Jerome, a noted beauty, was the daughter of a New York financier and horse racing enthusiast, Leonard W. Jerome.

The young Churchill passed an unhappy and sadly neglected childhood, redeemed only by the affection of Mrs. Everest, his devoted nurse. At Harrow his conspicuously poor academic record seemingly justified his father's decision to enter him into an army career. It was only at the third attempt that he managed to pass the entrance examination to the Royal Military College, now Academy, Sandhurst, but, once there, he applied himself seriously and passed out (graduated) 20th in a class of 130. In 1895, the year of his father's tragic death, he entered the 4th Hussars. Initially the only prospect of action was in Cuba, where he spent a couple of months of leave reporting the Cuban war of independence from Spain for the Daily Graphic (London). In 1896 his regiment went to India, where he saw service as both soldier and journalist on the North-West Frontier (1897). Expanded as The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), his dispatches attracted such wide attention as to launch him on the career of authorship that he intermittently pursued throughout his life. In 1897-98 he wrote Savrola (1900), a Ruritanian romance, and got himself attached to Lord Kitchener's Nile expeditionary force in the same dual role of soldier and correspondent. The River War (1899) brilliantly describes the campaign.

Political career before 1939

The five years after Sandhurst saw Churchill's interests expand and mature. He relieved the tedium of army life in India by a program of reading designed to repair the deficiencies of Harrow and Sandhurst, and in 1899 he resigned his commission to enter politics and make a living by his pen. He first stood as a Conservative at Oldham, where he lost a by-election by a narrow margin, but found quick solace in reporting the South African War for The Morning Post ( London). Within a month after his arrival in South Africa he had won fame for his part in rescuing an armoured train ambushed by Boers, though at the price of himself being taken prisoner. But this fame was redoubled when less than a month later he escaped from military prison. Returning to Britain a military hero, he laid siege again to Oldham in the election of 1900. Churchill succeeded in winning by a margin as narrow as that of his previous failure. But he was now in Parliament and, fortified by the £10,000 his writings and lecture tours had earned for him, was in a position to make his own way in politics.

A self-assurance redeemed from arrogance only by a kind of boyish charm made Churchill from the first a notable House of Commons figure, but a speech defect, which he never wholly lost, combined with a certain psychological inhibition to prevent him from immediately becoming a master of debate. He excelled in the set speech, on which he always spent enormous pains, rather than in the impromptu; Lord Balfour, the Conservative leader, said of him that he carried "heavy but not very mobile guns." In matter as in style he modeled himself on his father, as his admirable biography, Lord Randolph Churchill (1906; revised edition 1952), makes evident, and from the first he wore his Toryism with a difference, advocating a fair, negotiated peace for the Boers and deploring military mismanagement and extravagance.

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As Liberal minister

In 1904 the Conservative government found itself impaled on a dilemma by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain's open advocacy of a tariff. Churchill, a convinced free trader, helped to found the Free Food League. He was disavowed by his constituents and became increasingly alienated from his party. In 1904 he joined the Liberals and won renown for the audacity of his attacks on Chamberlain and Balfour. The radical elements in his political makeup came to the surface under the influence of two colleagues in particular, John Morley, a political legatee of W.E. Gladstone, and David Lloyd George, the rising Welsh orator and firebrand. In the ensuing general election in 1906 he secured a notable victory in Manchester and began his ministerial career in the new Liberal government as undersecretary of state for the colonies. He soon gained credit for his able defense of the policy of conciliation and self-government in South Africa. When the ministry was reconstructed under Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith in 1908, Churchill was promoted to president of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the cabinet. Defeated at the ensuing by-election in Manchester, he won an election at Dundee. In the same year he married the beautiful Clementine Hozier; it was a marriage of unbroken affection that provided a secure and happy background for his turbulent career.

At the Board of Trade, Churchill emerged as a leader in the movement of Liberalism away from laissez-faire toward social reform. He completed the work begun by his predecessor, Lloyd George, on the bill imposing an eight-hour maximum day for miners. He himself was responsible for attacking the evils of "sweated" labour by setting up trade boards with power to fix minimum wages and for combating unemployment by instituting state-run labour exchanges.

When this Liberal program necessitated high taxation, which in turn provoked the House of Lords to the revolutionary step of rejecting the budget of 1909, Churchill was Lloyd George's closest ally in developing the provocative strategy designed to clip the wings of the upper chamber. Churchill became president of the Budget League, and his oratorical broadsides at the House of Lords were as lively and devastating as Lloyd George's own. Indeed Churchill, as an alleged traitor to his class, earned the lion's share of Tory animosity. His campaigning in the two general elections of 1910 and in the House of Commons during the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which curbed the House of Lords' powers, won him wide popular acclaim. In the cabinet his reward was promotion to the office of home secretary. Here, despite substantial achievements in prison reform, he had to devote himself principally to coping with a sweeping wave of industrial unrest and violent strikes. Upon occasion his relish for dramatic action led him beyond the limits of his proper role as the guarantor of public order. For this he paid a heavy price in incurring the long-standing suspicion of organized labour.

In 1911 the provocative German action in sending a gunboat to Agadir, the Moroccan port to which France had claims, convinced Churchill that in any major Franco-German conflict Britain would have to be at France's side. When transferred to the Admiralty in October 1911, he went to work with a conviction of the need to bring the navy to a pitch of instant readiness. His first task was the creation of a naval war staff. To help Britain's lead over steadily mounting German naval power, Churchill successfully campaigned in the cabinet for the largest naval expenditure in British history. Despite his inherited Tory views on Ireland, he wholeheartedly embraced the Liberal policy of Home Rule, moving the second reading of the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1912 and campaigning for it in the teeth of Unionist opposition. Although, through his friendship with F.E. Smith (later 1st earl of Birkenhead) and Austen Chamberlain, he did much to arrange the compromise by which Ulster was to be excluded from the immediate effect of the bill, no member of the government was more bitterly abused-by Tories as a renegade and by extreme Home Rulers as a defector.

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Winston Churchill | Biography, World War II, Quotes, Books, & Facts

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Winston Churchill, in full Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (born November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England-died January 24, 1965, London), British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940-45, 1951-55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.