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The Pacific Rim was the area that the Japanese were aiming to control when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

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The Pacific Rim was the area that the Japanese were aiming to control when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

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This video details Hitler's rise to power, which was a main cause of WW2.

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This video details Hitler's rise to power, which was a main cause of WW2.

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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power (Part I - 1889-1921)

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This is a picture of Pearl Harbor, which the Japanese attacked. The attack on Pearl Harbor was what finally brought the US into WWII.

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This is a picture of Pearl Harbor, which the Japanese attacked. The attack on Pearl Harbor was what finally brought the US into WWII.

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This article provides more information on the Stimson Doctrine an what it is. The Stimson Doctrine was an American policy in the 30s during WWII

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This article provides more information on the Stimson Doctrine an what it is. The Stimson Doctrine was an American policy in the 30s during WWII

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The Japanese military occupation of Manchuria in late 1931 placed U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in a difficult position. It was evident that appeals to the spirit of the Kellogg-Briand Pact had no impact on either the Chinese or the Japanese, and the secretary was further hampered by President Hoover 's clear indication that he would not support economic sanctions as a means to bring peace in the Far East.

On January 7, 1932, Secretary Stimson sent identic notes to China and Japan that incorporated a diplomatic approach used by earlier secretaries facing crises in the Far East. Later known as the Stimson Doctrine, or sometimes the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine, the notes read in part as follows:

[T]he American Government deems it to be its duty to notify both the Imperial Japanese Government and the Government of the Chinese Republic that it cannot admit the legality of any situation de facto nor does it intend to recognize any treaty or agreement entered into between those Governments, or agents thereof, which may impair the treaty rights of the United States or its citizens in China, including those which relate to the sovereignty, the independence, or the territorial and administrative integrity of the Republic of China, or to the international policy relative to China, commonly known as the open door policy....

Stimson had stated that the United States would not recognize any changes made in China that would curtail American treaty rights in the area and that the " open door" must be maintained. The Japanese, however, were not dissuaded by non-recognition and continued their aggression, confident that the U.S. would not take stronger action because of the strength of isolationist feeling there.

By early 1932, some American newspapers were critical of the secretary's tepid response to the Manchurian crisis, but many citizens felt that the doctrine's idealistic, but non-threatening, tone was exactly right. Most Americans were probably far more sympathetic to China, but did not want to provoke Japan. Memories of American losses in foreign war were still fresh.

See other foreign affairs issues during the Hoover administration.

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The Japanese military occupation of Manchuria in late 1931 placed U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in a difficult position. It was evident that appeals to the spirit of the Kellogg-Briand Pact had no impact on either the Chinese or the Japanese, and the secretary was further hampered by President Hoover 's clear indication that he would not support economic sanctions as a means to bring peace in the Far East.

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This is a picture from the London Conference of 1933, which was an opportunity for international economic cooperation. The conference failed in large part due to Roosevelt's "Bombshell Message".

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This is a picture from the London Conference of 1933, which was an opportunity for international economic cooperation. The conference failed in large part due to Roosevelt's "Bombshell Message".

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This video talks about the Good Neighbor Policy and explains it in great detail

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This video talks about the Good Neighbor Policy and explains it in great detail

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The Good Neighbor Policy Explained in 5 Minutes: US History Review

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This article provides more information on Antisemitism, which was what allowed Hitler to come to power in Germany so easily.

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This article provides more information on Antisemitism, which was what allowed Hitler to come to power in Germany so easily.

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Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people and/or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith - this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and/or religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by anti-Judaism, though the concept itself is distinct from antisemitism.

There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution. On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews, and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms and/or genocide, which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although the term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death, between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine, between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair, between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust during World War II; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies. Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe. However, since the early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world, largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories, which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories.

In the contemporary era, a manifestation known as " new antisemitism" was identified. This concept addresses the exploitation of the Arab-Israeli conflict by a large number of concealed antisemites, who may attempt to gain traction or legitimacy for their antisemitic hoaxes by portraying themselves as criticizing the Israeli government's actions; this is distinct from people who view Israeli government policies negatively, which is not inherently antisemitic. Likewise, as the State of Israel has a Jewish-majority population, it is common for antisemitic rhetoric to be manifested in expressions of anti-Israeli sentiment, though this is not always the case and such expressions may sometimes be part of wider anti-Middle Eastern sentiment without an exclusively antisemitic motive.

Due to the root word , the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who interpret it as referring to racist hatred directed at all " Semitic people" (i.e., those who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabs, Assyrians, and Arameans). However, this usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus ( lit. 'antisemitism') was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ( lit.  'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.

Origin and usage

1879 statute of the Antisemitic League

The origin of "antisemitic" terminologies is found in the responses of Moritz Steinschneider to the views of Ernest Renan. As Alex Bein writes: "The compound anti-Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his 'anti-Semitic prejudices' [i.e., his derogation of the "Semites" as a race]." Avner Falk similarly writes: "The German word was first used in 1860 by the Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816-1907) in the phrase antisemitische Vorurteile (antisemitic prejudices). Steinschneider used this phrase to characterise the French philosopher Ernest Renan's false ideas about how ' Semitic races' were inferior to ' Aryan races'".

Pseudoscientific theories concerning race, civilization, and "progress" had become quite widespread in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase "the Jews are our misfortune" which would later be widely used by Nazis. According to Avner Falk, Treitschke uses the term "Semitic" almost synonymously with "Jewish", in contrast to Renan's use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria.

According to Jonathan M. Hess, the term was originally used by its authors to "stress the radical difference between their own 'antisemitism' and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism."

Cover page of Marr's The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism, 1880 edition

In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet ( The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from a non-religious perspective) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both "Jewry" (the Jews as a collective) and "Jewishness" (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit).

This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of " Antisemitismus" which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people[citation needed ] and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. His next pamphlet, Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum ( The Way to Victory of the Germanic Spirit over the Jewish Spirit, 1880), presents a development of Marr's ideas further and may present the first published use of the German word, "antisemitism".

The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites), apparently named to follow the "Anti-Kanzler-Liga" (Anti-Chancellor League). The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their forced removal from the country.

So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte, and Wilhelm Scherer used the term Antisemiten in the January issue of Neue Freie Presse.

The Jewish Encyclopedia reports, "In February 1881, a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums speaks of 'Anti-Semitism' as a designation which recently came into use ("Allg. Zeit. d. Jud." 1881, p. 138). On 19 July 1882, the editor says, 'This quite recent Anti-Semitism is hardly three years old.'"

The word "antisemitism" was borrowed into English from German in 1881. Oxford English Dictionary editor James Murray wrote that it was not included in the first edition because "Anti-Semite and its family were then probably very new in English use, and not thought likely to be more than passing nonce-words... Would that anti-Semitism had had no more than a fleeting interest!" The related term " philosemitism" was used by 1881.

From the outset the term "anti-Semitism" bore special racial connotations and meant specifically prejudice against Jews. The term is confusing, for in modern usage 'Semitic' designates a language group, not a race. In this sense, the term is a misnomer, since there are many speakers of Semitic languages (e.g., Arabs, Ethiopians, and Arameans) who are not the objects of antisemitic prejudices, while there are many Jews who do not speak Hebrew, a Semitic language. Though 'antisemitism' could be construed as prejudice against people who speak other Semitic languages, this is not how the term is commonly used.

The term may be spelled with or without a hyphen (antisemitism or anti-Semitism). Many scholars and institutions favor the unhyphenated form. Shmuel Almog argued, "If you use the hyphenated form, you consider the words 'Semitism', 'Semite', 'Semitic' as meaningful ... [I]n antisemitic parlance, 'Semites' really stands for Jews, just that." Emil Fackenheim supported the unhyphenated spelling, in order to "[dispel] the notion that there is an entity 'Semitism' which 'anti-Semitism' opposes."

Others endorsing an unhyphenated term for the same reason include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, historian Deborah Lipstadt, Padraic O'Hare, professor of Religious and Theological Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College; and historians Yehuda Bauer and James Carroll. According to Carroll, who first cites O'Hare and Bauer on "the existence of something called 'Semitism'", "the hyphenated word thus reflects the bipolarity that is at the heart of the problem of antisemitism".

The Associated Press and its accompanying AP Stylebook adopted the unhyphenated spelling in 2021. Style guides for other news organizations such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal later adopted this spelling as well. It has also been adopted by many Holocaust museums, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem.

Definition

Though the general definition of antisemitism is hostility or prejudice against Jews, and, according to Olaf Blaschke, has become an "umbrella term for negative stereotypes about Jews", a number of authorities have developed more formal definitions.

For Sonja Weinberg, as distinct from economic and religious anti-Judaism, antisemitism in its modern form shows conceptual innovation, a resort to 'science' to defend itself, new functional forms, and organisational differences. It was anti-liberal, racialist and nationalist. It promoted the myth that Jews conspired to 'judaise' the world; it served to consolidate social identity; it channeled dissatisfactions among victims of the capitalist system; and it was used as a conservative cultural code to fight emancipation and liberalism.

The definition has been adopted by the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism, in 2010 it was adopted by the United States Department of State, in 2014 it was adopted in the Operational Hate Crime Guidance of the UK College of Policing and was also adopted by the Campaign Against Antisemitism. In 2016, the definition was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The Working Definition of Antisemitism is among the most controversial documents related to opposition to antisemitism, and critics argue that it has been used to censor criticism of Israel.

Evolution of usage

In 1879, Wilhelm Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (Anti-Semitic League). Identification with antisemitism and as an antisemite was politically advantageous in Europe during the late 19th century. For example, Karl Lueger, the popular mayor of fin de siècle Vienna, skillfully exploited antisemitism as a way of channeling public discontent to his political advantage. In its 1910 obituary of Lueger, The New York Times notes that Lueger was "Chairman of the Christian Social Union of the Parliament and of the Anti-Semitic Union of the Diet of Lower Austria. In 1895, A. C. Cuza organized the Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest. In the period before World War II, when animosity towards Jews was far more commonplace, it was not uncommon for a person, an organization, or a political party to self-identify as an antisemite or antisemitic.

The early Zionist pioneer Leon Pinsker, a professional physician, preferred the clinical-sounding term Judeophobia to antisemitism, which he regarded as a misnomer. The word Judeophobia first appeared in his pamphlet " Auto-Emancipation", published anonymously in German in September 1882, where it was described as an irrational fear or hatred of Jews. According to Pinsker, this irrational fear was an inherited predisposition.

Judeophobia is a form of demonopathy, with the distinction that the Jewish ghost has become known to the whole race of mankind, not merely to certain races... Judeophobia is a psychic disorder. As a psychic disorder, it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable... Thus have Judaism and Jew-hatred passed through history for centuries as inseparable companions... Having analyzed Judeophobia as a hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to the human race, and represented Jew-hatred as based upon an inherited aberration of the human mind, we must draw the important conclusion, that we must give up contending against these hostile impulses, just as we give up contending against every other inherited predisposition.

After 1945 victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany, and particularly after the full extent of the Nazi genocide against the Jews became known, the term antisemitism acquired pejorative connotations. This marked a full circle shift in usage, from an era just decades earlier when "Jew" was used as a pejorative term. Yehuda Bauer wrote in 1984: "There are no anti-Semites in the world ... Nobody says, 'I am anti-Semitic.' You cannot, after Hitler. The word has gone out of fashion."

Eternalism-contextualism debate

The study of antisemitism has become politically controversial because of differing interpretations of the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are two competing views of antisemitism, eternalism, and contextualism. The eternalist view sees antisemitism as separate from other forms of racism and prejudice and an exceptionalist, transhistorical force teleologically culminating in the Holocaust. Hannah Arendt criticized this approach, writing that it provoked "the uncomfortable question: 'Why the Jews of all people?' ... with the question begging reply: Eternal hostility." Zionist thinkers and antisemites draw different conclusions from what they perceive as the eternal hatred of Jews; according to antisemites, it proves the inferiority of Jews, while for Zionists it means that Jews need their own state as a refuge. Most Zionists do not believe that antisemitism can be combatted with education or other means.

The contextual approach treats antisemitism as a type of racism and focuses on the historical context in which hatred of Jews emerges. Some contextualists restrict the use of "antisemitism" to refer exclusively to the era of modern racism, treating anti-Judaism as a separate phenomenon. Historian David Engel has challenged the project to define antisemitism, arguing that it essentializes Jewish history as one of persecution and discrimination. Engel argues that the term "antisemitism" is not useful in historical analysis because it implies that there are links between anti-Jewish prejudices expressed in different contexts, without evidence of such a connection.

Manifestations

These difficulties may contribute to the existence of different taxonomies that have been developed to categorize the forms of antisemitism. The forms identified are substantially the same; it is primarily the number of forms and their definitions that differ. Bernard Lazare identifies three forms of antisemitism: Christian antisemitism, economic antisemitism, and ethnologic antisemitism. William Brustein names four categories: religious, racial, economic, and political. The Roman Catholic historian Edward Flannery distinguished four varieties of antisemitism:

Louis Harap separates "economic antisemitism" and merges "political" and "nationalistic" antisemitism into "ideological antisemitism". Harap also adds a category of "social antisemitism".

religious (Jew as Christ-killer),

economic (Jew as banker, usurer, money-obsessed),

social (Jew as social inferior, "pushy", vulgar, therefore excluded from personal contact),

racist (Jews as an inferior "race"),

ideological (Jews regarded as subversive or revolutionary),

cultural (Jews regarded as undermining the moral and structural fiber of civilization).

Cultural antisemitism

Louis Harap defines cultural antisemitism as "that species of anti-Semitism that charges the Jews with corrupting a given culture and attempting to supplant or succeeding in supplanting the preferred culture with a uniform, crude, "Jewish" culture." Similarly, Eric Kandel characterizes cultural antisemitism as being based on the idea of "Jewishness" as a "religious or cultural tradition that is acquired through learning, through distinctive traditions and education." According to Kandel, this form of antisemitism views Jews as possessing "unattractive psychological and social characteristics that are acquired through acculturation." Niewyk and Nicosia characterize cultural antisemitism as focusing on and condemning "the Jews' aloofness from the societies in which they live." An important feature of cultural antisemitism is that it considers the negative attributes of Judaism to be redeemable by education or by religious conversion.

Religious antisemitism

Religious antisemitism, also known as anti-Judaism, is antipathy towards Jews because of their perceived religious beliefs. In theory, antisemitism and attacks against individual Jews would stop if Jews stopped practicing Judaism or changed their public faith, especially by conversion to the official or right religion. However, in some cases, discrimination continues after conversion, as in the case of (Christianized Jews in Spain and Portugal) in the late 15th century and 16th century, who were suspected of secretly practising Judaism or Jewish customs.

Although the origins of antisemitism are rooted in the Judeo-Christian conflict, other forms of antisemitism have developed in modern times. Frederick Schweitzer asserts that "most scholars ignore the Christian foundation on which the modern antisemitic edifice rests and invoke political antisemitism, cultural antisemitism, racism or racial antisemitism, economic antisemitism, and the like." William Nichols draws a distinction between religious antisemitism and modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds: "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion [...] a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon baptism." From the perspective of racial antisemitism, however, "the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism.[...] From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews[...] Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear."

Some Christians such as the Catholic priest Ernest Jouin, who published the first French translation of the Protocols, combined religious and racial antisemitism, as in his statement that "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." The virulent antisemitism of Édouard Drumont, one of the most widely read Catholic writers in France during the Dreyfus Affair, likewise combined religious and racial antisemitism. Drumont founded the Antisemitic League of France.

Economic antisemitism

The underlying premise of economic antisemitism is that Jews perform harmful economic activities or that economic activities become harmful when they are performed by Jews.

Linking Jews and money underpins the most damaging and lasting antisemitic canards. Antisemites claim that Jews control the world finances, a theory promoted in the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and later repeated by Henry Ford and his Dearborn Independent. In the modern era, such myths continue to be spread in books such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews published by the Nation of Islam, and on the internet. Derek Penslar writes that there are two components to the financial canards:

a) Jews are savages that "are temperamentally incapable of performing honest labor"

b) Jews are "leaders of a financial cabal seeking world domination"

Abraham Foxman describes six facets of the financial canards:

1. All Jews are wealthy

2. Jews are stingy and greedy

3. Powerful Jews control the business world

4. Jewish religion emphasizes profit and materialism

5. It is okay for Jews to cheat non-Jews

6. Jews use their power to benefit "their own kind"

Gerald Krefetz summarizes the myth as "[Jews] control the banks, the money supply, the economy, and businesses-of the community, of the country, of the world". Krefetz gives, as illustrations, many slurs and proverbs (in several different languages) which suggest that Jews are stingy, or greedy, or miserly, or aggressive bargainers. During the nineteenth century, Jews were described as "scurrilous, stupid, and tight-fisted", but after the Jewish Emancipation and the rise of Jews to the middle- or upper-class in Europe were portrayed as "clever, devious, and manipulative financiers out to dominate [world finances]".

An academic study by Francesco D'Acunto, Marcel Prokopczuk, and Michael Weber showed that people who live in areas of Germany that contain the most brutal history of antisemitic persecution are more likely to be distrustful of finance in general. Therefore, they tended to invest less money in the stock market and make poor financial decisions. The study concluded, "that the persecution of minorities reduces not only the long-term wealth of the persecuted but of the persecutors as well."

Racial antisemitism

A Jewish Soviet soldier taken prisoner by the German Army, August 1941. At least 50,000 Jewish soldiers were shot after selection.[115]

Racial antisemitism replaced the hatred of Judaism with the hatred of Jews as a group. In the context of the Industrial Revolution, following the Jewish Emancipation, Jews rapidly urbanized and experienced a period of greater social mobility. With the decreasing role of religion in public life tempering religious antisemitism, a combination of growing nationalism, the rise of eugenics, and resentment at the socio-economic success of the Jews led to the newer, and more virulent, racist antisemitism.

According to William Nichols, religious antisemitism may be distinguished from modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds. "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion... a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon baptism." However, with racial antisemitism, "Now the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism... From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews... Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear."

In the early 19th century, a number of laws enabling the emancipation of the Jews were enacted in Western European countries. The old laws restricting them to ghettos, as well as the many laws that limited their property rights, rights of worship and occupation, were rescinded. Despite this, traditional discrimination and hostility to Jews on religious grounds persisted and was supplemented by racial antisemitism, encouraged by the work of racial theorists such as Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and particularly his Essay on the Inequality of the Human Race of 1853-1855. Nationalist agendas based on ethnicity, known as ethnonationalism, usually excluded the Jews from the national community as an alien race. Allied to this were theories of Social Darwinism, which stressed a putative conflict between higher and lower races of human beings. Such theories, usually posited by northern Europeans, advocated the superiority of white Aryans to Semitic Jews.

Political antisemitism

The whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation through a long schooling in suffering, must become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred. In almost all contemporary nations, therefore - in direct proportion to the degree to which they act up nationalistically - the literary obscenity of leading the Jews to slaughter as scapegoats of every conceivable public and internal misfortune is spreading.

William Brustein defines political antisemitism as hostility toward Jews based on the belief that Jews seek national and/or world power. Yisrael Gutman characterizes political antisemitism as tending to "lay responsibility on the Jews for defeats and political economic crises" while seeking to "exploit opposition and resistance to Jewish influence as elements in political party platforms." Derek J. Penslar wrote, "Political antisemitism identified the Jews as responsible for all the anxiety-provoking social forces that characterized modernity."

According to Viktor Karády, political antisemitism became widespread after the legal emancipation of the Jews and sought to reverse some of the consequences of that emancipation.

Conspiracy theories

Holocaust denial and Jewish conspiracy theories are also considered forms of antisemitism. Zoological conspiracy theories have been propagated by Arab media and Arabic language websites, alleging a "Zionist plot" behind the use of animals to attack civilians or to conduct espionage.

New antisemitism

Starting in the 1990s, some scholars have advanced the concept of new antisemitism, coming simultaneously from the left, the right, and radical Islam, which tends to focus on opposition to the creation of a Jewish homeland in the State of Israel, and they argue that the language of anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel are used to attack Jews more broadly. In this view, the proponents of the new concept believe that criticisms of Israel and Zionism are often disproportionate in degree and unique in kind, and they attribute this to antisemitism.

Jewish scholar Gustavo Perednik posited in 2004 that anti-Zionism in itself represents a form of discrimination against Jews, in that it singles out Jewish national aspirations as an illegitimate and racist endeavor, and "proposes actions that would result in the death of millions of Jews". It is asserted that the new antisemitism deploys traditional antisemitic motifs, including older motifs such as the blood libel.

Critics of the concept view it as trivializing the meaning of antisemitism, and as exploiting antisemitism in order to silence debate and to deflect attention from legitimate criticism of the State of Israel, and, by associating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, misusing it to taint anyone opposed to Israeli actions and policies.

Many authors see the roots of modern antisemitism in both pagan antiquity and early Christianity. Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism:

1. Pre-Christian anti-Judaism in ancient Greece and Rome which was primarily ethnic in nature

2. Christian antisemitism in antiquity and the Middle Ages which was religious in nature and has extended into modern times

3. Traditional Muslim antisemitism which was-at least, in its classical form-nuanced in that Jews were a protected class

4. Political, social and economic antisemitism of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe which laid the groundwork for racial antisemitism

5. Racial antisemitism that arose in the 19th century and culminated in Nazism in the 20th century

6. Contemporary antisemitism which has been labeled by some as the New Antisemitism

Ancient world

The first clear examples of anti-Jewish sentiment can be traced to the 3rd century BCE to Alexandria, the home to the largest Jewish diaspora community in the world at the time and where the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was produced. Manetho, an Egyptian priest and historian of that era, wrote scathingly of the Jews. His themes are repeated in the works of Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Poseidonius, Apollonius Molon, and in Apion and Tacitus. Agatharchides of Cnidus ridiculed the practices of the Jews and the "absurdity of their Law", making a mocking reference to how Ptolemy Lagus was able to invade Jerusalem in 320 BCE because its inhabitants were observing the . One of the earliest anti-Jewish edicts, promulgated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in about 170-167 BCE, sparked a revolt of the Maccabees in Judea.

In view of Manetho's anti-Jewish writings, antisemitism may have originated in Egypt and been spread by "the Greek retelling of Ancient Egyptian prejudices". The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria describes an attack on Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE in which thousands of Jews died. The violence in Alexandria may have been caused by the Jews being portrayed as misanthropes. Tcherikover argues that the reason for hatred of Jews in the Hellenistic period was their separateness in the Greek cities, the . Bohak has argued, however, that early animosity against the Jews cannot be regarded as being anti-Judaic or antisemitic unless it arose from attitudes that were held against the Jews alone, and that many Greeks showed animosity toward any group they regarded as barbarians.

Statements exhibiting prejudice against Jews and their religion can be found in the works of many pagan Greek and Roman writers. Edward Flannery writes that it was the Jews' refusal to accept Greek religious and social standards that marked them out. Hecataetus of Abdera, a Greek historian of the early third century BCE, wrote that Moses "in remembrance of the exile of his people, instituted for them a misanthropic and inhospitable way of life." Manetho, an Egyptian historian, wrote that the Jews were expelled Egyptian lepers who had been taught by Moses "not to adore the gods." Edward Flannery describes antisemitism in ancient times as essentially "cultural, taking the shape of a national xenophobia played out in political settings."

There are examples of Hellenistic rulers desecrating the Temple and banning Jewish religious practices, such as circumcision, Shabbat observance, the study of Jewish religious books, etc. Examples may also be found in anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE.

Relationships between the Jewish people and the occupying Roman Empire were at times antagonistic and resulted in several rebellions. According to Suetonius, the emperor Tiberius expelled from Rome Jews who had gone to live there. The 18th-century English historian Edward Gibbon identified a more tolerant period in Roman-Jewish relations beginning in about 160 CE. However, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the state's attitude towards the Jews gradually worsened.

Persecutions during the Middle Ages

In the late 6th century CE, the newly Catholicised Visigothic kingdom in Hispania issued a series of anti-Jewish edicts which forbade Jews from marrying Christians, practicing circumcision, and observing Jewish holy days. Continuing throughout the 7th century, both Visigothic kings and the Church were active in creating social aggression and towards Jews with "civic and ecclesiastic punishments", ranging between forced conversion, slavery, exile and death.

From the 9th century, the medieval Islamic world classified Jews and Christians as , and allowed Jews to practice their religion more freely than they could do in medieval Christian Europe. Under Islamic rule, there was a Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain that lasted until at least the 11th century. It ended when several Muslim pogroms against Jews took place on the Iberian Peninsula, including those that occurred in Córdoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066. Several decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were also enacted in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen from the 11th century. In addition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in some parts of Yemen, Morocco and Baghdad several times between the 12th and 18th centuries.

The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories by 1147, were far more fundamentalist in outlook compared to their predecessors, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated. Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands, while some others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.

In medieval Europe, Jews were persecuted with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and massacres. These persecutions were often justified on religious grounds and reached a first peak during the Crusades. In 1096, hundreds or thousands of Jews were killed during the First Crusade. This was the first major outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in Christian Europe outside Spain and was cited by Zionists in the 19th century as indicating the need for a state of Israel.

In 1147, there were several massacres of Jews during the Second Crusade. The Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320 both involved attacks, as did the Rintfleisch massacres in 1298. Expulsions followed, such as the 1290 banishment of Jews from England, the expulsion of 100,000 Jews from France in 1394, and the 1421 expulsion of thousands of Jews from Austria. Many of the expelled Jews fled to Poland.

As the Black Death epidemics devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, causing the death of a large part of the population, Jews were used as scapegoats. Rumors spread that they caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed in numerous persecutions. Although Pope Clement VI tried to protect them by issuing two papal bulls in 1348, the first on 6 July and an additional one several months later, 900 Jews were burned alive in Strasbourg, where the plague had not yet affected the city.

Reformation

Martin Luther, an ecclesiastical reformer whose teachings inspired the Reformation, wrote antagonistically about Jews in his pamphlet On the Jews and their Lies, written in 1543. He portrays the Jews in extremely harsh terms, excoriates them and provides detailed recommendations for a pogrom against them, calling for their permanent oppression and expulsion. At one point he writes: "...we are at fault in not slaying them...", a passage that, according to historian Paul Johnson, "may be termed the first work of modern antisemitism, and a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust."

17th century

During the mid-to-late 17th century the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of its population (over 3 million people), and Jewish losses were counted in the hundreds of thousands. The first of these conflicts was the Khmelnytsky Uprising, when Bohdan Khmelnytsky's supporters massacred tens of thousands of Jews in the eastern and southern areas he controlled (today's Ukraine). The precise number of dead may never be known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during that period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases, and captivity in the Ottoman Empire, called jasyr.

European immigrants to the United States brought antisemitism to the country as early as the 17th century. Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, implemented plans to prevent Jews from settling in the city. During the Colonial Era, the American government limited the political and economic rights of Jews. It was not until the American Revolutionary War that Jews gained legal rights, including the right to vote. However, even at their peak, the restrictions on Jews in the United States were never as stringent as they had been in Europe.

Enlightenment

In 1744, Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa ordered Jews out of Bohemia but soon reversed her position, on the condition that Jews pay for their readmission every ten years. This extortion was known among the Jews as ("queen's money" in Yiddish). In 1752, she introduced the law limiting each Jewish family to one son.

In 1782, Joseph II abolished most of these persecution practices in his Toleranzpatent, on the condition that Yiddish and Hebrew were eliminated from public records and that judicial autonomy was annulled. Moses Mendelssohn wrote that "Such a tolerance... is even more dangerous play in tolerance than open persecution."

According to Arnold Ages, Voltaire's "Lettres philosophiques, Dictionnaire philosophique, and Candide, to name but a few of his better known works, are saturated with comments on Jews and Judaism and the vast majority are negative". Paul H. Meyer adds: "There is no question but that Voltaire, particularly in his latter years, nursed a violent hatred of the Jews and it is equally certain that his animosity...did have a considerable impact on public opinion in France." Thirty of the 118 articles in Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique concerned Jews and described them in consistently negative ways.

Louis de Bonald and the Catholic Counter-Revolution

The counter-revolutionary Catholic royalist Louis de Bonald stands out among the earliest figures to explicitly call for the reversal of Jewish emancipation in the wake of the French Revolution. Bonald's attacks on the Jews are likely to have influenced Napoleon's decision to limit the civil rights of Alsatian Jews. Bonald's article Sur les juifs (1806) was one of the most venomous screeds of its era and furnished a paradigm which combined anti-liberalism, a defense of a rural society, traditional Christian antisemitism, and the identification of Jews with bankers and finance capital, which would in turn influence many subsequent right-wing reactionaries such as Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux, Charles Maurras, and Édouard Drumont, nationalists such as Maurice Barrès and Paolo Orano, and antisemitic socialists such as Alphonse Toussenel. Bonald furthermore declared that the Jews were an "alien" people, a "state within a state", and should be forced to wear a distinctive mark to more easily identify and discriminate against them.

Under the French Second Empire, the popular counter-revolutionary Catholic journalist Louis Veuillot propagated Bonald's arguments against the Jewish "financial aristocracy" along with vicious attacks against the Talmud and the Jews as a "deicidal people" driven by hatred to "enslave" Christians. Between 1882 and 1886 alone, French priests published twenty antisemitic books blaming France's ills on the Jews and urging the government to consign them back to the ghettos, expel them, or hang them from the gallows. Gougenot des Mousseaux's Le Juif, le judaïsme et la judaïsation des peuples chrétiens (1869) has been called a "Bible of modern antisemitism" and was translated into German by Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.

Imperial Russia

Thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Cossack Haidamaks in the 1768 massacre of Uman in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, the empress of Russia Catherine II forced the Jews into the Pale of Settlement - which was located primarily in present-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus - and to stay in their shtetls and forbade them from returning to the towns that they occupied before the partition of Poland. From 1804, Jews were banned from their villages and began to stream into the towns. A decree by emperor Nicholas I of Russia in 1827 conscripted Jews under 18 years of age into the cantonist schools for a 25-year military service in order to promote baptism.

Policy towards Jews was liberalised somewhat under Czar Alexander II ( r. 1855-1881). However, his assassination in 1881 served as a pretext for further repression such as the May Laws of 1882. Konstantin Pobedonostsev, nicknamed the "black czar" and tutor to the czarevitch, later crowned Czar Nicholas II, declared that "One-third of the Jews must die, one-third must emigrate, and one third be converted to Christianity".

Islamic antisemitism in the 19th century

In Jerusalem at least, conditions for some Jews improved. Moses Montefiore, on his seventh visit in 1875, noted that fine new buildings had sprung up and, "surely we're approaching the time to witness God's hallowed promise unto Zion." Muslim and Christian Arabs participated in Purim and Passover; Arabs called the Sephardis 'Jews, sons of Arabs'; the Ulema and the Rabbis offered joint prayers for rain in time of drought.

At the time of the Dreyfus trial in France, "Muslim comments usually favoured the persecuted Jew against his Christian persecutors".

Secular or racial antisemitism

Title page of the second edition of Das Judenthum in der Musik, published in 1869

In 1850, the German composer Richard Wagner - who has been called "the inventor of modern antisemitism" - published Das Judenthum in der Musik (roughly "Jewishness in Music") under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The essay began as an attack on Jewish composers, particularly Wagner's contemporaries, and rivals, Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but expanded to accuse Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture, who corrupted morals and were, in fact, parasites incapable of creating truly "German" art. The crux was the manipulation and control by the Jews of the money economy:

According to the present constitution of this world, the Jew in truth is already more than emancipated: he rules, and will rule, so long as Money remains the power before which all our doings and our dealings lose their force.

Although originally published anonymously, when the essay was republished 19 years later, in 1869, the concept of the corrupting Jew had become so widely held that Wagner's name was affixed to it.

Antisemitism can also be found in many of the Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, published from 1812 to 1857. It is mainly characterized by Jews being the villain of a story, such as in "The Good Bargain" (" Der gute Handel") and " The Jew Among Thorns" ("Der Jude im Dorn").

The middle 19th century saw continued official harassment of the Jews, especially in Eastern Europe under Czarist influence. For example, in 1846, 80 Jews approached the governor in Warsaw to retain the right to wear their traditional dress but were immediately rebuffed by having their hair and beards forcefully cut, at their own expense.

The Dreyfus Affair was an infamous antisemitic event of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery captain in the French Army, was accused in 1894 of passing secrets to the Germans. As a result of these charges, Dreyfus was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. The actual spy, Marie Charles Esterhazy, was acquitted. The event caused great uproar among the French, with the public choosing sides on the issue of whether Dreyfus was actually guilty or not. Émile Zola accused the army of corrupting the French justice system. However, general consensus held that Dreyfus was guilty: 80% of the press in France condemned him. This attitude among the majority of the French population reveals the underlying antisemitism of the time period.

Adolf Stoecker (1835-1909), the Lutheran court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, founded in 1878 an antisemitic, anti-liberal political party called the Christian Social Party. This party always remained small, and its support dwindled after Stoecker's death, with most of its members eventually joining larger conservative groups such as the German National People's Party.

Some scholars view Karl Marx's essay " On The Jewish Question" as antisemitic, and argue that he often used antisemitic epithets in his published and private writings. These scholars argue that Marx equated Judaism with capitalism in his essay, helping to spread that idea. Some further argue that the essay influenced National Socialist, as well as Soviet and Arab antisemites. Marx himself had Jewish ancestry, and Albert Lindemann and Hyam Maccoby have suggested that he was embarrassed by it.

Others argue that Marx consistently supported Prussian Jewish communities' struggles to achieve equal political rights. These scholars argue that "On the Jewish Question" is a critique of Bruno Bauer's arguments that Jews must convert to Christianity before being emancipated, and is more generally a critique of liberal rights discourses and capitalism. Iain Hamphsher-Monk wrote that "This work [On The Jewish Question] has been cited as evidence for Marx's supposed anti-semitism, but only the most superficial reading of it could sustain such an interpretation."

David McLellan and Francis Wheen argue that readers should interpret On the Jewish Question in the deeper context of Marx's debates with Bruno Bauer, author of The Jewish Question, about Jewish emancipation in Germany. Wheen says that "Those critics, who see this as a foretaste of 'Mein Kampf', overlook one, essential point: in spite of the clumsy phraseology and crude stereotyping, the essay was actually written as a defense of the Jews. It was a retort to Bruno Bauer, who had argued that Jews should not be granted full civic rights and freedoms unless they were baptised as Christians". According to McLellan, Marx used the word Judentum colloquially, as meaning commerce, arguing that Germans must be emancipated from the capitalist mode of production not Judaism or Jews in particular. McLellan concludes that readers should interpret the essay's second half as "an extended pun at Bauer's expense".

20th century

Between 1900 and 1924, approximately 1.75 million Jews migrated to America, the bulk from Eastern Europe escaping the pogroms. Before 1900 American Jews had always amounted to less than 1% of America's total population, but by 1930 Jews formed about 3.5%. This increase, combined with the upward social mobility of some Jews, contributed to a resurgence of antisemitism. In the first half of the 20th century, in the US, Jews were discriminated against in employment, access to residential and resort areas, membership in clubs and organizations, and in tightened quotas on Jewish enrolment and teaching positions in colleges and universities. The lynching of Leo Frank by a mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia, in 1915 turned the spotlight on antisemitism in the United States. The case was also used to build support for the renewal of the Ku Klux Klan which had been inactive since 1870.

Public reading of the antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer, Worms, Germany, 1935

Antisemitism in America reached its peak during the interwar period. The pioneer automobile manufacturer Henry Ford propagated antisemitic ideas in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent (published by Ford from 1919 to 1927). The radio speeches of Father Coughlin in the late 1930s attacked Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and promoted the notion of a Jewish financial conspiracy. Some prominent politicians shared such views: Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency, blamed Jews for Roosevelt's decision to abandon the gold standard, and claimed that "in the United States today, the Gentiles have the slips of paper while the Jews have the lawful money".

In Germany, shortly after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, the government instituted repressive legislation which denied Jews basic civil rights.

In September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws prohibited sexual relations and marriages between "Aryans" and Jews as Rassenschande ("race disgrace") and stripped all German Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, of their citizenship (their official title became "subjects of the state"). It instituted a pogrom on the night of 9-10 November 1938, dubbed Kristallnacht, in which Jews were killed, their property destroyed and their synagogues torched. Antisemitic laws, agitation and propaganda were extended to German-occupied Europe in the wake of conquest, often building on local antisemitic traditions.

In 1940, the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh and many prominent Americans led the America First Committee in opposing any involvement in a European war. Lindbergh alleged that Jews were pushing America to go to war against Germany. Lindbergh adamantly denied being antisemitic, and yet he refers numerous times in his private writings - his letters and diary - to Jewish control of the media being used to pressure the U.S. to get involved in the European war. In one diary entry in November 1938, he responded to Kristallnacht by writing "I do not understand these riots on the part of the Germans. ... They have undoubtedly had a difficult Jewish problem, but why is it necessary to handle it so unreasonably?", acknowledgement on Lindbergh's part that he agreed with the Nazis that Germany had a "Jewish problem". An article by Jonathan Marwil in Antisemitism, A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution claims that "no one who ever knew Lindbergh thought him antisemitic" and that claims of his antisemitism were solely tied to the remarks he made in that one speech.

In the east the Third Reich forced Jews into ghettos in Warsaw, in Kraków, in Lvov, in Lublin and in Radom. After the beginning of the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941, a campaign of mass murder, conducted by the Einsatzgruppen, culminated from 1942 to 1945 in systematic genocide: the Holocaust. Eleven million Jews were targeted for extermination by the Nazis, and some six million were eventually killed.

Contemporary antisemitism

Post-WWII antisemitism

There have continued to be antisemitic incidents since WWII, some of which had been state-sponsored. In the Soviet Union, antisemitism has been used as an instrument for settling personal conflicts starting with the conflict between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky and continuing through numerous conspiracy theories spread by official propaganda. Antisemitism in the USSR reached new heights after 1948 during the campaign against the " rootless cosmopolitan" (euphemism for "Jew") in which numerous Yiddish-language poets, writers, painters, and sculptors were killed or arrested. This culminated in the so-called Doctors' Plot in 1952.

Similar antisemitic propaganda in Poland resulted in the flight of Polish Jewish survivors from the country. After the war, the Kielce pogrom and the " March 1968 events" in communist Poland represented further incidents of antisemitism in Europe. The anti-Jewish violence in postwar Poland had a common theme of blood libel rumours.

21st-century European antisemitism

Physical assaults against Jews in Europe have included beatings, stabbings, and other violence, which increased markedly, sometimes resulting in serious injury and death. A 2015 report by the US State Department on religious freedom declared that "European anti-Israel sentiment crossed the line into anti-Semitism."

This rise in antisemitic attacks is associated with both Muslim antisemitism and the rise of far-right political parties as a result of the economic crisis of 2008. This rise in the support for far-right ideas in western and eastern Europe has resulted in the increase of antisemitic acts, mostly attacks on Jewish memorials, synagogues and cemeteries but also a number of physical attacks against Jews.

In Eastern Europe the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the instability of the new states brought the rise of nationalist movements and the accusation against Jews for the economic crisis, taking over the local economy and bribing the government, along with traditional and religious motives for antisemitism such as blood libels. Writing on the rhetoric surrounding the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Jason Stanley relates these perceptions to broader historical narratives: "the dominant version of antisemitism alive in parts of eastern Europe today is that Jews employ the Holocaust to seize the victimhood narrative from the 'real' victims of the Nazis, who are Russian Christians (or other non-Jewish eastern Europeans)". He calls out the "myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism - that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group."

Most of the antisemitic incidents in Eastern Europe are against Jewish cemeteries and buildings (community centers and synagogues). Nevertheless, there were several violent attacks against Jews in Moscow in 2006 when a neo-Nazi stabbed 9 people at the Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue, the failed bomb attack on the same synagogue in 1999, the threats against Jewish pilgrims in Uman, Ukraine and the attack against a menorah by extremist Christian organization in Moldova in 2009.

According to Paul Johnson, antisemitic policies are a sign of a state which is poorly governed. While no European state currently has such policies, the Economist Intelligence Unit notes the rise in political uncertainty, notably populism and nationalism, as something that is particularly alarming for Jews.

21st-century Arab antisemitism

Graffiti of a swastika on a building in the Palestinian city Nablus, 2022

In a 2011 survey by the Pew Research Center, all of the Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries polled held significantly negative opinions of Jews. In the questionnaire, only 2% of Egyptians, 3% of Lebanese Muslims, and 2% of Jordanians reported having a positive view of Jews. Muslim-majority countries outside the Middle East similarly held markedly negative views of Jews, with 4% of Turks and 9% of Indonesians viewing Jews favorably.

According to a 2011 exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, United States, some of the dialogue from Middle East media and commentators about Jews bear a striking resemblance to Nazi propaganda. According to Josef Joffe of , "anti-Semitism-the real stuff, not just bad-mouthing particular Israeli policies-is as much part of Arab life today as the hijab or the hookah. Whereas this darkest of creeds is no longer tolerated in polite society in the West, in the Arab world, Jew hatred remains culturally endemic."

Muslim clerics in the Middle East have frequently referred to Jews as descendants of apes and pigs, which are conventional epithets for Jews and Christians.

According to professor Robert Wistrich, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA), the calls for the destruction of Israel by Iran or by Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, or the Muslim Brotherhood, represent a contemporary mode of genocidal antisemitism.

Black Hebrew Israelite antisemitism

4% of African-Americans self-identified as Black Hebrew Israelites in 2019.[258] Between 2019 and 2022, individuals motivated by Black Hebrew Israelitism committed five religiously motivated murders.[259]

In 2022, the American Jewish Committee stated that the Black Hebrew Israelite claim that "we are the real Jews" is a "troubling anti-Semitic trope with dangerous potential". Black Hebrew Israelite followers have sought out and attacked Jewish people in the United States on more than one occasion. Between 2019 and 2022, individuals motivated by Black Hebrew Israelitism committed five religiously motivated murders.

Black Hebrew Israelites believe that Jewish people are "imposters", who have "stolen" Black Americans' true racial and religious identity. Black Hebrew Israelites promote the Khazar theory about Ashkenazi Jewish origins. In 2019, 4% of African-Americans self-identified as being Black Hebrew Israelites.

Antisemitism has been explained in terms of racism, xenophobia, projected guilt, displaced aggression, and the search for a scapegoat. Some explanations assign partial blame to the perception of Jewish people as unsociable. Such a perception may have arisen by many Jews having strictly kept to their own communities, with their own practices and laws.

It has also been suggested that parts of antisemitism arose from a perception of Jewish people as greedy (as often used in stereotypes of Jews), and this perception has probably evolved in Europe during medieval times where a large portion of money lending was operated by Jews. Factors contributing to this situation included that Jews were restricted from other professions, while the Christian Church declared for their followers that money lending constituted immoral " usury".

Prevention through education

Education plays an important role in addressing and overcoming prejudice and countering social discrimination. However, education is not only about challenging the conditions of intolerance and ignorance in which antisemitism manifests itself; it is also about building a sense of global citizenship and solidarity, respect for, and enjoyment of diversity and the ability to live peacefully together as active, democratic citizens. Education equips learners with the knowledge to identify antisemitism and biased or prejudiced messages and raises awareness about the forms, manifestations, and impact of antisemitism faced by Jews and Jewish communities.

Geographical variation

A March 2008 report by the U.S. State Department found that there was an increase in antisemitism across the world, and that both old and new expressions of antisemitism persist. A 2012 report by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor also noted a continued global increase in antisemitism, and found that Holocaust denial and opposition to Israeli policy at times was used to promote or justify blatant antisemitism. In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League conducted a study titled Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, which also reported high antisemitism figures around the world and, among other findings, that as many as "27% of people who have never met a Jew nevertheless harbor strong prejudices against him".

References

"Adoption of the Working Definition". American Jewish Committee. 2022.

Consonni, Manuela (2022). "'Upping the Antis': Addressing the Conceptual Ambiguities Surrounding 'Antisemitism'". Society. 59 (1): 25-33. doi:10.1007/s12115-022-00665-4. S2CID 247172627.

Deutsch, Gotthard, Anti-Semitism Jewish Encyclopedia vol. 1, pp. 641-9. New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1901. At Internet Archive

Foxman, Abraham (2010). Jews and Money: The Story of a Stereotype. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-230-11225-4.

Judaken, Jonathan (2018). "Introduction". The American Historical Review. 123 (4): 1122-1138. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhy024.

Lipstadt, Deborah (2019). Antisemitism: Here and Now. Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-80524337-6.

Laurens, Henry (2002). La Question de Palestine. Vol. II. Fayard.

Majer, Diemut (2014). "Non-Germans" Under The Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe, with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939-1945. Texas Tech University Press. ISBN 978-0896728370.

McLellan, David (1980). Marx before Marxism (PDF) (2d ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-27883-3. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.

Michael, Robert (2008). A History of Catholic Antisemitism: The Dark Side of the Church. Springer. ISBN 978-0-230-61117-7.

Poliakov, Léon. The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume 1: From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews, University of Pennsylvania Press: 2003

Poliakov, Léon. The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume 2: From Mohammad to the Marranos, University of Pennsylvania Press: 2003

Poliakov, Léon. The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume 3: From Voltaire to Wagner, University of Pennsylvania Press: 2003

Poliakov, Léon. The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume 4: Suicidal Europe 1870-1933, University of Pennsylvania Press: 2003

Poliakov, Léon (1997). "Anti-Semitism". Encyclopaedia Judaica (CD-ROM Edition Version 1.0). Ed. Cecil Roth. Keter Publishing House. ISBN 965-07-0665-8

Rubenstein, Richard L.; Roth, John K. (2003). Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22353-3.

Sachar, Howard Morley (1961). Aliyah: The People of Israel. World Publishing Company.

Tausch, Arno (2018). The Return of Religious Antisemitism? The Evidence from World Values Survey Data (17 November 2018). Available at SSRN

Tausch, Arno (2015). Islamism and Antisemitism. Preliminary Evidence on Their Relationship from Cross-National Opinion Data (14 August 2015). Available at SSRN Archived 20 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine or Islamism and Antisemitism. Preliminary Evidence on Their Relationship from Cross-National Opinion Data Archived 17 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine

Tausch, Arno (2014). The New Global Antisemitism: Implications from the Recent ADL-100 Data (14 January 2015). Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Fall 2014). Available at SSRN or The New Global Antisemitism: Implications from the Recent ADL-100 Data Archived 17 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine

Ury, Scott (2018). "Strange Bedfellows? Anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the Fate of "the Jews"". The American Historical Review. 123 (4): 1151-1171. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhy030.

Attribution

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Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people and/or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism.

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A video that goes over the neutrality of the US in the 1930

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A video that goes over the neutrality of the US in the 1930

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A picture of the Rome-Berlin Axis coalition between Italy and Germany. The Axis was the enemy of the Allies in WWII

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A picture of the Rome-Berlin Axis coalition between Italy and Germany. The Axis was the enemy of the Allies in WWII

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This article gives more information on the nonaggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The pact was made on August 23, 1939 and was dissolved when Nazi Germany marched troops into the Soviet Union.

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This article gives more information on the nonaggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The pact was made on August 23, 1939 and was dissolved when Nazi Germany marched troops into the Soviet Union.

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Contents

1. Germany's Aggression in Europe Stokes Fears of War

2. Hitler and Stalin Rethink their Positions

3. The Germans and Soviets Make a Deal

On August 23, 1939-shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe-enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. With Europe on the brink of another major war, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military. German chancellor Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) used the pact to make sure Germany was able to invade Poland unopposed. The pact also contained a secret agreement in which the Soviets and Germans agreed how they would later divide up Eastern Europe. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact fell apart in June 1941, when Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union.

Germany's Aggression in Europe Stokes Fears of War

On March 15, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, breaking the agreement it had signed with Great Britain and France the year before in Munich, Germany. The invasion jolted British and French leaders and convinced them that Adolf Hitler, the German chancellor, could not be trusted to honor his agreements and was likely to keep committing aggressions until stopped by force or a massive deterrent.

Did you know? Hitler disliked the photograph taken when the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact was signed in the Kremlin because it showed Stalin with a cigarette in his hand. Hitler felt the cigarette was unsuited to the historic occasion and had it airbrushed from the photo when it was published in Germany.

In the previous year, Hitler had annexed Austria and had taken the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia; in March 1939, his tanks rolled into the rest of Czechoslovakia. It appeared that he was determined to undo the international order set up by the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I (1914-18). (The treaty, which required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations, was highly unpopular with Hitler and his Nazi Party.) It also seemed that Hitler was planning to strike next against its neighbor Poland. To block him, France and Britain pledged on March 31, 1939, to guarantee Poland's security and independence. The British and French also stepped up diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union, trying to draw it closer by trade and other agreements to make Hitler see he would also have to face Joseph Stalin if he invaded Poland. But Hitler already knew the Soviets would not stand by if he tried to occupy Poland-an act that would extend the border of Germany right up to the Soviet Union. He also knew France and the Soviets had concluded a defense alliance several years earlier-a treaty that gave Stalin an additional reason to fight Germany if it ventured into Poland and triggered France's pledge.

It was clear during the tense spring and summer of 1939 that little, if anything, could be taken for granted. In May, Germany and Italy signed a major treaty of alliance, and Hitler's representatives had begun conducting important trade talks with the Soviets. Just two years prior, however, as Laurence Rees notes in "War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin," Hitler had called the Soviet Union "the greatest danger for the culture and civilization of mankind which has ever threatened it since the collapse of the ... ancient world."

Hitler and Stalin Rethink their Positions

Through the spring and summer of 1939, Hitler stepped up his demands on the Polish government in Warsaw, and pushed for allowing Germany to reclaim the port city of Danzig (a former German city internationalized by the Treaty of Versailles). Hitler also wanted to put a stop to the alleged mistreatment of Germans living in the western regions of Poland. At the same time, he advanced his plans for attacking Poland in August 1939 if his demands were not met. However, Hitler's fervor for a war with Poland made his generals nervous. They knew Stalin's purges of his military commanders in 1937 and 1938 had seriously weakened the Soviet army, but the Germans were leery of a campaign that could easily lead to the nightmare faced in World War I-a two-front war, in which they would be fighting Russians troops in the east and French and British troops in the west.

To avoid such a scenario, Hitler had cautiously begun exploring the possibility of a thaw in relations with Stalin. Several brief diplomatic exchanges in May 1939 fizzled by the next month. But in July, as tensions continued building across Europe and all major powers were feverishly casting about for potential allies, Hitler's foreign minister dropped hints to Moscow that if Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union might be permitted some Polish territory. This caught Stalin's attention. On August 20, Hitler sent a personal message to the Soviet premier: War with Poland was imminent. If Hitler sent his foreign minister to Moscow for a vitally important discussion, would Stalin receive him? Stalin said yes.

The Germans and Soviets Make a Deal

On August 22, 1939, German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946) flew from Berlin to Moscow. He was soon inside the Kremlin, face-to-face with Stalin and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986), who had been working with von Ribbentrop to negotiate an agreement. (The Soviet minister is also the namesake for the incendiary device known as a Molotov cocktail.) Ribbentrop carried a proposal from Hitler that both countries commit to a nonaggression pact that would last 100 years. Stalin replied that 10 years would be sufficient. The proposal also stipulated that neither country would aid any third party that attacked either signatory. Finally, the proposal contained a secret protocol specifying the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe both parties would accept after Hitler conquered Poland. The Soviet Union would acquire the eastern half of Poland, along with Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

During the Kremlin meeting, Ribbentrop several times telephoned Hitler, who was nervously awaiting news at his country estate in Bavaria. Finally, in the early hours of August 23, Ribbentrop called to say that everything had been settled. As Ian Kershaw notes in "Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis," the German chancellor was ecstatic. He congratulated his foreign minister and said the pact "will hit like a bombshell." It neutralized the French-Soviet treaty, which would reassure Hitler's generals, and cleared the way for Germany's attack on Poland.

Aftermath

The public part of the Moscow agreement was announced with great fanfare on August 25, 1939, the day Hitler had planned to launch his "blitzkrieg" (quick, surprise attacks) strike east into Poland. Earlier this same day, however, Great Britain and France, knowing the Nazi-Soviet agreement was pending, reacted by formalizing their pledge to Poland in a treaty declaring each would fight in Poland's defense if it were attacked.

Hitler was incensed by this counterthrust but quickly cancelled his order for the invasion. Then, in a wild gamble that France and Great Britain would not meet their treaty obligations to Poland, and knowing he had nothing to fear from the Soviet army, Hitler ordered his troops to strike east into Poland on September 1, 1939. Two days later, on September 3, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War II had begun. And less than two years after that, Hitler scrapped his pact with Stalin and sent some 3 million Nazi soldiers pouring into the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

Four years later, with no hope of a German victory in World War II, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 8, the Allies accepted Nazi Germany's surrender.

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On August 23, 1939-shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe-enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.

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This article gives more information on the Rape of Nanking, which was the slaughtering of 200,000 men and the rape of 20,000 women and girls.

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This article gives more information on the Rape of Nanking, which was the slaughtering of 200,000 men and the rape of 20,000 women and girls.

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During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, falls to Japanese forces, and the Chinese government flees to Hankow, further inland along the Yangtze River.

To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities against civilians. In what became known as the "Rape of Nanking," the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male "war prisoners," massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process.

Shortly after the end of World War II, Matsui was found guilty of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and executed.

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The Rape of Nanking | December 13, 1937 | HISTORY

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During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, falls to Japanese forces, and the Chinese government flees to Hankow, further inland along the Yangtze River. To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed.

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This article gives more information on the Quarantine Speech, given by FDR on October 5, 1937. The speech called for an international quarantine as an alternative to  American neutrality.

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This article gives more information on the Quarantine Speech, given by FDR on October 5, 1937. The speech called for an international quarantine as an alternative to  American neutrality.

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The Quarantine Speech was given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 5, 1937 in Chicago (on the occasion of the dedication of the bridge between north and south outer Lake Shore Drive), calling for an international "quarantine" against the "epidemic of world lawlessness" by aggressive nations as an alternative to the political climate of American neutrality and non-intervention that was prevalent at the time.

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This article gives more information on the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed the President to send armaments to foreign nations during WWII. The act allowed the President to send aid without charging for it, as according to the Neutrality Act of 1939.

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This article gives more information on the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed the President to send armaments to foreign nations during WWII. The act allowed the President to send aid without charging for it, as according to the Neutrality Act of 1939.

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The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 stated that the U.S. government could lend or lease (rather than sell) war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." Under this policy, the United States was able to supply military aid to its foreign allies during World War II, while still remaining officially neutral in the conflict. Most importantly, passage of the Lend-Lease Act enabled a struggling Great Britain to continue fighting against Germany virtually on its own until the United States entered World War II late in 1941.
WATCH: World War II Documentaries on HISTORY Vault
Neutrality in Wartime

In the decades following World War I, many Americans remained extremely wary of becoming involved in another costly international conflict. Even as fascist regimes like Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler took aggressive action in Europe the 1930s, isolationist members of Congress pushed through a series of laws limiting how the United States could respond.

But after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and full-scale war broke out again in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that while the United States would remain neutral by law, it was impossible "that every American remain neutral in thought as well."

Before passage of the Neutrality Act of 1939, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to allow the sale of military supplies to allies like France and Britain on a "cash-and-carry" basis: They had to pay cash for American-made supplies, and then transport the supplies on their own ships.
WATCH VIDEO: The Lend-Lease Act
Great Britain Asks for Help

But by the summer of 1940, France and much of northern Europe had fallen to the Nazis, and Britain was fighting virtually alone against Germany on land, at sea and in the air. The London Blitz and other German offenses had taken a serious toll on British morale and military strength.

After the new British prime minister, Winston Churchill, appealed personally to Roosevelt for help, the U.S. president agreed to exchange more than 50 outdated American destroyers for 99-year leases on British bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland, which would be used as U.S. air and naval bases.

That December, with Britain's currency and gold reserves dwindling, Churchill warned Roosevelt that his country would not be able to pay cash for military supplies or shipping much longer. Though he had recently been re-elected on a platform promising to keep America out of World War II, Roosevelt wanted to support Great Britain against Germany.

After hearing Churchill's appeal, he began working to convince Congress (and the American public) that providing more direct aid to Britain was in the nation's own interest.

Arsenal of Democracy

In December 1940, Roosevelt introduced a new policy initiative whereby the United States would lend, rather than sell, military supplies to Great Britain for use in the fight against Germany. Payment for the supplies would be deferred, and could come in any form Roosevelt deemed satisfactory.

"We must be the great arsenal of democracy," Roosevelt declared in one of his signature " fireside chats " on December 29, 1940. "For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war."

Lend-Lease Policy

Lend-Lease, as Roosevelt's plan became known, ran into strong opposition among isolationist members of Congress, as well as those who believed the policy gave the president himself too much power. During the debate over the bill, which continued for two months, Roosevelt's administration and supporters in Congress argued convincingly that providing aid to allies like Great Britain was a military necessity for the United States.

"We are buying...not lending. We are buying our own security while we prepare," Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "By our delay during the past six years, while Germany was preparing, we find ourselves unprepared and unarmed, facing a thoroughly prepared and armed potential enemy."

Finally, in March 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act (subtitled "An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States") and Roosevelt signed it into law.

Impact of the Lend-Lease Act

Roosevelt quickly took advantage of his authority under the new law, ordering large quantities of U.S. food and war materials to be shipped to Britain from U.S. ports through the new Office of Lend-Lease Administration.

The supplies dispersed under the Lend-Lease Act ranged from tanks, aircraft, ships, weapons and road building supplies to clothing, chemicals and food. By the end of 1941, the lend-lease policy was extended to include other U.S. allies, including France, China and the Soviet Union.

Through the end of World War II the United States would use it to provide a total of some $50 billion in aid (equal to $690 billion in 2020 dollars) to more than 30 nations around the globe, from the Free French movement led by Charles de Gaulle and the governments-in-exile of Poland, the Netherlands and Norway to Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru.

For Roosevelt, Lend-Lease was not motivated primarily by altruism or generosity, but was intended to serve the interest of the United States by helping to defeat Nazi Germany without entering the war outright-at least not until the nation was prepared for it, both militarily and in terms of public opinion.

Through Lend-Lease, the United States also succeeded in becoming the "arsenal of democracy" during World War II, thus securing its preeminent place in the international economic and political order once the war drew to a close.

Ukraine Lend-Lease Act

In 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act. Much like Roosevelt's 1941 program, this act allowed the U.S. government to lend or lease a wide range of military equipment to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.

Resulting from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the current Lend-Lease Act exempted the Biden administration from provisions of law that govern the loan or lease of military equipment to foreign countries. The act was designed to expire in 2023.

Sources

Lend-Lease Act, 1941. OurDocuments.gov.
Mark Seidl, "The Lend-Lease Program, 1941-45." Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.
Lend-Lease and Military Aid to the Allies in the Early Years of World War II. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State.
Biden Signs Lend-Lease Act to Supply More Security Assistance to Ukraine. U.S. Department of Defense.

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The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 stated that the U.S. government could lend or lease (rather than sell) war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." Under this policy, the United States was able to supply military aid to its foreign allies during World War II, while still remaining officially neutral in the conflict.

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This article provides more information on Operation Sealion, an operation launched by Hitler in 1940 after Britain refused his offer of a negotiated peace settlement. The operation failed when Germany failed to achieve air and sea superiority.

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This article provides more information on Operation Sealion, an operation launched by Hitler in 1940 after Britain refused his offer of a negotiated peace settlement. The operation failed when Germany failed to achieve air and sea superiority.

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This article provides more information on the Atlantic Charter, a declaration that envisioned a postwar world in which no territory would change hands after the war and that the people have the right to decide what type of government they have. Twenty-six Allied nations pledged their support to this declaration.

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This article provides more information on the Atlantic Charter, a declaration that envisioned a postwar world in which no territory would change hands after the war and that the people have the right to decide what type of government they have. Twenty-six Allied nations pledged their support to this declaration.

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Roosevelt and Churchill Discuss Atlantic Charter

From August 9 to August 12, 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) met aboard naval ships in Placentia Bay, off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, to confer on a range of issues related to World War II. It was the first time the two leaders had met as heads of their respective governments, and at that point, the United States had not yet entered the war (it would do so in December of that year following the bombing of Pearl Harbor). They met under utmost secrecy, evading all press to avoid the threat of being targeted by German U-Boats or isolationists bent on pulling the U.S. out of war.

Did you know? Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had a close relationship, and the U.S. president once sent the British leader a cable that read: "It is fun to be in the same decade as you."

The document that resulted from the Roosevelt-Churchill meetings was issued on August 14, 1941, and became known as the Atlantic Charter. The document, which was not a treaty, stated that the two leaders "deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world."

What Was Included In The Atlantic Charter?

The Atlantic Charter included eight common principles. Among them, the United States and Britain agreed not to seek territorial gains from the war, and they opposed any territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned. The two countries also agreed to support the restoration of self-government to those nations who had lost it during the war. Additionally, the Atlantic Charter stated that people should have the right to choose their own form of government. Other principles included access for all nations to raw materials needed for economic prosperity and an easing of trade restrictions. The document also called for international cooperation to secure improved living and working conditions for all; freedom of the seas; and for all countries to abandon the use of force.

Allied Nations Support Atlantic Charter

On January 1, 1942, at a meeting in representatives of 26 governments (the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia) signed a "Declaration by United Nations" in which they pledged their support for the Atlantic Charter's principles.

Text of Atlantic Charter

"The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill"

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Atlantic Charter - Definition, Purpose & Significance

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The Atlantic Charter is considered one of the first key steps toward the establishment of the United Nations. In August 1941, the U.S. and Great Britain set out a vision for the postwar world. In January 1942, a group of 26 Allied nations pledged their support for this declaration.

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This article provides more information on Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China during WWII. The article provides more information about his life and his career. When the Allies declared war on Japan,  China became one of the Big Four.

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This article provides more information on Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China during WWII. The article provides more information about his life and his career. When the Allies declared war on Japan,  China became one of the Big Four.

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Contents

1. Chiang Kai-shek's Early Life and Career

2. Chiang Kai-Shek: Internal and External Conflict in China

3. Chiang Kai-Shek: Civil War and Government in Exile

Chinese military and political leader Chiang Kai-shek joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (known as the Kuomintang, or KMT) in 1918. Succeeding party founder Sun Yat-sen as KMT leader in 1925, he expelled Chinese communists from the party and led a successful unification of China. Despite a professed focus on reform, Chiang's government concentrated on battling Communism within China as well as confronting Japanese aggression. When the Allies declared war on Japan in 1941, China took its place among the Big Four. Civil war broke out in 1946, ending in a victory by Mao Zedong's Communist forces and the creation of the People's Republic of China. From 1949 until his death, Chiang led the KMT government in exile in Taiwan, which many countries continued to recognize as China's legitimate government.

Chiang Kai-shek's Early Life and Career

Born in the coastal province of Chekiang on October 31, 1887, Chiang ran away from home after his father died and joined the provincial army. He received formal military training at the Paoting Military Academy in northern China, and later in Japan. When uprisings against the ruling Qing (Manchu) dynasty broke out in China in 1911, Chiang returned home and joined the struggle, which ended in the overthrow of the Manchus and the formation of a Chinese republic. In 1918, he joined the Nationalist Party (known as the Kuomintang, or KMT), founded by Sun Yat-sen.

Did you know? Chiang Kai-shek's second wife, Soong Mei-ling, became a significant political figure in her own right. In addition to her address of Congress in 1943, the Wellesley-educated "Madame Chiang" wrote many articles on China for the American press.

With Sun's support, Chiang founded a military academy at Whampoa, near Canton, in 1924. He began to build up the Nationalist army, based on methods Chiang observed during a visit to the Soviet Union. During this same time, Chinese Communists were admitted into the KMT; after Sun's death in 1925, they began to clash with more conservative party elements. As Sun's successor, Chiang led a successful military campaign against local warlords in northern China and consolidated control within his own party by expelling the Communists in a brutal coup in 1927. In 1928, he formed a new central government out of Nanking, with himself as head of state.

Chiang Kai-Shek: Internal and External Conflict in China

Chiang sought to institute a modest program of reforms, including financial and educational reforms, infrastructure improvements and a revival of Confucianism, supported by the "New Life Movement" campaign. The bulk of his government's energies and resources, however, were focused on threats to its own stability from within and outside of China. The Communists were operating their own opposition government from rural strongholds, while war with Japan-which seized Manchuria in 1931-seemed imminent. Chiang initially focused on the communist threat rather than confront Japan directly, a choice that angered many of his supporters. In the Sian (Xian) Incident of December 1936, one of his generals seized Chiang and held him captive for two weeks until he agreed to ally with Mao Zedong's Communist forces against Japan.

Japan invaded China the following year, sparking the Sino-Japanese War. China fought Japan on its own for more than four years, until the Allies (with the exception of the Soviet Union) declared war on Japan in 1941. For its efforts, China earned inclusion among the Big Four powers, and Chiang's international reputation skyrocketed. In 1943, his Western-educated wife, Soong Mei-ling, became the first Chinese and only the second woman to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, when she asked for increased U.S. aid for China in the Sino-Japanese War. At the same time, however, Chiang's government was losing a good deal of support within the country itself, thanks to his relative passivity toward Japan and increasingly conservative policies that favored landowners and mercantile interests and alienated peasants (who made up nearly 90 percent of the Chinese population).

Chiang Kai-Shek: Civil War and Government in Exile

In 1946, a year after Japan's surrender, civil war broke out in China between KMT and Communist forces. With the Communist victory in mainland China in 1949, Mao declared the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Upon his defeat, Chiang fled with the remnants of his Nationalist government to Taiwan, which had been turned over to the Nationalist government after the defeat of Japan according to terms agreed upon in Cairo in 1943. Backed by American aid, Chiang launched Taiwan on the path of economic modernization, and in 1955 the United States signed an agreement guaranteeing Taiwan's defense. Many countries continued to recognize Chiang's government in exile as the legitimate Chinese government, and it would control China's seat in the United Nations until Chiang's death.

From 1972 onward, however, Taiwan's preferred status (especially in relation to the United States) was threatened by improving U.S.-China relations. In 1979, four years after Chiang died, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established full relations with the People's Republic of China.

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Chiang Kai-shek's Early Life and Career Chiang Kai-Shek: Internal and External Conflict in China Chiang Kai-Shek: Civil War and Government in Exile Chinese military and political leader Chiang Kai-shek joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (known as the Kuomintang, or KMT) in 1918.

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This article provides more information on the United States Pacific Fleet, including their origins, their composition as of December 1941, and post-war.

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This article provides more information on the United States Pacific Fleet, including their origins, their composition as of December 1941, and post-war.

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The United States Pacific Fleet ( USPACFLT) is a Pacific Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval forces to the United States Indo-Pacific Command. Fleet headquarters is at Pearl Harbor Naval Station, Hawaii, with large secondary facilities at North Island, San Diego Bay on the Mainland.

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This article provides information on the USS Arizona, the vessel that sustained the most damage in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The article provides 5 facts about the USS Arizona and Pearl Harbor that you might not know.

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This article provides information on the USS Arizona, the vessel that sustained the most damage in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The article provides 5 facts about the USS Arizona and Pearl Harbor that you might not know.

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1. Twenty-three sets of brothers died aboard USS Arizona.
There were 37 confirmed pairs or trios of brothers assigned to USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. Of these 77 men, 62 were killed, and 23 sets of brothers died. Only one full set of brothers, Kenneth and Russell Warriner, survived the attack; Kenneth was away at flight school in San Diego on that day and Russell was badly wounded but recovered. Both members of the ship's only father-and-son pair, Thomas Augusta Free and his son William Thomas Free, were killed in action.

Though family members often served on the same ship before World War II, U.S. officials attempted to discourage the practice after Pearl Harbor. However, no official regulations were established, and by the end of the war hundreds of brothers had fought-and died¬-together. The five Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa, for instance, jointly enlisted after learning that a friend, Bill Ball, had died aboard USS Arizona; Their only condition upon enlistment was that they be assigned to the same ship. In November 1942, all five siblings were killed in action when their light cruiser, USS Juneau, was sunk during the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

2. USS Arizona's entire band was lost in the attack.
Almost half of the casualties at Pearl Harbor occurred on the naval battleship USS Arizona, which was hit four times by Japanese bombers and eventually sank. Among the 1,177 crewmen killed were all 21 members of the Arizona's band, known as U.S. Navy Band Unit (NBU) 22. Most of its members were up on deck preparing to play music for the daily flag raising ceremony when the attack began. They instantly moved to man their battle positions beneath the ship's gun turret. At no other time in American history has an entire military band died in action.

The night before the attack, NBU 22 had attended the latest round of the annual "Battle of Music" competition between military bands from U.S. ships based at Pearl Harbor. Contrary to some reports, NBU 22 did not perform, having already qualified for the finals set to be held on December 20, 1941. Following the assault, the unit was unanimously declared the winner of that year's contest, and the award was permanently renamed the USS Arizona Band Trophy.

3. Fuel continues to leak from USS Arizona's wreckage.
On December 6, 1941, Arizona took on a full load of fuel-nearly 1.5 million gallons-in preparation for its scheduled trip to the mainland later that month. The next day, much of it fed the explosion and subsequent fires that destroyed the ship following its attack by Japanese bombers. However, despite the raging fire and ravages of time, some 500,000 gallons are still slowly seeping out of the ship's submerged wreckage: Nearly 70 years after its demise, Arizona continues to spill up to 9 quarts of oil into the harbor each day. In the mid-1990s, environmental concerns led the National Park Service to commission a series of site studies to determine the long-term effects of the oil leakage.

Some scientists have warned of a possible "catastrophic" eruption of oil from the wreckage, which they believe would cause extensive damage to the Hawaiian shoreline and disrupt U.S. naval functions in the area. The NPS and other governmental agencies continue to monitor the deterioration of the wreck site but are reluctant to perform extensive repairs or modifications due to the Arizona's role as a "war grave." In fact, the oil that often coats the surface of the water surrounding the ship has added an emotional gravity for many who visit the memorial and is sometimes referred to as the "tears of the Arizona," or "black tears."

4. Some former crewmembers have chosen USS Arizona as their final resting place.
The bonds between the crewmembers of Arizona have lasted far beyond the ship's loss on December 7, 1941. Since 1982, the U.S. Navy has allowed survivors of USS Arizona to be interred in the ship's wreckage upon their deaths. Following a full military funeral at the Arizona memorial, the cremated remains are placed in an urn and then deposited by divers beneath one of the Arizona's gun turrets. To date, more than 30 Arizona crewmen who survived Pearl Harbor have chosen the ship as their final resting place. Crewmembers who served on the ship prior to the attack may have their ashes scattered above the wreck site, and those who served on other vessels stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, may have their ashes scattered above their former ships. As of November 2011, only 18 of the 355 crewmen who survived the bombing of USS Arizona are known to be alive.

5. A memorial was built at the USS Arizona site, thanks in part to Elvis Presley.
After Arizona sank, its superstructure and main armament were salvaged and reused to support the war effort, leaving its hull, two gun turrets and the remains of more than 1,000 crewmen submerged in less than 40 feet of water. In 1949 the Pacific War Memorial Commission was established to create a permanent tribute to those who had lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it wasn't until 1958 that President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation to create a national memorial. The funds to build it came from both the public sector and private donors, including one unlikely source. In March 1961, entertainer Elvis Presley, who had recently finished a two-year stint in the U.S. Army, performed a benefit concert at Pearl Harbor's Block Arena that raised over $50,000-more than 10 percent of the USS Arizona Memorial's final cost. The monument was officially dedicated on May 30, 1962, and attracts more than 1 million visitors each year.

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5 Facts About Pearl Harbor and USS Arizona

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1. Twenty-three sets of brothers died aboard USS Arizona. There were 37 confirmed pairs or trios of brothers assigned to USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. Of these 77 men, 62 were killed, and 23 sets of brothers died.

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This article provides more information on the Great Migration of African Americans including background information, when and where it began, and the impact it had on the world. The Great Migration was the movement of millions of African Americans from the South to the North from about 1916 to 1970.

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This article provides more information on the Great Migration of African Americans including background information, when and where it began, and the impact it had on the world. The Great Migration was the movement of millions of African Americans from the South to the North from about 1916 to 1970.

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The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million Black Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many Black Americans headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that arose during the First World War. During the Great Migration, Black people began to build a new place for themselves in public life, actively confronting racial prejudice as well as economic, political and social challenges to create a Black urban culture that would exert enormous influence in the decades to come.
WATCH: Black History Shorts on HISTORY Vault
What Caused the Great Migration?

After the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, racial inequality persisted across the South during the 1870s, and the segregationist policies known as " Jim Crow" soon became the law of the land.

Black Southerners were still forced to make their living working the land due to Black codes and the sharecropping system, which offered little in the way of economic opportunity, especially after crop damage resulting from a regional boll weevil infestation in the 1890s and early 1900s.

And while the Ku Klux Klan had been officially dissolved in 1869, the KKK continued underground after that, and intimidation, violence and lynching of Black southerners were not uncommon practices in the Jim Crow South.

Did you know? Around 1916, when the Great Migration began, a factory wage in the urban North was typically three times more than what Black people could expect to make working the land in the rural South.

READ MORE: How the Black Codes Limited African American Progress After the Civil War
The Great Migration Begins

When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, industrialized urban areas in the North, Midwest and West faced a shortage of industrial laborers, as the war put an end to the steady tide of European immigration to the United States.

With war production kicking into high gear, recruiters enticed Black Americans to come north, to the dismay of white Southerners. Black newspapers-particularly the widely read Chicago Defender -published advertisements touting the opportunities available in the cities of the North and West, along with first-person accounts of success.
WATCH: Yohuru Williams on the Great Migration
Life for Migrants in the City

By the end of 1919, some scholars estimate that 1 million Black people had left the South, usually traveling by train, boat or bus; a smaller number had automobiles or even horse-drawn carts.

In the decade between 1910 and 1920, the Black population of major Northern cities grew by large percentages, including New York City (66 percent), Chicago (148 percent), Philadelphia (500 percent) and Detroit (611 percent).

Many new arrivals found jobs in factories, slaughterhouses and foundries, where working conditions were arduous and sometimes dangerous. Female migrants had a harder time finding work, spurring heated competition for domestic labor positions.

Aside from competition for employment, there was also competition for living space in increasingly crowded cities. While segregation was not legalized in the North (as it was in the South), racism and prejudice were nonetheless widespread.

After the U.S. Supreme Court declared racially based housing ordinances unconstitutional in 1917, some residential neighborhoods enacted covenants requiring white property owners to agree not to sell to Black people; these would remain legal until the Court struck them down in 1948.

Rising rents in segregated areas, plus a resurgence of KKK activity after 1915, worsened Black and white relations across the country. The summer of 1919 began the greatest period of interracial strife in U.S. history at that time, including a disturbing wave of race riots.

The most serious was the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 -it lasted 13 days and left 38 people dead, 537 injured and 1,000 Black families without homes.
READ MORE: How a New Deal Housing Program Enforced Segregation
Impact of the Great Migration

As a result of housing tensions, many Black residents ended up creating their own cities within big cities, fostering the growth of a new, urban, Black culture. The most prominent example was Harlem in New York City, a formerly all-white neighborhood that by the 1920s housed some 200,000 Black people.

The Black experience during the Great Migration became an important theme in the artistic movement known first as the New Negro Movement and later as the Harlem Renaissance, which would have an enormous impact on the culture of the era.

The Great Migration also began a new era of increasing political activism among Black Americans, who after being disenfranchised in the South found a new place for themselves in public life in the cities of the North and West. The civil rights movement directly benefited from this activism.

Black migration slowed considerably in the 1930s, when the country sank into the Great Depression, but picked up again with the coming of World War II and the need for wartime production. But returning Black soldiers found that the GI Bill didn't always promise the same postwar benefits for all.

By the 1970s, when the Great Migration ended, its demographic impact was unmistakable: Whereas in 1900, nine out of every 10 Black Americans lived in the South, and three out of every four lived on farms, by 1970 the South was home to only half of the country's Black population, with only 20 percent living in the region's rural areas. The Great Migration was famously captured in Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.

Sources

The Great Migration (1910-1970). National Archives.
The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration. Smithsonian Magazine.
Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North. NPR: Fresh Air.
READ MORE: Black History Milestones: A Timeline

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Great Migration: Definition, Causes & Impact | HISTORY

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The Great Migration was the movement of more than 6 million Black Americans from the South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970.

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This article provides more information on the strategy of island hopping used in WWII and led by Douglas MacArthur. Island hopping was an American strategy in which small islands were captured, bases were built upon them, and the bases were used to capture more islands. The strategy eventually led to the U.S. being able to attack the Japanese mainland.

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This article provides more information on the strategy of island hopping used in WWII and led by Douglas MacArthur. Island hopping was an American strategy in which small islands were captured, bases were built upon them, and the bases were used to capture more islands. The strategy eventually led to the U.S. being able to attack the Japanese mainland.

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"Island Hopping" is the phrase given to the strategy employed by the United States to gain military bases and secure the many small islands in the Pacific. The attack was lead by General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the Allied forces in the South west Pacific, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet. The US troops targeted the islands that were not as strongly defended by the Japanese. They took control of those islands, and quickly constructed landing strips and small military bases. Then they proceeded to attack other islands from the bases they had established. Slowly the US army moved closer to Japan, taking control of many of the surrounding islands.

MacArthur met with Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, and the two devised a plan. On April 26th, 1942, they laid out the plan; a two-pronged offensive codenamed "Cartwheel". They aimed to corner Japanese troops on Rabaul Island, with MacArthur's troops advancing along the northern coast of New Guinea, and Halsey's troops driving north from Guadalcanal, and taking control of the Solomon Islands.

In February 1945 US troops invaded Iwo Jima; the first American landing on Japanese territory. It was a bloody fight that last 36 days, and cost the US 6, 381 men. Nearly 20,000 Japanese soldiers perished. In April came the invasion of Okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the war in the Pacific in which the Japanese launched massive Kamikaze attacks on the US invasion fleet.

The island hopping strategy was very costly. The US soldiers were not used to the guerilla style of fighting, and the Japanese had the advantage of controlling many of the islands. Further, many US soldiers succumbed to illnesses such as Malaria, dysentery and skin fungus.

Ultimately, the island hopping campaign was successful. It allowed the US to gain control over sufficient islands in the Pacific to get close enough to Japan to launch a mainland invasion. However, the island hopping took a long time and was very costly; even after war was close to ending in Europe it appeared that the war might continue indefinitely in the Pacific. Fearing a drawn out war with many more casualties, the US made plans to end the war quickly and force Japan's surrender. They achieved this with the World's first Atomic bombs.

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"Island Hopping" is the phrase given to the strategy employed by the United States to gain military bases and secure the many small islands in the Pacific. The attack was lead by General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the Allied forces in the South west Pacific, and Admiral Chester W.

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This article gives background information on the Grand Alliance of WWII, such as its origins and some tensions within it. The Grand Alliance was one of convenience between the Soviet Union, the U.S., and the U.K. to fight the Axis powers during WWII.

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This article gives background information on the Grand Alliance of WWII, such as its origins and some tensions within it. The Grand Alliance was one of convenience between the Soviet Union, the U.S., and the U.K. to fight the Axis powers during WWII.

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Grand Alliance (World War II) - Wikipedia

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The Grand Alliance, also known as The Big Three, was a military alliance consisting of the three major Allies of World War II: the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It is often called the "Strange Alliance" because it united the world's greatest capitalist state, the greatest communist state and the greatest colonial power.

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This article provides more information on British General Bernard Montgomery. The article provides a small biography of him and tells of his accomplishments in WWII. Bernard Montgomery was most famous for leading the attack at El Alamein, Egypt.

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This article provides more information on British General Bernard Montgomery. The article provides a small biography of him and tells of his accomplishments in WWII. Bernard Montgomery was most famous for leading the attack at El Alamein, Egypt.

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Contents

Contenders for the title are few, but "Monty" was indisputably Britain's greatest soldier since Wellington. He was better known for his outstanding professionalism and sense of "balance" than for his talents in getting on with his contemporaries-notably the American ones.

British Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery (1887-1976) was among the most decorated military leaders of World War II. Tapped to take command of the Eighth Army, he earned renown for his part in the first major Allied land victory at El Alamein, Egypt, in 1942. Montgomery became ground commander of the Anglo-American forces under Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his insistence that invasion forces be increased from three to eight divisions was essential to the Allies' success on D-Day in 1944. After the war, Montgomery served as chief of the Imperial General Staff, and later as deputy to Eisenhower at NATO.

Contenders for the title are few, but "Monty" was indisputably Britain's greatest soldier since Wellington. He was better known for his outstanding professionalism and sense of "balance" than for his talents in getting on with his contemporaries-notably the American ones.

Fourth of nine children in a clerical Irish family of modest means, his early life suffered from a domineering mother. In October 1914, at the First Battle of Ypres, Montgomery, a young lieutenant, was shot through the lung and nearly died. He received the Distinguished Service Order (an unusually high distinction for a junior officer). His wound led to an aversion for smoking-one of the first causes of friction with the chain-smoking Allied supreme commander in World War II, General "Ike" Eisenhower; he was also a strict teetotaler. The horrendous British casualties in 1914-1918 help explain Montgomery's caution as a commander twenty-five years later. (This once caused George S. Patton, who hated him, to damn Monty as a "tired little fart.")

In the interwar period, Monty stood out for his dedication to professionalism. His uncompromising standards, and abrasiveness, were to affect his promotion. In 1927, at age thirty-nine, he married a war widow, Betty Carver, who tragically died of a rare blood infection in 1938. Monty never recovered, throwing himself even more fiercely into preparing for the new war with Germany.

In 1940, he led the Third Division, one of Britain's few elite formations, intact from Dunkirk. The next two years he spent retraining the British army, with utmost rigor, in southern England. When appointed to command the defeated Eighth Army in Egypt in August 1942, he was only Winston Churchill's second choice. El Alamein, in October, the first major land victory the Allies won against Adolf Hitler, made him a hero both in Britain and the United States; it also went to his head. Nevertheless-sporting the famed black beret with its unorthodox twin cap badges-he exploited popularity to inspire his men as did perhaps no other commander of World War II.

His insistence that the initial invasion forces be increased from three to eight divisions, of which three were airborne, was a historic contribution. It was essential to success on D-Day in 1944-as was his role as ground commander of the Anglo-American forces under Eisenhower as supreme Allied commander. But failure to capture Caen in the first days marred his reputation in U.S. eyes. Rashly he insisted that everything was going "according to plan"; yet it was his basic strategy of wearing down the Germans on the left (British) of the line while Bradley's U.S. forces broke out in the west that led to victory in Normandy.

Relations with Ike, remarkably good up to D-Day, deteriorated beginning in September 1944, following Eisenhower's assumption of overall command over strategies to end the war. The bold but disastrous airborne coup at Arnhem, the only battle Monty ever lost, further dented his reputation. In turn, he was tactlessly critical of the American reverse in the Ardennes of December 1944.

After 1945, Montgomery became chief of the Imperial General Staff-Britain's top military post-and later deputy to Eisenhower at NATO. The gulf between the two widened irretrievably in later years as both indulged in mutual recriminations on wartime strategy in their bitter "Battle of the Memoirs."

The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Contenders for the title are few, but "Monty" was indisputably Britain's greatest soldier since Wellington. He was better known for his outstanding professionalism and sense of "balance" than for his talents in getting on with his contemporaries-notably the American ones. British Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery (1887-1976) was among the most decorated military leaders of World War II.

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This article provides more information on German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. The article tells of his accomplishments and defeats in WWII. He is best known for his defeat of the British at Gazala and for opposing British forces at El Alamein, Egypt 

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This article provides more information on German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. The article tells of his accomplishments and defeats in WWII. He is best known for his defeat of the British at Gazala and for opposing British forces at El Alamein, Egypt 

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German World War II Field Marshal. Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel gained immortality in the North African campaign of 1941-1943. Sent with a small German force to help the Axis against the British after the Italians had suffered severe defeat, Rommel-reaching Tripoli in February 1941-was soon master of Cyrenaica and imposing his will on the enemy. For two years the opposing forces alternately advanced or withdrew over the desert, and Rommel's name became legendary-a master of mobile operations who was rapid, courageous, and audacious.

Rommel's supreme achievement was his defeat of the British at Gazala in May 1942, followed by the taking of Tobruk and a field marshal's baton. Nemesis came five months later at El Alamein, when the British imperial army under Bernard Montgomery won a convincing victory. Rommel withdrew the survivors of his Panzerarmee to Tunisia. By then the British and Americans had landed in North Africa, the British Eighth Army had reconquered Tripolitania and was on the Tunisian border, and the Germans were hemmed in, isolated and facing overwhelming odds. Rommel left for Europe in March 1943. The African adventure was over.

Rommel has been criticized for lacking strategic sense, for excessive absorption in the tactical battle, for neglect of logistics, for periodic imprudence. These criticisms are shallow. Rommel's especial flair was undoubtedly for the battle itself, for the cut and thrust of maneuver, for personal leadership at the point of decision, above all for the speed and energy with which he decided and acted; but in his extensive writings and recorded conversations he showed a military perceptiveness and strategic insight that would have probably enabled him to shine with the brilliance of Erich von Manstein had he held high command on the larger scale of the Eastern Front. As to logistics, Rommel was acutely aware of them at all times-they dominated the African theater where all commodities had to be imported and transported over huge distances. He refused, however, to make excessively pessimistic assumptions or to overensure-or, as he put it, to allow the scope and pace of battle to be dictated by quartermasters. A more cautious approach would have often denied him victory. And although Rommel sometimes underestimated the timing and difficulties of an operation, he was one who believed war seldom forgives hesitation or delay. From his earliest days as a brilliant young leader in World War I, or as a panzer divisional commander crossing the Meuse against fierce opposition and racing across France in 1940, he had proved to himself the virtues of initiative and boldness. On the whole his decisions were justified by victory: and in Africa victory often against odds.

Rommel's last military appointment was in command of Army Group B, responsible in 1944 for much of northwest Europe. His energetic preparations reflected his conviction that the expected invasion had to be defeated near the coast, because Allied air power would nullify large-scale armored counteroperations after the landing. He believed, too, that the coming campaign should aim to defeat the invasion for one purpose: so that in the aftermath, peace might be negotiated in the west and a stalemate achieved in the east. Politically this was fantasy and militarily it failed; but for Rommel it was the only rational hope.

By then Rommel had lost all faith in Adolf Hitler. Hitler had showed him favor, and Rommel was long grateful for what he saw as Hitler's restoration of German self-respect in the 1930s, but by 1944 he was disenchanted by Hitler's refusal to face strategic facts. After the Allied invasion had succeeded in establishing a front (see D-Day), Rommel-who believed that Germany must now inevitably lose a war on two fronts-tried again personally to confront Hitler with reality. He failed.

Rommel, therefore, was now determined to surrender the German forces in the west unilaterally. Before that could happen he was wounded in an air attack on July 17. At home on sick leave, he was visited by emissaries of Hitler on October 14 and offered the choice of trial for high treason or suicide-to be publicized as a heart attack-with guarantees for his family's immunity. He had never participated in the plot to assassinate Hitler, but his "defeatism" was known and his involvement presumed. He chose suicide and was given a state funeral.

Rommel has been variously described as a Nazi (because of long personal devotion to Hitler) or as a martyr of the German Resistance (because of the manner of his death). He was neither. He was a straightforward, gifted, patriotic German officer, a charismatic commander and master of maneuver, caught up in the disaster of the Third Reich.

GENERAL SIR DAVID FRASER

The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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German World War II Field Marshal. Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel gained immortality in the North African campaign of 1941-1943. Sent with a small German force to help the Axis against the British after the Italians had suffered severe defeat, Rommel-reaching Tripoli in February 1941-was soon master of Cyrenaica and imposing his will on the enemy.

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This article provides more information on the Battle of El Alamein. The battle was the culmination of the North African campaign and was a major defeat for German forces. The battle was between British forces led by General Bernard Montgomery and German forces led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

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This article provides more information on the Battle of El Alamein. The battle was the culmination of the North African campaign and was a major defeat for German forces. The battle was between British forces led by General Bernard Montgomery and German forces led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

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The Battle of El Alamein marked the culmination of the World War II North African campaign between the British Empire and the German-Italian army. Deploying a far larger contingent of soldiers and tanks than the opposition, British commander Bernard Law Montgomery launched an infantry attack at El Alamein on Oct. 23, 1942. German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel returned to battle from illness and tried to halt the tide, but the British advantage in personnel and artillery proved too overwhelming. After Hitler blocked an initial retreat in early November, Rommel managed to escape annihilation by withdrawing his men to Tunisia.

The Battle of El Alamein marked the culmination of the North African campaign between the forces of the British Empire and the German-Italian army commanded in the field by Erwin Rommel in World War II. Having taken Tobruk in June 1942, Rommel advanced into Egypt but had been checked and beaten at Alam Halfa in September; thereafter the initiative had passed.

Rommel mined and fortified a forty-mile line in considerable depth and strength-unusually, in a desert war, both flanks were sealed, by the Mediterranean in the north and by the Qattara Depression in the south. To break this line and destroy the Axis forces was the task of Bernard Montgomery, commanding the British imperial forces. The battle would be a set-piece affair-there could be little opportunity for maneuver.

Rommel (on sick leave when the battle began but having personally planned the defense) commanded thirteen divisions and five hundred tanks, totaling about 100,000 men. Montgomery disposed of approximately double the number of tanks and men-an army of British, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, and South Africans, together with some French and Greek units; Allied air superiority stood at about the same proportion. Battle began on October 23, and the result, after ten days of ferocious pounding, was complete Allied victory, although Rommel's army escaped annihilation and slipped away from an unenterprising pursuit.

The Battle of El Alamein's significance was great. The Panzerarmee withdrew, ultimately to Tunisia; within days of El Alamein, Anglo-American forces landed in Morocco. By May 1943 the campaign was over and the Mediterranean dominated by the Allies. Meanwhile, in Russia the Germans were suffering disaster at Stalingrad : the two battles-Stalingrad and El Alamein-proved to be the watershed of the war against Germany.

The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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The Battle of El Alamein marked the culmination of the World War II North African campaign between the British Empire and the German-Italian army. Deploying a far larger contingent of soldiers and tanks than the opposition, British commander Bernard Law Montgomery launched an infantry attack at El Alamein on Oct.

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This article provides more information on the War Powers Act of 1941. The Act gave the President the power to reorganize the executive branch and other agencies and also allowed him to censor mail to foreign countries. The act and all changes caused by it became defunct six months after the war ended.

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This article provides more information on the War Powers Act of 1941. The Act gave the President the power to reorganize the executive branch and other agencies and also allowed him to censor mail to foreign countries. The act and all changes caused by it became defunct six months after the war ended.

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The War Powers Act of 1941, also known as the First War Powers Act, was an American emergency law that increased Federal power during World War II. The act was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and put into law on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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This is a picture of Rosie the Riveter. The picture is a propaganda poster used during WWII to inspire women to go to work.

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This is a picture of Rosie the Riveter. The picture is a propaganda poster used during WWII to inspire women to go to work.

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This is a picture of a ration book. Ration books included stamps that allowed people to buy items such as gas, canned foods, sugar, and more. Purchase of these items was illegal without a stamp

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This is a picture of a ration book. Ration books included stamps that allowed people to buy items such as gas, canned foods, sugar, and more. Purchase of these items was illegal without a stamp

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This article provides more information on the Battle of the Bulge. The article tells of when and where then battle took place and also tells of how the Americans won. The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever taken by the US Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties.

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This article provides more information on the Battle of the Bulge. The article tells of when and where then battle took place and also tells of how the Americans won. The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever taken by the US Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties.

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Called "the greatest American battle of the war" by Winston Churchill, the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes region of Belgium was Adolf Hitler's last major offensive in World War II against the Western Front. Hitler's aim was to split the Allies in their drive toward Germany. The German troops' failure to divide Britain, France and America with the Ardennes offensive paved the way to victory for the allies.

Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault, also called the Battle of the Ardennes, took place during frigid weather conditions, with some 30 German divisions attacking battle-fatigued American troops across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest.

As the Germans drove into the Ardennes, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle's name. The battle proved to be the costliest ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties. The formerly serene, wooded region of Ardennes was hacked into chaos by fighting as the Americans dug in against the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and, later, Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division.

"Did you ever see land when a tornado's come through? Did you ever see trees and stuff, twisted and broken off? The whole friggin' forest was like that," said U.S. Army Charlie Sanderson in My Father's War: Memories from Our Honored WWII Soldiers.
READ MORE: 8 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of the Bulge
The surprise German attack broke through the front on day one as stories quickly spread of massacred soldiers and civilians, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

"For those who had lived through 1940, the picture was all too familiar. Belgian townspeople put away their Allied flags and brought out their swastikas," the center writes. "Police in Paris enforced an all-night curfew. British veterans waited nervously to see how the Americans would react to a full-scale German offensive, and British generals quietly acted to safeguard the Meuse River's crossings. Even American civilians, who had thought final victory was near were sobered by the Nazi onslaught."

Troops Faced Severe Cold

Hitler's mid-December timing of the attack-one of the bloodiest of the war-was strategic, as freezing rain, thick fog, deep snow drifts and record-breaking low temperatures brutalized the American troops. More than 15,000 "cold injuries"-trench foot, pneumonia, frostbite-were reported that winter.

"I was from Buffalo, I thought I knew cold," baseball Hall of Famer and WWII veteran Warren Spahn said in The Love of Baseball. "But I didn't really know cold until the Battle of the Bulge."

Nazis Sent in Imposters and Changed Road Signs

Another Nazi strategy was to attempt to infiltrate the Allied troops.

Veteran Vernon Brantley, a private first class in the 289th Regiment, told the Fort Jackson Leader in 2009 that his unit had just arrived in Germany from France when they were told to load up and return to Luxembourg.

"We got word that the Germans had dropped a lot of paratroopers behind our lines, and that they were dressed like American Soldiers and spoke English," he said. "... They were there to create confusion."

The Germans also changed road signs and spread misinformation.

"The Nazis were carefully groomed for their dangerous mission," LIFE magazine reported in 1945. "They spoke excellent English and their slang had been tuned up by close association with American prisoners of war in German camps. ... Under the rules of the Hague Convention these Germans were classifiable as spies and subject to an immediate court martial by a military tribunal. After brief deliberation American officers found them guilty, and ordered the usual penalty for spies: death by firing squad."

To stop infiltrators, the U.S. troops would ask suspected Germans to answer American trivia questions.

"Three times I was ordered to prove my identity," Gen. Omar Bradley recalled, according to the Washington Post. "The first time by identifying Springfield as the capital of Illinois; the second by locating the guard between the center and the tackle on a line of scrimmage; the third time by naming the then-current spouse of a blonde named Betty Grable."
Click here to watch the full episode on the Battle of the Bulge and more from WWII in HD on History Vault
Allied Air Forces Arrived on Christmas Day

It wasn't until Christmas Day that the weather conditions finally cleared, allowing Allied air forces to strike.

"It was on that bright, clear and cold Christmas morning in 1944 that the ground froze solid," Brantley told the Leader. "The tanks and air forces could finally maneuver, and get assistance to all of us who were previously blocked off. ... It was a welcome sign to see the sun come up. It meant that we were alive for one more day."

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, and Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. led the American defense to restore the front. According to the National Archives' Bloodiest Battle, Eisenhower gave Patton the Third Army, about 230,000 soldiers, and ordered him to head to the Ardennes.

101st Airborne Division Arrive in Bastogne

In the small, pivotal Belgian town of Bastogne, the Germans surrounded thousands of Allied troops. Eisenhower, in response, sent in more units, including the famed 101st Airborne Division.

"When the Germans sent a message demanding the surrender of the 101st on December 22, they got a one-word response from its commander, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe: 'Nuts!'" the Bloodiest Battle states. "This was interpreted by German officers as a more colorful-and negative-response to their demand. The day after Christmas, units of Patton's rapidly approaching Third Army finally arrived, broke through the German lines, and rescued the troops."

Claiming victory of the battle on January 25, 1945, and the Allies headed for Berlin. The war ended less than five months later with Germany's May 7 surrender.

In all, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, 1 million-plus Allied troops, including some 500,000 Americans, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, with approximately 19,000 soldiers killed in action, 47,500 wounded and 23,000-plus missing. About 100,000 Germans were killed, wounded or captured.

"The Ardennes campaign of 1944-45 was only one in a series of difficult engagements in the battle for Europe," wrote John S.D. Eisenhower, in his 1969 book, The Bitter Woods. "Nevertheless, it can be said that the Ardennes campaign epitomized them all. For it was here that American and German combat soldiers met in the decisive struggle that broke the back of the Nazi war machine."

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Battle of the Bulge - Definition, Dates & Who Won

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The Battle of the Bulge took place in December 1944, after Adolf Hitler launched a surprise blitzkrieg against Allied Forces in northwest Europe. Caught off-guard, American units fought to stem the German advance. As the Germans pushed through American defenses, the front line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle's name.

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This is a picture of Omaha Beach during D-Day. Omaha Beach is where the fiercest fighting took place on D-Day and where the most casualties occurred.  

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This is a picture of Omaha Beach during D-Day. Omaha Beach is where the fiercest fighting took place on D-Day and where the most casualties occurred.  

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This article provides more information on Victory in Europe Day. V-E Day is the day when German forces finally laid down their arms throughout Europe. Pockets of confrontation would continue throughout the next day between Germans and Soviets before all German troops finally surrendered.

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This article provides more information on Victory in Europe Day. V-E Day is the day when German forces finally laid down their arms throughout Europe. Pockets of confrontation would continue throughout the next day between Germans and Soviets before all German troops finally surrendered.

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On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine during World War II.

The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark-the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.
READ MORE: What V-E Day Looked Like Around the World
The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender.

Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.

Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: "The age-long struggle of the Slav nations... has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over."
READ MORE: World War II Ends: 22 Photos of Giddy Celebrations After Allied Victory

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On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine during World War II.

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This article provides more information on American General Douglas MacArthur. It provides information on which campaigns he was in and how he won them. He was the leader of the war in the Pacific during WWII and he received a medal of honor for his achievements.

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This article provides more information on American General Douglas MacArthur. It provides information on which campaigns he was in and how he won them. He was the leader of the war in the Pacific during WWII and he received a medal of honor for his achievements.

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Douglas MacArthur in World War II - Wikipedia

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General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (January 26, 1880 - April 5, 1964) was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II.

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This article provides more information on the Battle of Iwo Jima, which was a battle between the Imperial Japanese Army and the US Marines near the end of the war. There were around 7,000 US casualties and all but 200 of the Japanese were killed. After the battle was over, the strategic value of the island was called into question.

# data[].attributes.subject
This article provides more information on the Battle of Iwo Jima, which was a battle between the Imperial Japanese Army and the US Marines near the end of the war. There were around 7,000 US casualties and all but 200 of the Japanese were killed. After the battle was over, the strategic value of the island was called into question.

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Iwo Jima Before the Battle

According to postwar analyses, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been so crippled by earlier World War II clashes in the Pacific that it was already unable to defend the empire's island holdings, including the Marshall archipelago.

In addition, Japan's air force had lost many of its warplanes, and those it had were unable to protect an inner line of defenses set up by the empire's military leaders. This line of defenses included islands like Iwo Jima.

Given this information, American military leaders planned an attack on the island that they believed would last no more than a few days. However, the Japanese had secretly embarked on a new defensive tactic, taking advantage of Iwo Jima's mountainous landscape and jungles to set up camouflaged artillery positions.

Although Allied forces led by the Americans bombarded Iwo Jima with bombs dropped from the sky and heavy gunfire from ships positioned off the coast of the island, the strategy developed by Japanese General Tadamichi Kuribayashi meant that the forces controlling it suffered little damage and were thus ready to repel the initial attack by the U.S. Marines, under the command of Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith.

Marines Invade Iwo Jima

On February 19, 1945, U.S. Marines made an amphibious landing on Iwo Jima and were met immediately with unforeseen challenges. First and foremost, the beaches of the island were made up of steep dunes of soft, gray volcanic ash, which made getting sturdy footing and passage for vehicles difficult.

As the Marines struggled forward, the Japanese laid in wait. The Americans assumed the pre-attack bombardment had been effective, and had crippled the enemy's defenses on the island.

However, the lack of immediate response was simply part of Kuribayashi's plan.

With the Americans struggling to get a foothold on the beaches of Iwo Jima-literally and figuratively-Kuribayashi's artillery positions in the mountains above opened fire, stalling the advancing Marines and inflicting significant casualties.

Despite a banzai charge by dozens of Japanese soldiers as dusk fell, however, the Marines were eventually able to move in past the beach and seize part of one Iwo Jima's airfields-the stated mission of the invasion.

Battle of Iwo Jima Rages On

Within days, some 70,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima. Although they significantly outnumbered their Japanese enemies on the island (by a more than three-to-one margin), many Americans were wounded or killed over the five weeks of fighting, with some estimates suggesting more than 25,000 casualties, including nearly 7,000 deaths.

The Japanese, meanwhile, were also suffering major losses, and were running low on supplies-namely, weapons and food. Under Kuribayashi's leadership, they mounted most of their defenses via attacks under the cover of darkness.

While effective, the success of the Japanese forces seemed to merely forestall the inevitable.

Just four days into the fighting, U.S. Marines captured Mount Suribachi, on Iwo Jima's south side, famously raising an American flag at the summit. That image was captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the iconic photograph.

However, the fighting was far from over.

Iwo Jima Falls to American Forces

Battles raged on in the northern part of Iwo Jima for four weeks, with Kuribayashi essentially setting up a garrison in the mountains in that part of the island. On March 25, 1945, 300 of Kuribayashi's men mounted a final banzai attack.

The American forces sustained a number of casualties, but ultimately quelled the attack. Although the American military declared that Iwo Jima had been captured the next day, American forces spent weeks on end trudging through the island's jungles, finding and killing or capturing Japanese "holdouts" who refused to surrender and opted to continue fighting.

Dozens of Americans were killed during this process. Two Japanese holdouts continued to hide in the island's caves, scavenging food and supplies until they finally surrendered in 1949, almost four years after the end of World War II.

In the end, neither the U.S. Army nor the U.S. Navy was able to use Iwo Jima as a World War II staging area. Navy Seabees, or construction battalions, did rebuild the airfields for Air Force pilots to use in case of emergency landings.

Letters from Iwo Jima

Because of the brutality of the fighting, and the fact that the battle occurred fairly close to the end of World War II, Iwo Jima-and those who lost their lives trying to capture the island-retain a great deal of significance even today, decades after the fighting stopped.

In 1954, the U.S. Marine Corps dedicated the Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to honor all Marines. The statue is based on Rosenthal's now-famous photograph.

Actor/director Clint Eastwood in 2006 made two movies about the events on Iwo Jima called, respectively, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. The first depicts the battle from the American perspective, while the latter shows it from the Japanese perspective.

Sources

Brimelow, B. (2018). "73 years ago a war photographer snapped the most iconic image of World War II - here's the story of the battle behind the photo." BusinessInsider.com.

Naval History and Heritage Command. "The Battle for Iwo Jima." History.Navy.mil.

National World War II Museum. "Fact Sheet: the Battle for Iwo Jima." NationalWW2Museum.org.

National World War II Museum. "Iwo Jima and Okinawa: Death at Japan's Doorstep." NationalWW2Museum.org.

Gerow, A. (2006). "From Flags of Our Fathers to Letters From Iwo Jima: Clint Eastwood's Balancing of Japanese and American Perspectives." The Asia-Pacific Journal.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Battle of Iwo Jima - Facts, Significance & Dates

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The Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19 - March 26, 1945) was an epic military campaign between U.S. Marines and the Imperial Army of Japan during World War II. American forces succeeded in securing the island, which was considered to have great tactical importance for its airfields.

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This is a picture of a Japanese kamikaze plane. Kamikaze, meaning "divine wind", were Japanese suicide bombers. The kamikaze pilots would guide their planes to crash into navy vessels and the explosives on the plane would explode, killing the pilot and many navy personnel.

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This is a picture of a Japanese kamikaze plane. Kamikaze, meaning "divine wind", were Japanese suicide bombers. The kamikaze pilots would guide their planes to crash into navy vessels and the explosives on the plane would explode, killing the pilot and many navy personnel.

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This article provides more information on the Nisei, who were the sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants who were born and educated in the United States. The article tells more of the relocation of Nisei to concentration camps during WWII and how reparations were made for what they went through. 

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This article provides more information on the Nisei, who were the sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants who were born and educated in the United States. The article tells more of the relocation of Nisei to concentration camps during WWII and how reparations were made for what they went through. 

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Nisei | History, Facts, Internment, & Reparations

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Nisei: Overview of Nisei, sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants who were born and educated in the United States.

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This article provides more information on Fred Korematsu, who was an American civil rights activist who objected to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. The article provides information on his life and career, including the case of Korematsu vs the United States. The 30th of January is designated as Fred Korematsu Day in his honor.

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This article provides more information on Fred Korematsu, who was an American civil rights activist who objected to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. The article provides information on his life and career, including the case of Korematsu vs the United States. The 30th of January is designated as Fred Korematsu Day in his honor.

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(是松 豊三郎 Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu Korematsu Toyosaburō , January 30, 1919 - March 30, 2005) was an American civil rights activist who objected to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Shortly after the Imperial Japanese Navy launched its attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D.

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This is a picture of a Japanese-American concentration camp during WWII. Over 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry were relocated to 10 concentration camps from California to Oregon. These people were moved there in accordance with Executive Order 9066.

# data[].attributes.subject
This is a picture of a Japanese-American concentration camp during WWII. Over 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry were relocated to 10 concentration camps from California to Oregon. These people were moved there in accordance with Executive Order 9066.

# data[].attributes.headline
This article provides more information on Albert Einstein, a German born scientist who helped alert the President to the dangers of the atomic bomb. The article provides information on his life as well as information on some of his best work. Einstein is best known for his theory of relativity, his work on the atomic bomb, and his famous equation E= mc2.

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This article provides more information on Albert Einstein, a German born scientist who helped alert the President to the dangers of the atomic bomb. The article provides information on his life as well as information on some of his best work. Einstein is best known for his theory of relativity, his work on the atomic bomb, and his famous equation E= mc2.

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Einstein's Early Life (1879-1904)

Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.

Did you know? Almost immediately after Albert Einstein learned of the atomic bomb's use in Japan, he became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and backed Manhattan Project scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer in his opposition to the hydrogen bomb.

While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).

Einstein's Miracle Year (1905)

While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein's experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.

In the third and most famous article, titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton's concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell's idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein's famous equation E = mc2 (where "c" was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.

From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)

Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein's romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein's equivalence principle-which held that gravity's pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction-if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.

The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton's, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a "Revolution in Science" and a "New Theory of the Universe." Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.

Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)

A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He would never again enter the country of his birth.

By the time Einstein's wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.

Einstein's Later Life (1939-1955)

In the late 1930s, Einstein's theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project, as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's premier, to become president of Israel.

Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein's reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called "strong force" (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science.

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This article provides more information on Enrico Fermi, an Italian born scientist who helped in the development of the atomic bomb. The article provides information on his early life and his career in both Italy and America. His mathematical works, combined with Albert Einstein's equation E=mc2, were what helped make the atomic bomb possible.

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This article provides more information on Enrico Fermi, an Italian born scientist who helped in the development of the atomic bomb. The article provides information on his early life and his career in both Italy and America. His mathematical works, combined with Albert Einstein's equation E=mc2, were what helped make the atomic bomb possible.

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Enrico Fermi | Italian-American physicist

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Enrico Fermi: Enrico Fermi, Italian-born American scientist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena, explored nuclear transformations caused by neutrons, and directed the first controlled chain

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This article provides more information on the Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, which was where the first atomic bomb was tested. The article provides information on how the bomb was made and how it was tested at the site. The bomb was detonated atop a steel tower, and the bomb completely destroyed the tower and turned the sand surrounding the tower into glass.

# data[].attributes.subject
This article provides more information on the Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, which was where the first atomic bomb was tested. The article provides information on how the bomb was made and how it was tested at the site. The bomb was detonated atop a steel tower, and the bomb completely destroyed the tower and turned the sand surrounding the tower into glass.

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At the time World War II broke out in Europe, America's scientific community was fighting to catch up to German advances in the development of atomic power. In the early 1940s, the U.S. government authorized a top-secret program of nuclear testing and development, codenamed "The Manhattan Project." Its goal was the development of the world's first atomic bomb. Much of the research and development for the project occurred at a facility built in Los Alamos, New Mexico. In July 1945, Los Alamos scientists successfully exploded the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site, located in nearby Alamogordo.

The Manhattan Project

Beginning in 1939, some American scientists-many of them refugees of fascist regimes in Europe-advocated the development of ways to use nuclear fission for military purposes. By late 1941, the federal government's Office of Scientific Research and Development, headed by scientist Vannavar Bush, took control of the project. After the United States entered World War II, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was tasked with building the great quantity of necessary plants, laboratories and other research and testing facilities.

Did you know? The residents of Los Alamos-known as site or project "Y"-lived highly restricted lives: Their mail was censored, their phone calls were monitored and even their interaction with family members was tightly controlled. All mail and official documents listed the site's location only as P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Much of the initial research had been performed at Columbia University in New York City, and the top-secret research was thereafter known by the code name Manhattan Project. More than 30 laboratories and sites and more than 130,000 people were eventually involved in different facets of nuclear research and development, with three primary locations-in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Richland, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico-that became virtual top-secret atomic cities.

How Production Worked

A medium-sized reactor built at Oak Ridge produced uranium-235 and plutonium, both of which would be used as vital components in the atomic bomb. The Oak Ridge facility produced the majority of uranium used to build the "Little Boy" bomb that would be dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945.

Within a year, the world's first large-scale plutonium reactor was in service at Hanford, and by early 1945 shipments of enriched plutonium from the plant's three reactors were being sent to Los Alamos every five days. This material would be used in the first atomic bomb testing, as well as in "Fat Man," the atomic bomb dropped over Nagasaki. Finally, The facility at Los Alamos served as the primary "think tank" of the Manhattan Project. Its engineers, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, were responsible for the final construction, testing and delivery of the bombs.

The Trinity Test

At 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, Los Alamos scientists detonated a plutonium bomb at a test site located on the U.S. Air Force base at Alamogordo, New Mexico, some 120 miles south of Albuquerque. Oppenheimer chose the name "Trinity" for the test site, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The test had been scheduled for 4 a.m., but when the time came it was raining, and the appointed hour was pushed back to 5:30. Tensions ran high at the test site, where those assembled included the scientist Enrico Fermi-who had directed the first nuclear chain reaction in December 1942-U.S. Army Brigadier General Leslie Groves, Bush, Oppenheimer and others.

When the bomb was finally detonated atop a steel tower, an intense light flash and sudden wave of heat was followed by a great burst of sound echoing in the valley. A ball of fire tore up into the sky and then was surrounded by a giant mushroom cloud stretching some 40,000 feet across. With a power equivalent to around 21,000 tons of TNT, the bomb completely obliterated the steel tower on which it rested. The nuclear age had begun.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At the time World War II broke out in Europe, America's scientific community was fighting to catch up to German advances in the development of atomic power. In the early 1940s, the U.S. government authorized a top-secret program of nuclear testing and development, codenamed "The Manhattan Project."

# data[].attributes.headline
This article provides more information on the bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The article tells of how the bombs were made and transported and the exact times that the bombs went off. The article also includes how many people were killed because of the bombs known as the "Little Boy" and the "Fat Man."

# data[].attributes.subject
This article provides more information on the bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The article tells of how the bombs were made and transported and the exact times that the bombs went off. The article also includes how many people were killed because of the bombs known as the "Little Boy" and the "Fat Man."

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Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Causes, Impact & Lives Lost

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On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, immediately killing 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.

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This is a picture of the Enola Gay, the plane that transported the "Little Boy" bomb to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The plane was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber and was the first plane to carry an atomic bomb. The Enola Gay is now preserved at the National Air and Space Museum.

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This is a picture of the Enola Gay, the plane that transported the "Little Boy" bomb to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The plane was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber and was the first plane to carry an atomic bomb. The Enola Gay is now preserved at the National Air and Space Museum.

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This article provides more information on Firebombing, a tactic used during WWII. The article provides information on what firebombing is and includes information on some tactics involving firebombing. President Truman claimed that he did not see the difference between dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and firebombing the cities of Dresden and Tokyo. 

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This article provides more information on Firebombing, a tactic used during WWII. The article provides information on what firebombing is and includes information on some tactics involving firebombing. President Truman claimed that he did not see the difference between dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and firebombing the cities of Dresden and Tokyo. 

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In the early days of bombing our notion, like that of the Germans, was to spread an attack out over the whole night, thereby wearing down the morale of the civilian population.