Aggression by totalitarian powers (Germany, Italy, Japan)

•           Nationalism

•           Failures of the Treaty of Versailles

•           Weakness of the League of Nations

•           Appeasement

•           Tendencies towards isolationism and pacifism in Europe and the United States

German invasion of Poland

•           Fall of France

•           Battle of Britain

•           German invasion of the Soviet Union

•           Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

•           D-Day (Allied invasion of Europe)

•           Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Franklin D. Roosevelt—U.S. President

•           Harry Truman—U.S. President after death of President Roosevelt

•           Dwight D. Eisenhower—U.S. general

•           Douglas MacArthur—U.S. general

•           George Marshall—U.S. general

•           Winston Churchill—British prime minister

•           Joseph Stalin—Soviet dictator

•           Adolf Hitler—Nazi dictator of Germany

•           Hideki Tojo—Japanese general

•           Hirohito—Emperor of Japan          

 

 

Elements leading to the Holocaust

•           Totalitarianism combined with nationalism

•           History of anti-Semitism

•           Defeat in World War I and economic depression blamed on German Jews 

•           Hitler’s belief in the master race 

•           Final solution—Extermination camps, gas chambers

Armenians by leaders of the Ottoman Empire

•           Peasants, government and military leaders, and members of the elite in the Soviet Union by  Joseph Stalin