·      Aggression by the totalitarian powers of 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 

·      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: Allied commander in Europe

·      Douglas MacArthur: U.S. general

·      George C. 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

·      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

·      Artists, technicians, former government officials, monks, minorities, and other educated individuals by Pol Pot in Cambodia

Tutsi minority by Hutu in Rwanda