Description: The victory over Japan. This is the day Japan surrendered, and played a big role of ending World War ll.

Significance: Japan surrenders and World War ll is coming to an end.

Description: The Japanese dropped a surprise bomb on a United States navel base which kill 2,400 Americans and this cause the United States to declare war on Japan

Significance: The United States becomes a part of World War ll.

▪ Goal: Destroy American aircraft

carriers and battleships docked in

Pearl Harbor using surprise attack

▪ Result: Japanese destroyed a number

of battleships and killed ~2,400 ▪ American aircraft carriers at sea

during attack

▪ US declares war on Japan

▪ Germany/Italy declare war on US

Following attack on Pearl Harbor,

United States declares war on Japan. ▪ Germany and Italy declare war on

the United States in response

Description: The battle was fought between Britain and Germany and the first battle was fought only in the air. Germany causes battle and hopes of taking control of Britain. Hitler's loss in a battle of Britain caused him to cancel his plan of invasion of the British islands.

Significant: Hitler's first major defeat in World War ll.

Hitler hoped British would sue for peace

Germans launch massive air bombardment of British cities

and industry – known as “the Blitz”

British Royal Air Force (RAF) defies odds and denies German

air superiority over Britain

Boosted British morale

Hitler cancels planned Operation Sea Lion

Description: The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom invaded a beach in Northern France. This was the biggest land, air, and water battle in history. The allies won this battle and this became the beginning of the end of World War ll. This invasion allows the Allies to become the invasion of mainland Europe.

Significant: The Allies won this battle and this became the beginning of the end of World War ll.

Description: United Sates drop a first atomic bomb in Hiroshima killing 80,000 people. Another bomb was drop at Nagasaki killing 40,000 people.

Significant: Japan surrenders from World War ll.

Description: The trio met in the city of Yalta to talk about the post-World War ll and what would happen to Germany and the rest of Europe. After ending of the war.

Significant: The first meeting of the Big Three.

Roosevelt (USA), Churchill (G.B.) and

Stalin (USSR) plan final stages of war

and post-war Europe

Agree to temporarily divide Germany into

four zones after war

Leaders disagree what post-war

Europe should look like

Stalin – Demands Soviet Union control

over Eastern Europe to create buffer zone

Roosevelt/Churchill – Favor self-

determination for Eastern Europe and

creation of new independent states

Description: German industrialists, lawyers, and doctors were among the suspects on the charges, along with high-ranking military officers and Nazi Party members. The charges included crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. The leader of the Nazi party Adolf Hitler committed suicide in 1889 and was never brought to trial. Even though the Nuremberg trials' procedural innovations and legal justifications were controversial at the time.

Significance: The Nuremberg trials are recognized as a significant step toward the creation of a permanent international court and an important precedent for handling subsequent cases of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Description: One of the longest, largest, and bloodiest, engagements in modern warfare. More than two million troops fought in close quarters and nearly two million people were killed or injured in the fighting including tens of thousands of Russian civilians.

Significant: Allies gained the upper hand in World War ll.

Major turning point in war

~ 1m Germans, 1.1m Russians killed

Germans aim to seize industrial center of

Stalingrad & Caucasus oil field to south

Germans nearly capture city before being

repulsed by Soviet reinforcements from

Siberia

Russians successful in encircling city and

destroying German forces

Description: Hitler declared that the Soviet Union would be quickly defeated when Nazi Germany launched an attack. The conflict continued on after an initial victory because of tactical errors and bad winter weather.

Significant: Germany is now at war with the Soviet Union.

▪ Hitler breaks Nazi-Soviet Pact by invading

Soviet Union

▪ Views bolshevism as arch nemesis of fascism

▪ Desires vast natural resources of Soviet Union

▪ Largest military invasion in history

▪ Russians completely unprepared

▪ Lose 2.5 million men in early stages of campaign

▪ By winter 1941, Germans are in outskirts of Moscow

▪ Advance slowed by winter conditions and lack of

proper equipment

Description: One of the bloodiest battles of World War I, and one of its most significant engagements. To make the final push against Japan, the navy's Fifth Fleet and 180,000 US Army soldiers fell to the Pacific island of Okinawa. This was a component of the plot to seize control of the Ryukyu Islands, known as "Operation Iceberg". An Allied victory followed from this.

Significant: The United States won the battle and took over Okinawa.

Description: At last, the German forces across Europe surrendered their weapons in defeat. The Victory in Europe is celebrated in both the United States and Great Britain. The Nazi War Machine was defeated, and the Allies celebrated by raising flags and banners.

Significant: Nazi's surrender throughout Europe.

Following the Allied invasion of France in June of 1944, the Axis

powers struggled to mount a successful offensive

By March 1945, the Allies had crossed into Germany

Germany surrenders on May 7th, 1945 signaling the end of

WWII in Europe

This day was celebrated as “V-E Day” – Victory in Europe Day

Allied victory in Europe a result of: Forcing Germany to fight on 3 fronts

Military blunders by Adolf Hitler

German underestimated Soviet ability to fight

Industrial capabilities of United States (by 1944, USA was producing 2x the amount of war materials as ALL Axis powers combined)

Allied bombing of German industries

Description: A conflict that occurred six months after the Pearl Harbor attack. The United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy engaged in combat for three days.

Significant: The battle turned the momentum on the Allies side.

Description: In an attempt to regain lost ground and eventually conquer their eastern neighbor, Germany invaded Poland. The German Invasion of Poland served as a trial run for Hitler to become a blitzkrieg strategy for warfare. The identity of Germany's blitzkrieg strategy was a heavy bombardment early on to destroy the enemy's air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps. This was followed by a massive land Invasion with an overwhelming number of troops, tanks and artillery.

Significance: World War 2 begins because of this first event.

Description: The final great battle in Europe. Closed with the German surrender and the victory of the Allies. Hitler's power ends, also the Nazi army.

Significant: Nazi, Germany surrenders and an end to Hitler rule.

Allies: Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States

German Invasions of Poland and France: It was about the German invasion of Poland that introduced blitzkrieg warfare. The invasion resulted in Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Rapid, coordinated attacks using tanks, infantry, and Luftwaffe (German air force)

Germany invaded Poland from the west while the Soviet Union invaded from east and it was part of the Nazi-soviet pact

1st major defeat for Japanese

1st naval battle in history to be fought in air

Battle of Midway

Japanese lose 4 carriers, 250+ planes

Japanese never again launch an offensive campaign

British forces defeat Germans at Second Battle of El Alamein

Axis forces in North Africa surrender to Allies in May 1943

Victory in Africa allows Allies to invade Southern Europe via Italy, "soft underbelly of Europe."

Italy

Allied forces invade in July 1943 and slowly push north up the Italian peninsula

Forced Germany to send more troops to Italy

Mussolini is overthrown and killed

Allied plan to open a 3rd front in Europe by invading through Normandy, France

Combined American, Canadian and British troops assault the beaches of Normandy that happened on June 6, 1944

By late August, Paris was liberated

Car factories that Fighter planes or tanks

War Bonds sold to fund the war effort

Rationing to provide more foods for troops

Women contribute to war efforts

Worked in factories to produce tanks, plans munitions

Drove ambulances, delivered airplanes, auxiliary units

▪ Axis

▪ Nazi Germany

▪ Italy

▪ Japan

▪ Allies

▪ Great Britain

▪ France

▪ Soviet Union

▪ United States

campaign of “island-hopping” took place

American forced “hopped” from island to island,

defeating Japanese forces

Each island served as a “stepping stone” towards the

Japanese mainland

Airbases were built on various islands and used to

supply and bomb Japanese held territories

Allied leaders were planning for a massive invasion

of Japan but feared the loss of life expected

Estimates of upwards of 1 million Allied troops may be

killed to invade and occupy Japan

Japanese had increasingly resorted to suicide tactics

such as kamikaze attacks and proved to be a fierce

opposition

In July 1945, the Manhattan Project successfully tested

the first atomic bomb...in New Mexico

on the Japanese city of Hiroshima

Instantly killed ~70k people – more would later die of radiation

exposure and other injuries

August 9th, 1945 – Second atomic bomb dropped on city of

Nagasaki that 40k people killed instantly

September 2nd , 1945 – Japan formally surrenders

WWII ends

▪ Invasion resulted in Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany

▪ Rapid, coordinated attacks using tanks, infantry and Luftwaffe (German air

force)

▪ Germany invaded Poland from west while Soviet Union invaded from east ▪ Part of Nazi-Soviet Pact to invade and divide Poland

▪ 1940 German invasion of France

▪ French surrender after 6 weeks

Lend-Lease Act

▪ US sells/lends wars materials to

countries fighting Axis powers

▪ Japan’s aggression in

Manchuria/China leads to the US

banning sale of oil to Japan and

freezes assets

▪ Losses access to 88% of imported oil

and 3⁄4 of overseas trade