Omalley,+Kieca,+Napolitano

**__The Great Depression__**
People couldn't pay the money they owed on margin purchases. High priced stocks were worthless. Unemployment rates rose as industrial production, prices, and wages declined. The Great Depression followed. The stock market crash was a huge factor, but it wasn't the only reason for the Depression. For example, factory production was cut in half, which led to the closings of thousands of businesses and banks. About 9 million people lost their savings because the banks couldn't pay for them. By 1933, 25% of Americans were jobless (1). This collapse made American investors withdraw their money from Europe. The American market for European goods dropped largely because the government placed tariffs on the imported goods so the U.S dollars could stay in America. This backfired because countries that depended on American exports suffered. Plus, other countries imposed tariffs, leading to a 65% drop-off in world trade. This especially impa cted Germany and Austria, who were heavily reliant on American loans and investments. In Asia, farmers and urban workers suffered as the value of exports dropped off. Also, the U.S and European reliance on Latin American goods proved to make an even bigger impact (1).

To cope, in Britain, the voters elected the National Government. It passed protective tariffs, increased taxes, and regulated currency. The recovery was slow but steady. In France, the Popular Front was created and it passed reforms to help the working people. However, unemployment was still high. Its democratic government was preserved, though. In the U.S, the newly elected Roosevelt began a program called the New Deal. Here, public works projects helped the unemployed. Public money was spent on welfare and relief programs. Plus, regulations were imposed to reform the stock market and the banking system. Roosevelt thus succeeded in preserving the country's faith in its democratic system (1).

__Rise of Dictators in Russia__
Benito Mussolini, politician and newspaper editor, promised to rescue Italy by reviving its economy and rebuilding its forces. Strong leadership to Italy was one of his vows. He founded the Fascist Party in 1919. Fascists promoted an extreme form of nationalism, a denial of individual rights, and a dictatorial one-party rule. As economic stability worsened, Mussolini gained popularity, but he would often criticize Italy's government. Plus, he even began to gain support of the middle class, the aristocracy, and industrial leaders. In 1922, 30,000 fascists marched to Rome and forced King Victor Emmanuel III to give up his power to Mussolini. He was now Il Duce, or the leader. He outlawed all political parties besides the Fascists, used propaganda to show Fascist doctrines, outlawed strikes, and sought to control the economy (1).

Adolf Hitler, a little-known political leader, in 1919, joined a right-wing political group. They believed Germany had to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and combat communism. The Nazis, as they were named, created their own form of German fascism called Nazism. Hitler's success as an organizer and speaker led him to be chosen der Führer, or the leader, of the Nazi party. He and the Nazis wanted to conquer Munich in 1923, but they failed and Hitler was arrested. In jail, he wrote Mein Kampf, which outlined German goals, his belief on race, his opinion on the Treaty of Versailles, and why he believed Germany needed more living space. Once he was out, he revived the Nazi Party. The German people eventually turned to him for stability and leadership (1).

Hitler was legally in power when he was named chancellor by President Paul von Hindenberg. He would use his new power to turn Germany into a totalitarian state. He banned political parties and had most of his opponents arrested. The SS, a unit only loyal to Hitler, arrested and murdered tons of his enemies in 1934. This shocked most Germans into total obedience. The Nazis then took control of the economy. Strikes were banned, independent labor unions were dissolved, and the government had business and labor authority. Hitler put millions of Germans to work, too, which made unemploym ent drop by almost five million people. Factories, highways, and weapons were constructed, and people served in the military (1).

Hitler still wanted to control all aspects of German life. He turned all media and press into propaganda. Books were burned that didn't conform to Nazi beliefs and Churches couldn't criticize the Nazis or the government. Schoolchildren even had to join the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls (1).

Anti-semitism, or hatred of Jews, was prevalent in spite of them being only 1 percent of the population. They were scapegoats for Germany's problems. In 1933, laws were passed that deprived the Jews of their rights and violence against them increased. For example, on November 9 th, 1938, Nazi mobs attacked Jews in their homes and streets and destroyed tons of their buildings. Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) as it was called, signified the start of the elimination of Jews from German life (1).

After signing the nonaggression pact with Stalin that secretly let Germany and the Soviet Union split Poland's territory, Hitler worked to conquer Poland. On September 9, 1939, he did just that. German tanks, troops, artillery, and aircraft began a merciless campaign on Poland grounds. Warsaw, Poland's capital, was bombed. Following this, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, but Hitler still annexed half of Poland after his victory. This attack on Poland was the first test of Germany's military strategy-the blitzkrieg or "lightning war." Fast-moving airplanes and tanks followed by infantry forces were a huge part of this strategy. The goal was to catch enemy defense by surprise and overwhelm and, in Poland's case, be successful (1).

Stalin moved to annex the countries north of Poland. Finland resiste d, so he sent 1,000,000 Soviet troops there. The Soviets expected for a quick win, so they didn't prepare for winter fighting. This proved to be a mistake. Finland was outnumbered and outgunned, but they defended their country. Soldiers on skis even attacked Soviets through deep snow. The Soviets only one because of their huge advantage in numbers. In 1940, Finland surrendered (1).

After declaring war on Germany, France and Great Britain mobilized their armies. Their troops were stationed along the Maginot Line, a system of fortifications along the French-German border. There they waiting for a German attack, but nothing happened. They began to stare eastward toward the enemy, and Germany stared back. Newspapers described this as "the Phony War" and Germany jokingly described it as sitskrieg, or "sitting war." Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion on Denmark and Norway. Denmark fell in four hours. Norway in two months. Here, the Germans began to build bases where they would launch strikes on Great Britain (1)

__Major Battles__.
Throughout WWII the battles were bloody and cost numerous lives. Some battles of WWII at key because they had changed the tide of the war. One of theses key battles was the battle of Midway, this battle was crucial to the success of the allies. Just moths after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. During this battle the United States Navy crunched the Japanese navy which turned out to be irreparable for the Japanese. Another key battle in WWII was the battle of Stalingrad, this battle was between the nazis and the Soviet Union for control of Stalingrad. This battle was very close quarter and air raids were targeting civilians, this battle is considered the bloodiest battle in history. Eventually the soviet would fight off the nazis and they had just turned the tide of the war. After the battle of Stalingrad the German army never regained the initiative on the eastern front and ended up withdrawing lots of forces from the wester front to make up for the loss (1).

The Battle of Britain was arguably the most important battle in the war. The battle started with the fall of France which then led to Britain standing by itself against Germany. At the time of the battle Winston Churchill was the British prime minister and he refused to give in. Hitlers plan for the invasion of Britain was to destroy the Royal Air Force, in the summer of 1940 the Luftwaffe began bombing Britain, targeting airfields and factories. The Royal Air Force began to to fight back and there were two new pieces of technology that helped them do this, the first was radar which let them track the enemy planes. The second was enigma, which allowed the British to decode and read the German messages. In May of 1940 Germany gave up raids on Britain and they soon turned their attention towards the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe (1).



__**Japan's Role in WWII**__
Japan forces took Guam and Wake Island after the bombings at Pearl Harbor. They then turned their attention to the Philippines and marched there in 1942. American and Filipino forces defended on the Bataan Peninsula. Simultaneously, the Filipino government moved to the island of Corregidor. After about three months of fighting, Japan took the Bataan Peninsula. Corregidor fell the following month (1).

Japan looked to take control of British possessions in Asia. They invaded Malaya from the sea and and overland from Thailand. They eventually reached Singapore. The colony there surrendered after fierce forces. Within a month, Japan had conquered the resource-rich Dutch East Indies. They also captured Burma in the west. Here, they planned to launch a strike against India (1).

Japan's conquered Asian colonies spanned across 1 million square miles. They were the clear conquerors because they treated the people of their controlled colonies with cruelty (1).

**__The U.S Involvement__**
It was 7:00 A.M on December 7th 1942, the location was the naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, within moments, Japanese fighters and kamikazes began firing down towards the U.S boats. This was completely unexpected, with few ignored signs. The U.S had been attacked by Japan and would not let them go unscathed, they decided to go to war. War was something President F.D.R and the American people did not want, but it became inevitable when the Japanese attacked. U.S involvement went from sending supplies To allied to fighting side by side with allied countries. America had started a national draft to help support the fight against the axis. The U.S had mainly been involved in battles in the Pacific with Japan, but some in Europe. The strong suit of the American people was what they were manufacturing at home, they were full scale building weapons and sending them overseas, strongly increasing the chances of an Allied victory. America, it was believed when they joined strikingly boosted the chances of victory, and victory is what they had received (1).

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**__The Holocaust__**
For generations, many Germans, along with other Europeans, had targeted Jews as the cause of their failures. Some Germans even blamed the Jews for their defeat in World War I and their economic problems. Targeting Jews became a policy when the Nuremberg Laws, passed in 1935, deprived Jews of their rights to German citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews (1).

After Kristallnacht, some Jews realized that violence against them was bound to increase. By 1939, a number of German Jews fled to other countries, but many stayed in Germany. Hitler would begin conquering more lands where Germans lived. However, he thought emigration would solve Germany's "Jewish problem," but no countries wanted to open their doors for immigration and receive them. Hitler then ordered all the Jews in his country to move to designated cities. Here they herded the Jews into ghettos where they wanted them to die off starvation or disease, but most of the Jews survived. For example, in Poland, resistance organizations were established (1).

Growing impatient, Hitler conceived a plan called the "Final Solution." It called for genocide, or murder of an entirety, of the Jewish people. He wanted to keep the Aryan race pure, so he tried to eliminate other races, nationalities, and groups who were "inferior" to them. The Jews were the main target (1).

Units from the SS moved from town to town to hunt Jews. They rounded up men, women, children, and even babies and took them to isolated spots. Here, the prisoners were shot in pits that became their graves. Jews in communities not reach by killing squads were rounded into concentration camps. Hitler hoped that the horrible conditions in these camps would speed of the Jewish elimination. The prisoners worked seven days a week for the SS or German business. They were beaten or killed for not working fast enough. With little food, the prisoners lost e xtreme amounts of weight. Later, extermination camps were built that held gas chambers that killed 6,000 people in a day. In Auschwitz, the largest camp, prisoners were separated from the strongest to the weakest. The weak would die the day because they would go into a chamber with fake shower heads that housed cyanide gas. They died within minutes (1).

About 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust. Fewer than four million Jews survived. Some escaped with help from non-Jewish people (1).



**__The Allied Victory__**
By 1944 air warfare had turned in favor of the allies. The victory in the air cleared a path for landings in north and south France. Divisions of armored troops cleared most of France and Belgium of German forces by October of 1944. In 1944 on the eastern front, Soviet armies swept through the Baltic states (Poland, Belorussia and the Ukraine). The western armies smashed through the Rhine and met the Russian armies at Torgau. After Hitlers death the unconditional surrender of Germany was signed at Reims, France on May 7 and ratified at Berlin (1).

After the campaign in the Solomon Islands, the allies' lines moved inexorably. These two lines converged on Japan, most of Japan's navy was already sunken by then and left Japan like a sitting duck. Even after everything that had happened Japan still refused to surrender. Because of Japan's refusal to surrender the United States dropped two atomic bombs. The first bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945 on the city of Hiroshima. The first bomb destroyed 90 percent of the city and killed 80,000 immediately and tens of thousands would later die of radiation poisoning. Three days later another atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki killing around 40,000 people. On August 15 Japan announced its surrender and it was signed aboard the battleship Missouri (1).

**__Europe and Japan in ruins__**
After 6 long years of battle the allies were victorious. Their victory was won at a very high price, WWII caused more death and destruction than any other conflict in history. WWII left sixty million people dead and one third of those deaths were in the Soviet Union. On top of all the death fifty million people were uprooted from their homes and had to wander around the countryside in look for shelter. By the end of WWII Europe lay in ruins. Forty million Europeans died, two thirds of which were civilians, constant shelling and bombing destroyed cities and left ruins and ground warfare destroyed the countryside. Many of the biggest cities in Europe like Paris, Rome and Brussels remained largely intact. The fighting left the agriculture largely disrupted. Thousands of people died after the war from famine and disease. Many post-war governments returned quickly but some like Italy and France left their old governments in disgrace (1) . The war had left Japan in complete destruction two million people died and many of the large cities and its capital, Tokyo were in ruins from bombing raids. The atomic bomb converted Hiroshima and Nagasaki into wastelands and the allies had also stripped Japan of its colonial empire. The U.S occupied Japan after the war and General Douglas MacArthur was in charge of this. MacArthur began demilitarization, or disbanding of the Japanese military, leaving only a small police force, he also began bringing war criminals to justice. MacArthur also began a process called democratization, or creating a government elected by the people. MacArthur and his American political advisers drew up a new constitution. And MacArthur was told not to revive the economy (1).

__The Battle Of L.A__
Though no battles actually took place on U.S soil, a misconception portrayed one in the coastal Californian city of Los Angeles. The day was February 24th 1942, it was a dark night, and the Americans were already in fear for their lives because of what happened to Pearl Harbor a few months back, with that being said they were ready for an attack. During that night, an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) flew over the coast of LA, the Americans already in fear began to fire artillery at the saucer shaped UFO for hours until early morning of February 25th. After the event took place, the Secretary of State said it was a case of "war nerves" and it was a false alarm. they said it to be a weather balloon, but some speculate it to be from extraterrestrial's, no one is a 100% sure still to this day.



 = **__Works Cited__** = = (1) Roger B. Beck, Linda Black, Larry S. Kreiger, Phillip C. Naylor & Dahia Ibo Shabaka. “World History.” v2.0. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. iBooks. =

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