An overview on World War Two, overview what they american public felt about the war, what brought it about and how it ended.

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The Second World War

Americans in the 1930 did not want anything to do with the war going on over seas. This was partially due to the first World War. A large majority thought that the United States had made a mistake to fight in 1917 and did not want to make the same mistake twice.

It all started in 1931 when Japan invaded and soon conquered the northern Chinese province of Manchuria. By doing this they added Manchuria to Japan's army that already included Korea and Taiwan. Japan next invaded China in 1937. This was in Japan's quest to dominate Asia. Japan took many of the main cities and killed tens of thousands of civilians. This would later be known as the "rape of Nanking." Because Japan did not dislodge the government of Jiang Jieshi and settled into a war of attrition.

In Germany, Adolf Hitler mixed the desire to reassert national pride and power after the defeat of World War 1 with racial hatred.

Hitler was the head of the Nazi Party that came into power in 1933. The Nazi's hatred was pointed specifically at the Jews. Hitler's concentration camp was a device for political terrorism where dissidents and antisocials could be separated from what Hitler called "pure" Germans.

The new war started to seem more serious when France was defeated. Congress voted to expand the army to 2 million men, build new war planes and add ships to the navy. This set up the first peacetime draft, requiring 16.5 million men between the ages

of twenty-one and thirty-five to register for military service.

FDR soon began an undeclared war in the North Atlantic, instructing navy to report any sight of German U-boats to the British. In September a German submarine clashed with a U.S. destroyer. This gave...