sdsddssdssd

Essay by dsdskk October 2014

download word file, 3 pages 0.0

WWII EXAM STUDY GUIDE

League of Nations: (U.S. was not apart of this) ● Germany, Japan, Italy were threatening peace ● weak; didn't stop invasions or even tried to keep the peace

Munich Conference: ● Meeting of Germany, France, Britain, and Italy in Munich, Germany (no Czechs) ● Chamberlain believed he could preserve peace by giving into Hitler's demand ● Britain and France agreed that Hitler could take Sudetenland

Battle of Britain: ● Luftwaffe (Germany's air force) bombed Great Britain ● Britain's RAF (Royal Air Force) didn't give in & two devices were in their favor:

-Radar: tracking system, could tell speed & direction of incoming warplanes -Enigma: allowed British to decode German secret messages

● Battle of Britain taught Allies that Hitler's attacks could be blocked

Battle of Okinawa: ● kamikaze pilots attacked American ships ● In the end, seniors Japanese officers committed ritual suicide ● Lives lost: 100,000 Japanese troops; 80,000 Okinawans (civilians); 12,000 Americans

Invasion of Poland: ● Hitler used blitzkrieg on Poland & annexed the western half of Poland ● Surprise attack; bombing of Warsaw (Poland's capital)

Pearl Harbor: DECEMBER 7, 1941 ● Japan attacks Pearl Harbor & U.S. Congress declares war on Japan

Dunkirk: (most heroic act of the war) ● Germans trapped Allies around Dunkirk ● British set out to rescue the army (ships across English channel to Dunkirk) ● Boats carried 338,000 soldiers to safety

Rome-Berlin Axis: ● Hitler (Germany) & Mussolini (Italy) had an alliance together ● Germany, Italy, and Japan came to be called Axis Powers

Yalta Conference: ● "Big Three" (Great Britain, U.S., U.S.S.R.) ● West feared Soviet takeover of Eastern & Central Europe ● Stalin's Goals: -Create buffer to protect Soviet border; -Deeply suspicious of west ● Roosevelt's Goals: -Favored self-determination; -Creation of United Nations;

-Germany divided into 4 zones occupied by U.S., GB, France, & Soviet Union

WWII EXAM STUDY GUIDE

Luftwaffe: ● Germany's air force

blitzkrieg: (a.k.a. lightning war) ● Germany's newest military strategy (used on invasion of Poland & worked) ● involved using fast airplanes & tanks by massive infantry forces ● take enemy by surprise & overwhelm them

Tehran Conference: ● Stalin formally asks Churchill and Roosevelt to open a second front in Western

Europe ● Churchill wanted to strike at North Africa and southern Europe (angered Stalin)

Maginot Line: ● a system of fortifications along France's border with Germany ● French & British waited for Germany to attack but nothing happened ● sitzkreig, or "sitting war"/phony war

China before Japanese invasion: ● China had raw materials and markets for goods ● had a large population ; Manchuria was rich in iron and coal ● communist government

Battle of Stalingrad: (major turning point) Soviets pushes Germans westward ● Luftwaffe bombed the city nightly ● Germans controlled 90 percent of city; Soviets launched counterattack and cutoff

German supplies ● German troops surrendered

Holocaust: ● systematic mass slaughter of Jews and other groups judged to be inferior by

Nazis

Nuremberg Trials: (due to Holocaust) ● Allies held trial against Nazi war criminals

Potsdam Conference: ● Allies meet to discuss Post WWII plan for Europe ; -Truman demanded free

elections in Eastern Europe ● Stalin sought absolute military security; -ONLY COMMUNIST states in Eastern

Europe could guarantee security

WWII EXAM STUDY GUIDE

How was France divided after German conquest?

How did the U.S. remain "isolationists"?

Examine German, Italian, and Japanese expansion in the 1930s.

Examine the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Analyze which battles were in favor of the Allies

What were the "human costs" of WWII? ● 60 million dead; $288 billion ● 50 million displaced from their homes

Understand the post-WWII political relationships which lead to the Cold War. ● Displaced persons ● Discredited governments ● Lack of political leadership ● Threat of Communist takeover

WWII EXAM STUDY GUIDE

-Cold War: political tension between the Soviet Union and Western democratic countries after WWII