WWII History Vocab
Terms
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- Potsdam Declaration
- Ultimatum from the Potsdam Conference that was issued by the United States, Great Britain and China to Japan offereing that country the choice between unconditional surrender and total annihilation
- Magic
- Code name for U.S. code-breaking operations against the Japanese.
- United Nations
- organization founded after WWII to promote international peace and cooperation
- V-E Day
- Victory in Europe, May 8, 1945
- Nazism
- the doctrines of nationalism, racial purity, anit-Communism, and the all-powerful role of the State. The National Socialist German Workers Party, otherwise known as the Nazi Party. Nazism was advocated by Adolf Hitler in Germany.
- Kamikaze
- Japanese suicide pilots who loaded their planes with explosives and crashed them into American ships
- Royal Air Force (RAF)
- Britain's air force
- Blitzkrieg
- German lightning warfare. Characterized by highly mobility and concentrated forces at a point of attack.
- Code Talker
- Used a special code based on the Navajo language to send messages. The Japanese never broke the code.
- D-Day
- June 6, 1944, the day on which Allied forces landed in Normandy, France to begin a massive offensive against the Germans in the occupied territory of Europe.
- WAVES
- Women Appointed for Volunteer Emergency Service in the Navy
- Axis Powers
- Japan, Germany, and Italy
- Annex
- Process by which a government gains control over a territory not presently under their jurisdiction. It usually invovles eitehr conquest or the use of force.
- Siege
- Military blockade
- Appeasement
- policy by which Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, and France agreed to Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland in agreement for not taking any additional Czech territory
- Joseph Stalin
- general secretary of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union, he led from 1922 until his death in 1953 and established a communist totalitarian state
- Neville Chamberlain
- Prime Minister of Great Britain. Famous for appeasing Hitler at the Munich Conference.
- Erwin Rommel
- The Desert Fox. Commander of the Axis forces in North Africa
- Cash and Carry
- policy adopted by the United States in 1939 to preserve neutrality while aiding the Allies. Britain and France could buy goods from the United States if they paid in full and transported them.
- Manchuria
- Province in northeast China invaded by Japan in September 1931.
- Allied Nations
- Those countries fighting against the Axis powers. Britain, France, USA, Canada, USSR etc
- Island Hopping
- the American navy attacked islansd held by the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean. The capture of each successive island from the Japanese brought the American navy closer to and invasion of Japan.
- American First Committee
- An organization creaded by isolationists who argued that the United States should keep out of Europe's business
- Munich Conference
- 1938 conference at which European leaders attempted to appease Hitler by turning over the Sudetenland to him in exchange for a fromise that Germany would not expand Germeny's territory any further.
- Civil Defense
- protective measures in case of attack as in when WWII volunteers scanned the skies for enemy aircraft and coastal cities enforced blackouts.
- Pearl Harbor
- United States military base on Hawaii that was bombed by Japan, bringing the U.S. into WWII. Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941
- Dictator
- political leader who rules a country with absolute power, usually by force.
- Rationing
- Takind items that are in short supply and distributing them according to a system. For instance, during WWII, gas, surgar, and butter were a few of the items rationed in the U.S.
- Fair Employment Practices Commission
- Established to combat discrimination in industries that held government contracts.
- Disarmament
- giving up military weapons
- George Patton
- Famous American General who fought in North Africa and Europe
- Concentration Camps
- prison camps used under the rule of Hitler in Nazi Germany. Conditions were inhuman, and prisoners, mostly Jewish people, were generally starved or worked to death, or killed immediantly.
- Lend-Lease Act
- approve by Congress in March 1941; The act allowed America to sell, lend, or lease arms or other supplies to nations considered "vital to the defense of the United States".
- Bracero Program
- United States labor agents recruited thousands of farm and railfoad workers from Mexico. The program stimulated emigration for Mexico.
- Bataan Death March
- April 1942, American soldiers were forced to march 65 miles to prison camps by their Japanese captors. It is called the Death March because so many prisoners died.
- Fascism
- any movement, ideology, or attitude that flavors dictatorial government, centralized conrtol of pribate enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism.
- Battle of Britain
- an aerial battle fought in WWII in 1940 between the German Luftwaffe(air force), which carried out extensive bombing in Britain, and the British Royal Air Force, which offered successful resistance.
- Hideki Tojo
- Prime Minister of Japan during WWII
- Revenue Act of 1942
- raised corporation taxes and requried nearly all Americans to pay income taxes
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- the 32nd president of the United States. He was president from 1933 until his death in 1945 during both the Great Depression and WWII. He is the only president to have been elected 4 times, a feat no longer permissible du to the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution
- Manhattan Project
- Code name for the U.S. effort during WWII to produce the atomic bomb. Much of the early research was done in New York City by refugee physicists in the U.S.
- Atlantic Charter
- Anglo-American declaration that stated the countries aims for the outcome of the war, that people of every nation should be free to choose their own form of government and live free of fear and want, disarmament, and a permanent system of general security.
- Mobilization
- the gathering of resources and preparation for war
- WACs
- Women's Army Corps
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- American General who began in North Africa and became the Commander of Allied forces in Europe
- Neutrality Acts
- Originally desighned to avoid American involvement in WWII by preventing loans to thoes countries taking part in the conflict; they were later modified in 1939 to allow aid to Great Britain and other Allied nations.
- Benito Mussolini
- head of the Italian Fascist party. Mussolini was know as "El Duce" and was leader of Italy, the first Fascist regime, during WWII
- Douglas MacArthur
- American general, who commanded allied troops in the Pacific During WWII
- Ethiopia
- African nation invaded by fascist Italy in 1935
- Tuskegee Airmen
- 332 Fighter Group famous for shooting down over 200 enemy planes. African American pilots who trained at the Tuskegee flying school
- Office of War Information
- Established by the government to promote patriotism and help keep Americans united behind the war effort
- Genocide
- Wiping out and entire group of people
- Harry S. Truman
- 33rd president of the United States. He assumed the presidency at the death of FDR in 1945 and served until 1953. Under his leadership the United States saw the end of the Second World War with the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan and also the establishment of the Truman Doctrine for foreign policy, which seeks to limit the spread of Communism.
- Operation Overload
- The Allied invasion of Normandy in June of 1944
- Rosie the Riveter
- Advertising campaign character who encouraged women to take factory jobs.
- Anti-Semitism
- policies, views, or actions that harm or discriminate against Jews
- Holocaust
- the systematic extermination of millions of European Jews, as well as Roma, Slavs, intellectuals, homosexuals, and political dissidents, by the Nazis and their allies during WWII.
- Battle of the Bulge
- Term used to describe the actions following German offensive through the Ardennes Forest in December 1944
- V-J Day
- Victory of Japan, September 2, 1945
- Maginot Line
- String of steel and concrete bunkers along the German border from Belgium to Switzerland set up by the British and the French.
- Korematsu v United States
- 1944 Supreme Court case where teh Supreme Court upheld the order providing for the relocation of Japanese Americans. It was not until 1988 the Congress formally apologized and agreed to pay &20,000 to each survivor
- Totalitarian
- a single party and leader who suppresses all opposition and controls all aspects of people's lives
- IL Duce
- the Leader; Benito Mussolini
- Office of Price Administration
- set limits on consumer prices and rent to prevent inflation
- National War Labor Board
- Helped resolve labor disputes that might slow down war production
- Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
- 1939 agreement that between Germany and the Soviet Union. The two nations agreed not to attack one another and to split the country of Poland between them
- Winston Churchill
- Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1940-1945 and again in 1951-1955
- Nisei
- American-born children of Japanses immigrants; second generation Japanese Americans
- Death Camps
- camps used under the rule of Hitler in Nazi Germany for the purpose of killing prisoners immediately.
- The War Production Board
- supervised the conversion of industries to war production. For example, automakers shifted from making cars to trucks and tanks
- Dunkirk
- a city in the norhwest corner of France where the allied troops were trapped by the advancing Germany army. 800 British ships, ranging from warships to fishing boats, crossed the channel from England to rescue over 300,000 British and French troops.
- Adolf Hitler
- Leader of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich in Germany during WWII
- Nuremberg Laws
- established legal basis in Nazi Germany for discriminaiton against Jews
- Internment Camps
- Detention centers where more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were relocated during WWII by order of the President