| A | B |
|---|
| The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor | Mobilized the American people to support the war effort like no other event could |
| World War II's impact on the role of the federal government | Government spending, the debt, and government power increases more than any other previous period in history |
| Large industrial infrastructure and a territory not bombed out or ravaged by war | Industrial production shoots through the roof as the U.S. outproduces its enemies combined |
| World War II invigorates the economy | Unemployment is virtually zero and the Great Depression ends |
| World War II's impact on women | Increasing number of women in factory jobs ("Rosie the Riveter") and women in the military (WAACs and WAVEs) |
| The incredibly complex Navajo language | Navajo is used to transmit secret messages on the radio and the Axis is unable to decode |
| Fears Japanese-Americans, regardless if they were born in the U.S. or not, would be loyal to the motherland | The internment of some 117,000 Japanese-Americans in the interior of the U.S. |
| Minorities support for the war and hopes it would bring improved changes for them at home | The "Double Victory" Campaign |
| A. Philip Randolph's threatened march on Washington D.C. | Executive Order 8302 desegregates the defense plants |
| The mechanical cotton picker and wartime labor demand | Drew millions of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North |
| Conservative Democrats’ hostility to liberal Vice President Henry Wallace | Resulted in Senator Harry Truman becoming FDR’s fourth-term running mate in 1944 |
| Cultural and ideological differences between the USSR and the Western Allies (U.S. and Britain) | Posed significant obstacles for the Allies to overcome in order to wage an organized and collaborative war effort against Japan |
| The USSR bears the brunt of the war and Stalin's belief the U.S. and British were dragging their feet invading France | Stalin's persistent calls to open a second front and the most divisive point between the USSR and western Allies |
| The obvious belief that Germany posed a greater threat than Japan | The ABC-1 Agreement |
| The lessons of not decisively conquering Germany during World War I | The Casablanca Conference's vow to accept only unconditional surrender from the Axis |
| Britain's experiences during World War II and beating they took at the hands of Germany at the beginning of World War II | A cautious, peripheral approach advocated by Britain and a reluctance to open a second front in France |
| U.S./British offensives in North America, Italy, and strategic bombing | Did not satisfy the Soviet demands to open a second front and did relatively little to defeat Germany |
| Germany's war effort against the Soviet Union | Tied up the majority of the German military and was bogged down in a bitter war of attrition over a vast area |
| The German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad | The turning point of World War II in Europe as the entire German Sixth Army was destroyed |
| The Allied invasion of Normandy | Opened the long-awaited second front and it was only a matter of time until Germany was defeated as the U.S. close din from the west and the Soviets from the east |
| FDR's insistence to end the war as soon as possible to end the Holocaust | The U.S. did not take heroic efforts to disrupt the Holocaust such as bombing the rail lines leading into the camps |
| The Battle of Midway | The turning point of thee Pacific War as the Japanese lost four irreplaceable aircraft carriers |
| Japanese control of islands scattered across the Pacific | Development of an island hopping strategy to conquer strategic islands while by-passing insignificant locations |
| The Japanese cultural aversion to surrender | Japanese soldiers fighting to the death on islands against all odds and suicidal resistance (ex: Kamikazes) |
| Albert Einstein's fear the Germans would build an atomic bomb first | Letter to FDR that will be the basis for the Manhattan Project |
| The collaboration between science, research, government, and the military on the Manhattan Project | The largest government program up to that point in history and the U.S. won the race to build the atomic bomb |
| Truman's knowledge of the successful atomic bomb test at Alamogordo during the Potsdam Conference | The U.S. could issue the ultimatum to Japan to "surrender or else" |
| Fears of a bloody invasion of Japan, a calculation of Japanese will to resist, and the need to intimidate the Soviets | Factored into Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan |
| The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Emperor Hirohito realized the futility of resistance and urged the Japanese people to "endure the unendurable of defeat" |
| The defeat of Germany and the end of World War II | The common enemy that bonded the U.S. and USSR no longer existed and the Cold War was on |
