| A | B |
|---|
| totalitarian | government that tries to take complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights and the government suppresses all opposition. |
| Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini | All three were totalitarian dictators. |
| Joseph Stalin | Communist totalitarian dictator in the Soviet Union after Vladimir Lenin dies. Stalin wants to create a model communist state. He ends up killing approximately 60 million. |
| Benito Mussolini | Fascist totalitarian dictator in Italy who came to power after marching the army into the royal square and demanding control or the Italian king dies. |
| Fascism | Type of government that stresses nationalism and placed the interests of the state above that of the people. |
| Adolf Hitler | Fascist totalitarian leader in Germany. Fascism in Germany was called Nazism which called for extreme nationalism or loyalty to the state. |
| Japanese militarists | Military dictators take control in Japan and by 1931 they invade Manchuria, China. On December 7th, 1941 they attack Pearl Harbor and start war with the US. |
| Francisco Franco | Fascist dictator in Spain that defeats the republican democracy in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. |
| Axis Powers | Germany, Italy, Japan, and Soviet Union. The Soviets will leave and join with the Allied Powers after Hitler invades the Soviet Union in 1941. |
| isolationism | US policy designed to keep America out of the foreign affairs of other nations. |
| Neutrality Acts | US laws that made it illegal to sale arms or make loans to nations at war or in civil war. |
| appeasement | Occurs when a nation gives up its principles to pacify an aggressor. The example in the 1930's is England and France sacrificing Czechoslovakia in order to buy peace with Hitler. |
| non-aggression pact | Communist Russia and Fascist Germany promise never to attack each other. Two years later, Hitler will invade the Soviet Union anyway. |
| blitzkrieg | Type of warfare that made use of the advances of warfare like fast tanks and more powerful aircraft to take the enemy by surprise. Also called "lightening war". |
| Fall of France | Germany invades France in 1940. Almost 400,000 French soldiers were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk and were rescued over a week long period by British vessels big and small that came across the English Channel. |
| Battle of Britain | Hitler takes blitzkrieg to England and concentrates on destroying London. England fights back and England is NOT taken over by Germany. |
| Holocaust | The attempted systematic slaughter of an entire race of Jews by the Nazis. 6 million Jews will die in Nazi death camps along with another 5 million others. |
| Kristallnacht | "Night of the Broken Glass". Night the Nazis attacked Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues across Germany. The beginning of the Holocaust. |
| Final Solution | Hitler's plans for genocide against Jews across Europe. |
| ghettos | Segregated, temporary, crowded, unhealthy, apartments where Jews were forced to live until they were sent to the death camps. |
| concentration camps | Labor or death camps where Jewish prisoners were sent. |
| Lend-lease Act | US would lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country whose defense was vital to the US...in other words, our allies. |
| Atlantic Charter | Agreement between the US and England where they agreed to collective security, freedom of the seas, self-determination of nations, economic cooperation, and disarmament of enemies. It was all US support to England short of a war declaration by the US. |
| Allies | 26 nations against the Axis Powers. The large nations were France, US, England |
| December 7th, 1941 | Attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. 2,403 Americans will die and the US will declare war on Japan and two days later declare war on Italy and Germany after they declare war on America. |
| "A date which will live in infamy" | Quote by FDR describing the Pearl Harbor attack. |
| Selective Service Act | The draft act that required all men from the ages of 18 to 45 register for the draft. |
| WAAC | Women's Auxiliary Army Corps |
| A Philip Randolph | Nation's most respected African-American labor leader, organized a march on Washington. |
| Manhattan Project | Code name for the secret US research to denote the first nuclear bombs. It was a success by 1945 and in August of that year two Japanese cities were targets of nuclear bombs. |
| rationing | fixed allotments of food, clothing, gasoline and other items Americans used. A ration card allowed a person to buy a limited portion of what was allowed. |
| Battle of the Atlantic | Allies fought against Germany wolf pack submarines by using convoy system, sonar to detect subs, and airplanes used radar to spot U-boats. |
| Battle of Stalingrad | Where a 230,000 Germans died trying to defeat the Soviet Union. |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | US general during WWII and later US president. |
| Tuskegee Airmen | First all African American pilots. |
| D-Day | June 6, 1944 US and British forces landed at Normandy, France to retake France from the Germans. The soldiers called it Death Day or D-Day. |
| Battle of the Bulge | Last German offensive that failed and after this it is only a matter of time before Germany is defeated. |
| V-E Day | Victory in Europe. Day the war is over in Europe. The war in Pacific with Japan is still continuing. |
| Harry S. Truman | Becomes the US president after Franklin Roosevelt dies in office. Truman will okay the use of nuclear bombs against Japan. |
| General Douglas MacArthur | US General that fought the Japanese in the War in the Pacific |
| Battle of Midway | Turning point battle that stopped Japan's advance and began the US strategy of island hopping. |
| island hopping | US strategy of only taking back Japanese held islands in the Pacific that were strategically useful. Other islands were ignored. |
| kamikaze | term to describe the new Japanese tactic of planes as suicide bombers by crashing their bomb laden planes on the decks of US ships. |
| J. Robert Oppenheimer | Scientist on the Manhattan Project which tested the world's first nuclear bomb that worked. |
| Hiroshima and Nagasaki | The two Japanese cities that were bombed with nuclear bombs on August 6th and August 9th of 1945. Japan surrendered afterwards. |
| Yalta Conference | February 1945. Meeting with Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. Decisions were made concerning the fate of Germany and the postwar world. |
| United Nations | Post World War Two organization whose main purpose is to promote peace between nations. |
| Nuremberg Trials | Trials that brought in Hitler's top officials for crimes against humanity for the roles in the Holocaust. 12 of 24 defendants were sentenced to death and most of the remaining went to prison. Later 200 more Nazis were found guilty as well. |
| GI Bill of Rights | US bill that provided education and training for veterans of WWII. 7.8 million veterans will take advantage of the opportunity. |
| zoot suit riots | 11 sailors in Los Angeles reported they had been attacked by Mexican youth in zoot-suits. This charge triggered violent riots between US servicemen and Mexicans throughout L.A. |
| Japanese Internment | The US government confines some 110,000 Japanese Americans in prison camps for the duration of the war. No evidence was ever found that these Japanese Americans were spies or saboteurs. |
