| A | B |
|---|
| Totalitarian | controlling the people of a country in a very strict way with complete power that cannot be opposed |
| Dictator | a person who rules a country with total authority and often in a cruel or brutal way |
| Treaty of Versailles | Treaty ending WWI that treated Germans harshly and caused resentment toward other nations |
| Adolf Hitler | Fascist leader of Germany |
| Benito Mussolini | Italy’s fascist dictator |
| fascism | a government ruled by a dictator that controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government |
| Joseph Stalin | Communist dictator of the Soviet Union |
| Anti-Semitic | feeling or showing hatred of Jewish people |
| Nazism | German political belief that believed in German ethnic solidarity |
| Poland | Final country Germany invaded before Britain declared war to stop German aggression |
| Axis Powers | Italy, Germany and Japan |
| Appeasement | Giving in to demands to avoid conflict |
| Nonaggression Pact | Agreement Hitler signed with the Soviet Union that allowed him to invade Poland without Soviet retribution |
| Allies | Britain, France, Soviet Union, and the United States (only after 1941) |
| Isolationism | The belief that a country should not be involved with other countries : a policy of not making agreements or working with other countries |
| Domestic Affairs | Events or problems that happen within your own country |
| Neutrality | Refusing to support either side in an argument or disagreement. |
| Neutrality Acts | Series of laws that kept America out of WWII when it began |
| cash and carry | American policy of under while neutral, which sold weapons to nation at war for cash and if they transported the shipments |
| Lend-Lease Act | Program for the United States to supply arms to allies while officially staying out of war |
| Atlantic Charter | Pact between Roosevelt and Churchill that committed the two countries to providing self-determination for nations following WWII |
| Pearl Harbor | American military base in Hawaii attacked by the Japanese the prompted the U.S. to enter WWII |
| December 7, 1941 | Date Japan attacked Pearl Harbor |
| “Four Freedoms” | Speech given by Roosevelt aimed at convincing American and Congress to provide economic support to Britain amid growing Nazi aggression |
| Pacific Theatre | Area of WWII fighting that on the continent of Asia, and included the Battles of Midway, Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal |
| European Theater | Area of WWII fighting that on the continents of Africa and Europe, and included the Battles of Stalingrad, Bulge, and D-Day |
| Battle of Stalingrad | Battle that ended Hitler’s march on the Soviet Union and his dominations of Europe. It began a Russian offensive pushing the Germans back. |
| Tuskegee Airmen | African American fighter squadron that did not lose a single bomber |
| Battle of Midway | victory by the US over Japan that ended the Japanese advance in the Pacific |
| Double-V Campaign | African Americans stressing the need for victory against both fascism abroad and racism at home |
| Civil Liberties | Many of the rights guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution. |
| “Rosie the Riveter” | Mythic image created by artists who wanted to capture the lives of women working in WWII factories |
| Internment | temporary imprisonment of members of a specific group |
| Korematsu v. United States | Supreme court case the upheld America’s Japanese internment policy |
| Executive Order 9066 | Decision by FDR to remove Japanese-American citizens form areas considered “war zones.” |
| Deficit spending | Using more money than what is collected in taxes, thus adding to the national debt |
| Rationing | policy used during WWII where people were limited in the amount of important daily items like gasoline, rubber, sugar, and coffee |
| D-Day | the day that marked the Allied crossing of the English Channel and landing on France's Normandy coast, which officially opened a second (western) front against the Nazi army |
| Western Front | Area that included the borders between France and Germany where Stalin hoped the Allies would attack to ease the German invasion of the Soviet Union |
| Battle of the Bulge | the largest battle fought in Europe during WWII |
| V-E Day | The celebration of the German surrender to Eisenhower and American forces. |
| Manhattan Project | code name given to the top secret U.S. program to develop the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico |
| Atomic bomb | Weapon that which applies the principles of nuclear fission to make a massive explosion |
| Hiroshima | First Japanese city destroyed by the American atomic bomb |
| Nagasaki | Second Japanese city destroyed by an American atomic bomb |
| USS Missouri | Battleship on which Japan officially surrendered to the United States |
| Harry Truman | became President of the United States when FDR died and was responsible for making the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in order to end WWII |
| Holocaust | The name today given to the systematic mass murder of Jewish people and other minorities by the Nazi regime during WWII |
| “final solution” | Hitler’s plan for a state sponsored attack on Jews |
| Genocide | to destroy or eliminate a specific group of people based on race, religion, culture, or politics |
| Concentration camps | basically a prison where Jews and other minorities were taken by the Nazis to be starved or worked to death or simply murdered |
| Yalta Conference | meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin where they decided that after the war Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania would have free elections |
| United Nations | an international organization of countries created after WWII to prevent future wars and help solve international disputes |
| Geneva Convention | The international agreement about the rules of war including how prisoners of war must be treated |
| Nuremberg Trials | legal proceedings where Nazi members were accused of war crimes for their role in the Holocaust, and held responsible for their own actions |
