| A | B |
|---|
| dictator | a person with complete control of government |
| relocation camps | camps for 110,000 American Japanese who were removed from the West Coast to isolated areas because of the fear of collaboration with Japan; began in 1942 |
| rationing | limiting the amount of scarce goods that people could buy to conserve resources |
| D Day | June 6, 1944, Allied invasion of France, also known as Operation Overlord |
| Holocaust | deliberate killing of civilians by Hitler’s storm troopers; a Nazi extermination policy (more than 11 million people killed by Nazis) |
| blitzkrieg | “lightening war”; a powerful invasion that takes place with surprise and speed |
| Allied powers | the main 3 were Britain, United States and Russia |
| Pearl Harbor | December 7, 1941; 360 Japanese bombers had a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,403 Americans and sinking battleships and destroyers. This act caused the U.S. Congress to declare war 1 day later with Japan. |
| Battle of the Bulge | December 1944; Germany’s final last-ditch effort to force Allies back; attempt was unsuccessful and Germans retreated (a turning point) |
| Battle of Midway | June 1942; Japanese defeat at Midway Island was a turning point on the Pacific front; Japanese no longer had full control of the Pacific |
| democracy | government by the people in which power is exercised through representation |
| arms race | a competition between countries for more and better weapons |
| isolationism | a principle of staying out of foreign affairs |
| fascism | a political system that appeals to racism and nationalism and is ruled by a dictator and a single political party |
| totalitarian state | a country in which the government controls all areas of its citizens lives |
| appeasement | giving in to another nation’s demands just to keep the peace (policy followed before World War II by France and Britain to avoid conflict with Hitler) |
| Crystal Night | November 9-10, 1938; Nazis carried out an organized attack on Jews throughout Germany, shattering windows of more than 200 synagogues and 7000 shops and homes |
| Axis powers | Germany, Italy and Japan |
| Four Freedoms | freedom of speech and religion; freedom from want and fear |
| Hirohito | emperor of Japan; Japanese worshipped him as a god |
| Mussolini | Italy; he was the father of fascism; Hitler looked up to him in his early years of developing Nazism |
| Stalin | ; murdered millions of his people before the war through a contrived famine |
| Hitler | Germany; attempted to create a “master race” through his extermination of those that did not fit his mold |
| Churchill | Britain; it is quite likely that he was the most important person in keeping Germany from succeeding in its goal toward world domination |
| Franco | Spain; communist leader that stayed out of the war |
| Truman | United States; made the decision to use the atomic bomb in Japan |
| F. D. Roosevelt | United States; president who led us through the Great Depression and most of World War II |
| Kamikaze | “divine wind”; Japanese suicide pilots which took out 34 Allied ships but at the cost of 5000 Japanese lives and planes |
| Enola Gay | the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima |
| V-E Day | May 8, 1945; Victory in Europe |
| V-J Day | August 15, 1945; Victory in Japan |
| WPB | War Production Board; supervised the change over from producing peace-time goods, like cars, to war-time materials, like tanks |
| FEPC | Fair Employment Practices Commission; created to investigate charges of discrimination |
| code talkers | Navajo Indians who created and spoke a code-language based on their native language that was never broken by the Japanese |
| Atlantic Charter | this was the Allied goals drawn up by FDR and Churchill. Their aim was not to seek territory but to support the right of all nations to self-determination and to the pursuit of the four freedoms. |
| Nisei | Japanese children born in the United States |
| Big Three | Churchill, Stalin and FDR; the three who planned the strategies to defeat the Axis powers |
| Operation Overlord | code name for D-Day |
| General Eisenhower | the Allied leader of all European forces and was in charge of the biggest invasion ever attempted (D-Day) |
| General MacArthur | “I shall return” was his famous line promised to the Philippines; egotistical general who accomplished much but made severe mistakes |
