WWII History test key terms

Aggression

hostel actions or unprovoked attacks

Totalitarianism

a theory of government in which a party or leader controls the economic, social and cultural lives of its people

Joseph Stalin

leader of communist union of Soviet socialist republic, his efforts to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power informed state run collective farms caused extreme hardship in millions of deaths

Benito Mussolini

 fascist leader and dictator of Italy, promoted extreme nationalism 

Fascism

a political movement that stressed extreme nationalism and autocratic rule 

Adolf Hitler

leader of nationalist socialist party, Nazi, and dictator of Germany, rose to power by promoting racist, and nationalist views, established a system of concentration camps that led to the holocaust which was a systematic and brutal murder of millions of Jews and others

Anti-Semitic

displaying prejudice and discrimination against Jewish people

Spanish Civil war

war in which nationalist forces led by general Francisco Franco, rebelled against democratic Republican government of Spain

General Francisco Franco

lead a successful military revolt against the Spanish democratic government in the Spanish Civil War

Appeasement

policy of granting concessions in order to keep peace

Franklin D. Roosevelt

served as an assistant secretary of the Navy before running unsuccessfully for vice president on the democratic ticket, then was struck with polio the next year and led the nation through the Great Depression in World War II

Anchluss

union of Germany and Austria in 1933

Neville Chamberlain

Prime Minister of Great Britain and signed the Munich pact with Germany to avoid the war which gave Hitler part of Czechoslovakia, the agreement became an infamous symbol for the failure of appeasement

Munich Pact

agreement made between Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France in 1933 that sacrificed the Sudetenland to preserve peace

Blitzkrieg

 lightning war that emphasize the use of speed and fire power to penetrate deep into enemies territory

Axis powers

group of countries led by Germany, Italy, and Japan that fought the allies in World War II

Allies

group of countries led by Britain France in the US and the Soviet Union that fought the axis powers in World War II

Winston Churchill

Prime Minister of Great Britain, strongly, oppose the expansion of Soviet communism, referring to nations under communism as being behind the iron curtain

Neutrality Act of 1939

act that allowed nations at war to buy goods and arms in the US if they paid cash and carry the merchandise on their own ships

Charles Lindbergh

an American aviator who completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean

Tripartite Pact

agreement that created an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan during World War II

Lend lease Act

I passed in 1941 that allowed President Roosevelt to sell or lend war supplies to any country whose defense he considered vital to the safety of the United States

Atlantic Charter

packed signed by great and Britain and the US that endorsed certain principles for building a lasting peace and free establishing government in the world

Hideki Tojo

became Japan’s Prime Minister in October 1941 when plans were already underway to attack the US Navy at Pearl Harbor and after the war was tried for war crimes and hanged in December 1948

Pearl Harbor

American military base attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941

George Marshall

became the army chief of staff in 1939, used his quiet strength, negotiating skills in planning genius to build a fighting force as quickly as possible, devise to the Marshall plan to help western Europe recovery

Women's Army Crops (WAC)

United States Army group established during World War II, so that women can serve in non-combat roles

Doulgas MacArthur

commanded American troops in the first world war where he developed a reputation for bravery and accepted Japan’s surrender to end World War II

Bataan Death march

during World War II, the forced march of the American and Filipino prisoners of war under brutal conditions led by the Japanese military

Battle of Coral Sea

World War II battle that took place between Japanese and American aircraft carriers in May 1942 that halted the Japanese advance in the pacific

Dwight Eisenhower

given command of all American forces in Europe, and later made supreme Commander of allied forces

George S. Patton Jr.

a colorful, personality and forceful leader, greatly admired by troops under his command, commanded US tanks during World War I and quickly demonstrated his skill at leading mobile fighting units and then during World War II he led the US troops in North Africa and Europe, that swept rapidly across France and Germany in the closing months of the war

Omar Bradley

US Army officer who commanded allied troops in North Africa during World War I and led them to victory in the campaign

Unconditional surrender

giving up completely without any concessions

Saturation bombing

 tactic of dropping massive amounts of bombs in order to inflict maximum damage

Strategic bombing

 tactic of dropping bonds on key, political and industrial targets

Tuskegee Airmen

African-American squadron that escorted bombers in the air war over Europe during World War II

Chester Nimitz

took command of the US Pacific fleet shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor

Battle of Midway

turning point of World War II in the pacific in which the Japanese advance was stopped

War bond

a bond bought to fund a war effort, redeemable for interest after a certain period of time

Rationing

government controlled limits on the amount of certain goods that civilians could buy during wartime

Office of war information (OWI)

government agency that encourage support of the war effort during world war two

Internment

temporary imprisonment of members of a specific group

442nd Regimental Combat Team

World War II unit made up of Japanese American volunteer

A Phillip Randolph

strong labor leader in leader of the civil rights movement for decades, head of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, after World War I he persuaded President Truman to pass another executive order banning discrimination in the military

Executive order 8802

World War II measure that assured fair hiring practices in any job funded by the government

Demographics

statistics that show human characteristics of a population

Bracero program

plan that brought laborers from Mexico to work on American Farms

Battle of the Bulge

 last major German offensive on the western front during World War II, an unsuccessful attempt to push back the allies that cripple Germany by forcing it to use more resources than it could afford

Harry S. Truman

President of the US from 1945 to 1953, took office after Franklin Roosevelt’s death and led the nation during the final months of World War II, worked to rebuild Europe and to oppose the spread of communism

Island hopping

World War II strategy that involved seizing selected Japanese held islands in the specific while bypassing others

Kamikaze

 Japanese pilots who deliberately crash planes into American ships during World War II

Albert Einstein

German born physicist that developed general theory of relativity that describes effects of gravity on the universe and won the Nobel prize for physics in 1921, left Germany in the early 1930s after Nazis attack on his work and settled in the United States

Manhattan Project

codename of the US government research project that developed the atomic bomb

J. Robert Oppenheimer

 director of the Manhattan Project.

Holocaust

 the Nazi attempt to kill all Jews under their control

Anti semitism

hatred of discrimination against Jews

Nazism

 totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hitler Nazi party in Germany, that institute legal discrimination and atrocities against Jews

Kristallnacht

night of the broken glass, organized attack on Jewish communities in Germany

Genocide

willful annihilation of a racial political or cultural group

Concentration camps

camps used by Nazis to imprisonment undesirable members of society

Death camps

Nazi camp designed for the extermination of prisoners

War refugee board

US government agency founded in 1944 to save eastern European Jews

Yalta conference

1945 strategy meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin

Superpowers

strong nations that dominated the post war world

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT

international agreement first signed in 1947 aimed at lowering trade barriers

United nations (UN)

 organization founded in 1945 to promote peace

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

document issued by the United Nations to promote basic human rights and freedoms

Geneva Convention

international agreement, governing the humane treatment of wounded soldiers and prisoners of war

Nuremberg Trials

 trials in which Nazi leaders were charged with war crimes