history cold war and ww2

Appeasement

The policy of granting concessions to Hitler to maintain peace; famously failed after the 1938 Munich Pact.

Blitzkrieg

"Lightning War" utilizing coordinated air power and tanks to bypass traditional defenses and achieve rapid victory.

Lend-Lease Act

A 1941 law allowing the U.S. to ship arms to Allied nations without immediate payment, ending formal neutrality.

Munich Pact

The 1938 agreement where Britain and France allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland to avoid a wider war.

Nazism

A form of fascism featuring extreme nationalism, territorial expansion, and a belief in "Aryan" racial superiority.

Totalitarianism

A government system where the state holds total authority over public and private life through propaganda and terror.

Double V Campaign

A WWII movement by Black Americans to achieve victory over fascism abroad and victory over racism at home.

Executive Order 9066

FDR’s 1942 order authorizing the forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans to inland internment camps.

Internment Camp

U.S. detention centers where Japanese Americans were held during WWII due to unfounded fears of subversion.

Korematsu vs. United States

The 1944 Supreme Court case that ruled internment was a "military necessity" and did not violate civil rights.

Tuskegee Airmen

The first African American military pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps; their success helped desegregate the military.

War Refugee Board

A 1944 U.S. agency created to rescue Jews from Nazi-occupied territories; saved roughly 200,000 lives.

Atomic Bomb

A weapon of mass destruction using nuclear fission; dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force a Japanese surrender.

Axis Powers

The WWII military alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which sought to rewrite the global order.

Battle of the Bulge

Germany’s final desperate counter-offensive in December 1944; the largest and bloodiest battle for U.S. forces.

Battle of Iwo Jima

A brutal Pacific battle for a strategic island needed for B-29 bombers; famous for the flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi.

Battle of Midway

The 1942 naval turning point in the Pacific where the U.S. destroyed four Japanese carriers and halted their expansion.

Battle of Okinawa

The final major Pacific battle before the planned invasion of Japan; resulted in over 100,000 Japanese casualties.

Battle of Stalingrad

The turning point on the Eastern Front where the Soviet Union halted the German advance after months of urban combat.

D-Day

June 6, 1944: The Allied amphibious invasion of Normandy, France, which opened the "Second Front" in Europe.

Holocaust

The systematic, state-sponsored genocide of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime.

Leapfrogging

The U.S. strategy of bypassing heavily fortified islands to seize strategic ones closer to mainland Japan.

Manhattan Project

The top-secret U.S. research program that developed the first atomic bombs under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer.

Geneva Conventions

International treaties establishing legal rules for the humane treatment of prisoners of war and wounded soldiers.

Nuremberg Trials

Post-WWII trials where Nazi leaders were held legally responsible for "crimes against humanity."

United Nations

An international organization founded in 1945 to replace the League of Nations and maintain global peace and security.

Cold War

A 45-year state of political and military tension between the U.S. and USSR without direct "hot" military conflict.

Containment

The primary U.S. foreign policy of the Cold War, aimed at stopping the geographical spread of communism.

Iron Curtain

A term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the ideological and physical divide between East and West Europe.

Marshall Plan

A U.S. aid package of $13 billion to rebuild Western Europe and prevent the economic appeal of communism.

Potsdam Conference

The final wartime meeting of Allied leaders to finalize the division of Germany and demand Japan’s surrender.

Superpower

A nation with massive economic, military, and political influence (the U.S. and USSR during the Cold War).

Truman Doctrine

A U.S. policy providing military and economic aid to countries (like Greece/Turkey) resisting communist takeovers.

Arms Race

The competitive buildup of nuclear and conventional weapons between the U.S. and USSR for military dominance.

Berlin Blockade

A Soviet attempt to starve West Berlin into submission, which the U.S. defeated with a year-long airlift.

Brinkmanship

A foreign policy of being willing to go to the very edge of nuclear war to force an opponent to back down.

Deterrence

The policy of maintaining a massive nuclear arsenal to discourage an enemy from launching an attack.

H-Bomb

The Hydrogen Bomb; a thermonuclear weapon significantly more powerful than the original atomic bombs.

Korean War

The 1950-1953 conflict that ended in a stalemate at the 38th Parallel, the first "hot" battle of containment.

Mutual Assured Destruction

The military doctrine that a nuclear attack would result in the total destruction of both the attacker and defender.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

A collective defense alliance of Western nations formed in 1949 to counter Soviet aggression in Europe.

Third World

Developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were not aligned with either the U.S. or the USSR.

Warsaw Pact

The 1955 military alliance of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in response to the creation of NATO.