unit 7-WWII and Mass Atrocities

Axis powers

the alliance of germany,italy, and japan during ww2

Allied Powers

The alliance between The united kingdom,The United states,Soviet union,and france during world War 2

Winston Churchill

Soldier,politician,and british prime minister during WWll,he was one of britain’s greatest 20th century heroes.Among the most active leaders in resisting german aggression and played a major role in assembling the allied powers,including the united states and the USSR

German Soviet Non-aggression pact(Nazi-soviet Non-Aggression pact)

on August 23,1939,Hitler and Stalin signed a pact that said that the germans and soviets would not fight each other/invade each other for 10 years,allowing the germans to invade poland soon after the pact was signed.

Blitzkrieg(lighting war)

German term meaning “lighting war”used to describe Germany’s novel military tactics in WWll,which involved the rapid movement of infantry,tanks,and airpower over large areas

Lend-lease Act

passed on march 11,1941, this act set up a system that would allow the united states to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the United states“

Rosie the Riveter

the star of a campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for defense industries during WWll

pearl harbor

american naval base in hawaii.this base was attacked by the japanese dec.1941.this cause the U.S. to enter the war

Battle of Britain

the successful defense of Great Britain against the air raids conducted by the German air force in 1940 after the fall of France during World War II.

Battle of Stalingrad

German offensive against Soviet Union in which the Soviets counterattacked and catastrophically destroyed Hitler's armies.

Battle of El alamein

the climax and turning point of the North African campaign in the Second World War (1939-45).

Battle of Midway

(June 3–6, 1942), World War II naval battle, fought almost entirely with aircraft, in which the United States destroyed Japan's first-line carrier strength and most of its best trained naval pilots.

Franklin D.Roosevelt

Led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II. Greatly expanded the powers of the federal government through a series of programs and reforms known as the New Deal. New Deal permanently and dramatically transformed the politics and economy of the United States.

D-Day

June 6, 1944; the first day of the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II.

V-E day

Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, when the Allied countries of World War II accepted the surrender of Nazi Germany, was celebrated as a festive holiday in many parts of the world. The occasion sparked unbridled, emotional public celebrations on May 8, 1945, in much of Europe, North America and elsewhere.

Albert Einstein

German physicist who developed the theory of relativity, which states that time, space, and mass are relative to each other and not fixed.

Manhattan Project

an unprecedented, top-secret World War II government program in which the United States rushed to develop and deploy the world's first atomic weapons before Nazi Germany.

Robert Oppenheimer

(1904-1967) was an American theoretical physicist. During the Manhattan Project in ww2, Oppenheimer was director of the Los Alamos Laboratory and responsible for the research and design of an atomic bomb. He is often known as the “father of the atomic bomb.”

Trinity Test

The world's first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, when a plutonium implosion device was tested at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto.

Hiroshima

City in Japan, the first to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945. The bombing hastened the end of World War II.

Nagasaki

The first Japanese port to be opened to foreign trade in the 1500's, Nagasaki was devastated by the second atomic bomb used in World War II (August 9, 1945). Atomic Bomb.

V-J Day

Victory over Japan Day, marks the end of World War II, one of the deadliest and most destructive wars in history.

Big Three

In World War II, the three great Allied powers—Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union—

Tehran Conference

a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from November 28 to December 1, 1943, resulting in the Western Allies' commitment to open a second front against Nazi Germany.

Yalta conference

a weeklong meeting between the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union that took place during World War II.also known as the Crimea conference

Potsdam conference

The final wartime meeting of the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was held at Potsdamn, outside Berlin, in July, 1945. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin discussed the future of Europe but their failure to reach meaningful agreements soon led to the onset of the Cold War.

Nuclear Proliferation

the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons technology, or fissile material to countries that do not already possess them.

Total war economy

When citizens, businesses, and the rest of a nation's infrastructure revolve around the war effort, a total war economy emerges.

Genocide

the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.

Ethnic cleansing

the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups

Anti-Semitism

discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews.

Eugenics

the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by “breeding out” disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population.

Social darwinism

the belief that only the fittest will survive political and economic struggles. It also claims that some races are stronger and superior, and have the right to take over weaker races.

Scientific Racism

the use of scientific theories to support or validate racist attitudes or worldviews;

Holocaust

The word referring to the systematic extermination of the Jewish people in Europe during the years that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were in power in Germany. 1933-1945.

T4 program

a Nazi Germany effort framed as euthanasia program to kill incurably ill, Physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught and elderly people.

Euthenaisa

act of ending a person's life to release them from an incurable disease or suffering.

Einsatzgruppen

units of the Security Police and SD (the SS intelligence service) that followed the German army as it invaded and occupied countries in Europe.

final solution

The final solution was a Nazi plan to eliminate Europe's Jewish population. It was implemented from 1941 to 1945.

concentration camps

a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard.Jewish people were held here during the holocaust

extermination camps

Nazi extermination camp in Poland, the largest center of mass murder during the Holocaust. Close to a million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and others were killed there.

Auschwitzs

opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps.

Human rights

The rights that are considered by most societies to belong automatically to all people, including the rights to justice, freedom, and equality.

Cambodian Genocide

Lasting for four years (between 1975 and 1979),this genocide was an explosion of mass violence that saw between 1.5 and 3 million people killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, a communist political group.

Pol pot

a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork.

Rwandan Genocide

Beginning in 1994 and lasting only 100 days, the Rwandan Genocide is one of the most notorious modern genocides. During this 100 day period between April and July 1994, nearly one million ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed as the international community and UN peacekeepers stood by.

tutsis/Hutus

The Tutsi people are an ethnic group living in the Central African countries of Rwanda and Burundi. In both countries, the Tutsi people are an ethnic minority group; the Hutu people make up the majority.

Holodomor

man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933.

Ukraine

slavic kingdom established in northern portions of Balkan peninsula;in war with russia currently

Saddam Hussien

Iraqi president; prime minister and head of the armed forces 1979-2003;

Kurds

an Iranian ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan.

Bosnia/Serbia

The Bosnian War (Serbo-Croatian: Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995.Serbia set out to “ethnically cleanse” Bosnian territory by systematically removing all Bosnian Muslims, known as Bosniaks.

Darfur

historical region of the Billād al-Sūdān (Arabic: “Land of the Blacks”), roughly corresponding to the westernmost portion of present-day Sudan.

Sudan

a large region of west Africa that became part of a major exchange circuit

Rohingya

a community of Muslims generally concentrated in Rakhine (Arakan) state in Myanmar (Burma)