World War II

london economic conference

economic conference organized to stabilize international currency rates

FDR’s decision to revoke America’s participation contributed to a deepening world economic crisis

good neighbor policy

a departure from the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the good neighbor policy stressed nonintervention in Latin America

reciprocal trade agreements act

reversed traditional high-protective-tariff policies by allowing the president to negotiate lower tariffs with trade partners, without Senate approval

Rome-Berlin axis

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy allied themselves under this treaty

signed after both countries had intervened on behalf of fascist leader Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War

Johnson Debt Default Act

prevented debt-ridden nations from borrowing further from the US

neutrality acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

prevent American participation in a European war

prevented Americans from selling munitions to foreign belligerents

Abraham Lincoln brigade

American volunteers who served in the Spanish Civil War, defending Spanish republican forces

quarantine speech

FDR called for “positive endeavors” to “quarantine” land-hungry dictators, presumably through economic embargoes

appeasement

followed by leaders of Britain and France at the 1938 conference in Munich

their purpose was to avoid war, but they allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia

Hitler-Stalin pact

Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other

paved the way for German aggression against Poland and the Western democracies

neutrality act of 1939

European democracies might buy American munitions, but only if they pay in cash and transport them in their own ships, a policy known as cash-and-carry

represented an effort to avoid war debts and protect American arms-carriers from torpedo attacks

Kristallnacht

"night of broken glass”

murderous pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent thousands to concentration camps

war refugee board

US agency formed to help rescue Jews from German-occupied territories and provide relief to inmates of Nazi concentration camps

America first committee

isolationist advocacy group that opposed American intervention in WWII

support for the group dissipated following Pearl Harbor

lend-lease bill

abandoned former pretenses of neutrality by allowing Americans to sell unlimited supplies of arms to any nation defending itself against the Axis powers

Atlantic charter

FDR and Churchill outlined the path toward disarmament, peace, and a permanent system of general security

Pearl Harbor

American naval base in Hawaii where Japanese warplanes destroyed numerous ships

brought the US into WWII

ABC-1 agreement

between Britain and US that should the US enter WWII, the two nations and their allies would coordinate their military planning, making a priority of protecting the British Commonwealth

get Germany first and fight more defensively on other fronts

Executive Order no. 9066

authorized the secretary of war to designate military zones from which certain categories of people could be excluded

led to the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the Western Military Zone

those removed were sent to relocation camps

war production board (WPB)

direct all war production, including procuring and allocating raw materials, to maximize the nation’s war machine

office of price administration (OPA)

regulating the consumer economy by rationing scarce supplies and by curbing inflation by setting ceilings on the price of goods

rents were controlled in parts of the country overwhelmed by war workers

national war labor board (NWLB)

arbitration tribunal to meditate disputes between labor and management that might have led to war stoppages and thereby undermined the war effort

adjusting wages with an eye to controlling inflation

Smith-Connally anti-strike act

allowed the federal government to seize and operate plants threatened by labor disputes

criminalized strike action against government-run companies

WACs (women’s army corps)

employ women in noncombatant jobs

women accepted for volunteer emergency service (WAVES)

employ women in noncombatant jobs

US Coast Guard women’s reserve (SPARs)

employ women in noncombatant jobs

Bracero program

recruit temporary Mexican agricultural workers to the US to make up for wartime labor shortages in the Far West

fair employment practices commission (FEPC)

forbidding racial discrimination in all defense plants operating under contract with the federal government

congress of racial equality (CORE)

civil rights organization

victory over fascisms abroad and racism at home

code talkers

Native American men who served by transmitting radio messages in their native languages, which were undecipherable by German and Japanese spies

battle of Midway

halted Japanese advances in the Pacific

D-Day

led by American forces in Normandy

led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of WWII in Europe

battle of the bulge

last desperate German offensive on the western front

VE (victory in Europe) day

official end to the war in Europe following the unconditional surrender of the German government

Potsdam conference

deliver ultimatum to Japan: surrender of be destroyed

Manhattan project

atomic bomb

bombs were dropped on two cities in Japan in hopes of bringing the war to an end: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

VJ (victory over Japan) day

surrender of Japan and the final end to WWII