American History WWII Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, military strategies, conferences, and home front initiatives from World War II.

Totalitarianism

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

Fascism

A political movement that stressed extreme nationalism and autocratic rule.

Anti-Semitic

Displaying prejudice and discrimination against Jewish people.

Anti-Semitism

Hatred of and discrimination against Jews.

Appeasement

A policy of granting concessions in order to keep peace.

Anschluss

The union of Germany and Austria in 1933.

Munich Pact

An agreement made between Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France in 1938 that sacrificed the Sudetenland to preserve peace.

Blitzkrieg

“Lightning war” that emphasized the use of speed and firepower to penetrate deep into the enemy’s territory.

Axis Powers

A group of countries led by Germany, Italy, and Japan that fought the Allies in WWII.

Allies

A group of countries led by Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union that fought the Axis powers in WWII.

Neutrality Act of 1939

An act that allowed nations at war to buy goods and arms in the U.S. if they paid cash and carried the merchandise on their own ships.

Lend-Lease Act

An act 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 U.S.

Pearl Harbor

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

Battle of Coral Sea

A WWII battle that took place between Japanese and American aircraft carriers in May 1942, halting the Japanese advance in the Pacific.

Atlantic Charter

A pact signed by Great Britain and the U.S. that endorsed certain principles for building a lasting peace and established free government in the world.

Battle of Midway

The turning point of WWII in the Pacific, in which the Japanese advance was stopped.

Unconditional surrender

Giving up completely without any concessions.

Saturation bombing

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

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.

Island hopping

A WWII strategy that involved seizing selected Japanese-held islands in the Pacific while bypassing others.

Kamikaze

Japanese pilots who deliberately crashed planes into American ships during WWII.

Battle of the Bulge

The last major German offensive on the western front during WWII; an unsuccessful attempt to push back the Allies that crippled Germany by forcing it to use more resources than it could afford.

Yalta Conference

A 1945 strategy meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin.

Joseph Stalin

A leader of the communist USSR whose efforts to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power and form state-run collective farms caused extreme hardship and millions of deaths. He partnered with Germany in 1939, later joined the Allies, and became an aggressive participant in the Cold War.

Dwight Eisenhower

Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Hirohito

Emperor of Japan during World War II.

Neville Chamberlain

British leader who proclaimed the infamous words, “Peace in our Time.”

Vichy

The puppet government left in charge of France after the German victory.

D-Day

The largest naval invasion in history.

Okinawa

One of the last and most deadly battles of World War II.

Aircraft carrier

The naval weapon that was the key to victory in the Pacific.

Hideki Tojo

The true leader of Japan during World War II.

Douglas MacArthur

Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific.

Executive Order 9066

An order to arrest and intern Japanese Americans.

Battle of Stalingrad

The battle on the Eastern Front that finally saw the Nazis lose.

War Production Board (WPB)

A program and board that helped American forces create the supplies needed to defeat the Axis powers and encouraged factories to produce wartime goods.

Baraceros

Farm workers from Mexico who worked in the United States.

Nisei

Japanese-American citizens born in the United States who were interned during the war.

Battle of Berlin

The final battle of World War II in Europe.

Hyper-inflation

An economic condition where money is worth significantly less, such as in Germany when citizens burned money instead of buying wood.

NSDAP

The National Socialist German Workers Party; they promised a solution to the German Great Depression with the tagline 'Word and Bread.'

Rosie the Riveter

An image of a tough, strong, and committed woman working in an arms factory, serving as a symbol that women could do the same work as men.

Victory Garden

A household activity of planting food for personal use so that commercial food and supplies could be rationed and made available for American troops.

Internment camps

Guarded, tight camps with little privacy where Japanese Americans were forced to live after the attack on Pearl Harbor because they were considered a security threat.

Theater

A specific place where a war is happening.