Modern U.S history World War 2

Unit 3 vocab

Benito Mussolini

Italian leader. He founded the Italian Fascist Party, and sided with Hitler and Germany in World War II. In 1945 he was overthrown and assassinated by the Italian Resistance.

Fascism

A political system headed by a dictator that calls for extreme nationalism and racism and no tolerance of opposition

Vladimir Lenin

Leader Russia's Bolshevik movement.

Joseph Stalin

Communist dictator of the Soviet Union

Collectives

government owned farms

Adolf hitler

German Nazi dictator during World War II

Manchuria

The Chinese province invaded and overrun by the Japanese army in 1932

Neutrality act of 1935

Outlawed arms sales or loans to nations at war

Axis powers

Germany, Italy, Japan

Neutrality act of 1936

Extended bans on arms sales and loans engaged on civil war

Neutrality act of 1937

When Japan attacked china (ally of the U.S) it became more difficult to stay neutral

Internationalism

The belief that nations must engage in international problem solving to prevent war

Anschluss

Unification of Austria and Germany

Sudetenland

an area in western Czechoslovakia that was coveted by Hitler

Munich conference

Representatives of Britain, France and Italy met in Munich to talk about Hitler's expansion

Appeasement at Munich

agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland

Nazi-Soviet Pact

A secret agreement between the Germans and the Russians that said that they would not attack each other

Blitzkrieg

lightning war

Maginot line

A line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany.

Hermann Goering

German politician in Nazi Germany who founded the Gestapo and mobilized Germany for war

Operation Dynamo

Evacuation of Dunkirk

Winston Churchill

Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII

General Charles de Gaulle

led the Free French government

Luftwaffle

German Air Force

Shoah

Hebrew word for Holocaust meaning catastrophe

Nuremberg Laws

established legal basis in Nazi Germany for discrimination against Jews.

Joseph Goebbels

Chief minister of the Nazi propaganda, and organizer of Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

"Night of Broken Glass"

Gestapo

German secret police

Wannsee Conference

1942 conference in Germany concerning the plan to murder European Jews

Concentration Camps

Healthy individuals would work here until death of exhaustion

Extermination Camps

Nazi camps equipped with gassing facilities for mass murder of Jews

Buchenwald

one of the first and largest Nazi concentration camps

America First Committee

They wanted to protect America before we went to war in another country

Lend-Lease Act

The laws passed by the U.S. allowing us to give aid to our Allies in early WWII

Hemisphere Defense Zone

the entire western half of the Atlantic Ocean that Roosevelt declared as neutral territory

Atlantic charter

Committed both nations to a postwar world or democracy, nonaggression, free trade, economic advancement and freedom

Cost plus contracts

the government agreed to pay a company whatever it cost to make a product plus a guaranteed percentage of the costs as profit

Henry Kaiser

built liberty ships

War production board

To set priority and production goals

Office of War Mobilization

cordinated all government agencies involved in the war effort

442nd Regimental Combat Team

World War II unit made up of Japanese American volunteers

Double V Campaign

African American strategy to defeat Hitler's racism abroad as well as racism at home

Tuskegee Airmen

famous segregated unit of African-American pilots

Oveta Culp Hobby

1st director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.

Women's army cops

Wanted as nurses, ambulance drivers and radio operators

Chester Nimitz

Commander of American naval forces in the Pacific

Douglas MacArthur

American general, who commanded allied troops in the Pacific during World War II.

Bataan death march

Brutal march of American and Filipino prisoners by Japanese soldiers in 1942

Corregidor

the fortified island which guarded the entrance to Manila Bay

James Doolittle

Lieutenant colonel in command of the mission to bomb Tokyo

Admiral Yamamoto

Planned the attack on Pearl Harbor

General Erwin Rommel

German commander in North Africa

Convoy system

a system in which merchant ships travel with naval vessels for protection

A Philip Randolph

America's leading black labor leader who called for a march on Washington D.C. to protest factories' refusals to hire African Americans

Bracero Program

Plan that brought laborers from Mexico to work on American farms

Sunbelt

a new industrial region

National housing agency

coordinated all government housing programs

Zoot suit riots

a series of riots during which Mexican Americans were attacked by whites

Zoot suit

Clothing worn by Mexican-Americans which used lots of material

Victory suit

a men's suit with no vest, no cuffs, a short jacket, and narrow lapels, worn during World War II in order to save fabric for the war effort

Fred Korematsu

Japanese-American who sued the United States for the relocating the Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor

Casablanca conference

FDR and Churchill agree to step up the bombing in Germany

Tehran Conference

meeting of the Big Three to discuss the final attack on Germany (met in Germany)

D-day

Operation overboard (freeing France) largest amphibious operation in military history

Omar Bradley

American general who led the ground forces at D Day

Navajo code talkers

Native Americans from the Navajo tribe used their own language to make a code for the U.S. military that the Japanese could not desipher

Amphtrac

amphibious tractor

Guadalcanal

first U.S. land victory over the Japanese (death island)

Kamikaze

Japanese suicide pilots

Battle of the bulge

Hitlers one last desperate offensive where he was attacked by both sides

V-E Day

Victory in Europe Day

Harry S Truman

Became president when FDR died; gave the order to drop the atomic bomb

Iwo Jima

One of the Bloodiest battles in the war, a fight to the death for Japanese soldiers, as the Americans were coming closer to Japan

Napalm

A jellied gasoline used for bombs

Manhattan project

A secret U.S. project for the construction of the atomic bomb.

V-J Day

Victory in Japan

United Nations

An international organization formed after WWII to promote international peace, security, and cooperation.

Nuremberg trials

Trials of the Nazi leaders, showed that people are responsible for their actions, even in wartime

Tokyo tribunal

Series of trials set up to try Japanese officers and officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in World War II