social studies

Freedom of the Seas

• The principle that merchant ships, particularly those of neutral nations, had the right to unrestricted navigation and trade on the high seas without being targeted by enemy powers.

Lend- Lease Act

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 U.S.

Pearl Harbor

• A surprise Japanese military strike on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, a "day of infamy." 

Neutrality and Isolation

• A policy of advocating non-involvement in foreign affairs and alliance-making, focusing instead on domestic issues.

Axis Powers

• The coalition of countries—primarily Germany, Italy, and Japan—that fought against the Allied forces.

Allied Powers

• The nations that opposed the Axis Powers, led by The United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, but included over 40 countries including China, Canada and Australia.

Japanese Internment

The forced relocation and incarceration of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry following the Pearl Harbor attack.

Manhattan Project-

• A massive, top-secret U.S.-led WWII research and development effort to create the first atomic weapons.

D-Day

• The June 6th, 1944 allied invasion of Normandy.

The Battle of the Bulge

• The final major German offensive on the Western Front during WWII.

Kristallnacht

• or the "Night of Broken Glass" was a state-sponsored attack against Jews throughout Nazi Germany.

Nuremberg Trials

• A series of military tribunals held by the allied forces to prosecute high ranking Nazi leaders for war crimes.

The Holocaust

• The systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jewish people by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.