Chapter 24: The Second World War (1933-1945)

neutrality laws

Series of laws passed by Congress aimed at avoiding entering a Second World War; these included the Neutrality Act of 1935, which banned the selling of weapons to warring nations

"Axis" alliance

Military alliance formed in 1937 by the three main fascist powers: Germany, Italy, and Japan

blitzkreig (1940)

The German "lightning war" strategy characterized by swift, well-organized attacks using infantry, tanks, and warplanes

Atlantic Charter (1941)

Joint statement crafted by Franklin D Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill that listed the war goals of the Allied Powers

War Production Board

Federal agency created by Roosevelt in 1942 that converted America's industrial output to war production

Tuskegee Airmen

US Army Air Corps unit of African American pilots whose combat success spurred military and civilian leaders to desegregate the armed forces after the war

war relocation camps

Detention camps housing thousands of Japanese Americans from the West Coast who were forcibly interned from 1942 until the end of the Second World War

Operation Overlord

The Allies' assault on Hitler's "Atlantic Wall," a seemingly pregnable series of fortifications and minefields along the French coastline that German forces had created using captive Europeans for laborers

Battle of Midway

A 1942 battle that proved to be a turning point in the Pacific front during World War 2; it was the Japanese navy's first major defeat in 350 yrs

Hiroshima (1945)

Japanese port city that was the first target of the newly developed atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. Most of the city was destroyed

facism

A radical form of totalitarian government that emerged in 1920s Italy and Germany in which a dictator uses propsganda and brute force to seize control of all aspects of national life

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

Legislation that allowed the president to lend or lease military equipment to any country whose own defense was deemed vital to the defense of the US

Pearl Harbor (1941)

Surprise Japanese attack on US fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, which prompted the immediate American entry into the war

Women's Army Corps

Women's branch of the US army; by the end of the Second World War, nearly 150,000 women had served in the WAC

bracero program (1942)

System that permitted seasonal farm workers from Mexico to work in the US on yearlong contracts

Yalta Conference (1945)

Meeting of the "Big Three" Allied leaders--Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin--to discuss how to divide control of postwar Germany and eastern Europe

Holocaust

Systematic efforts by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews of Europe, resulting in the murder of over 6 million Jews and more than a million other "undesirables."