apush unit 2 vocab part 2

provide for the common defense (foreign policy)

Great white fleet

• circumnavigated the globe over the next fourteen months

• ships made stops on six continents and while the mission was a peaceful one, it was intended to show the world the growing naval might of the United States

Russo-Japanese war

• 1904-1905

• Roosevelt initially supported the war because he hoped this war would weaken both sides and prevent either from further taking over Asia, allowing the u.s to continue being there

• Japan destroyed Russia’s navy and was winning the war when the Japanese government asked President Roosevelt to work out a peace treaty ending the war, in hopes of avoiding a longer, more expensive war

• treaty of Portsmouth caused Russia to recognize japan’s territories and cede some land to Japan as well

Gentleman’s agreement

Japan voluntarily restricted immigration of laborers to the United States and San Francisco eliminated its laws segregating Japanese children in schools

Root-Takahira Treaty (1908)

• the United States recognized Japan’s land claims in Manchuria and several islands in the Pacific, and its rights to annex Korea

• Japan recognized U.S. claims to the Philippines and agreed to maintain the Open Door Policy in China

• both sides agreed to maintain the status quo in Asia and the Pacific

• This agreement preserved peace between the two countries for now

Roosevelt Corollary

• amended the Monroe Doctrine

• stated that only the United States had the right to intervene in Latin American domestic affairs in order to maintain order and stability

• United States assured European nations that they would be paid by Venezuela and the Dominican Republic and did not need to intervene

• This policy further established the United States as the power in the hemisphere and the basis for its many interventions across the hemisphere from this point forward

• created more anti-U.S. sentiment across the hemisphere

Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty (1903)

• granted the United States a ninety-nine-year lease on a ten-mile wide canal zone and the right to build the Panama Canal

• treaty was signed by the United States Secretary of State John Hay and a French engineer of the existing incomplete Panama Canal

• Panama was represented by the French so they did not have a say in the treaty

Panama Canal

• route was much shorter, but more difficult to build because it would have to be built by digging out land

• an artificial 82-kilometer waterway that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean

• shortened the distance to travel around the Americas by a lot

Dollar Diplomacy

• it promoted U.S. economic interests abroad

• less frequently used military intervention

• meant using U.S. investment dollars to try to control foreign governments

• United States could threaten to withhold investments or pull out investments to control the decisions of other governments without direct threat of military intervention, and potentially use economic investment to justify military intervention if necessary

Augusto Sandino

• led a rebellion against Estrada’s rule and U.S. involvement in Nicaragua

• eluded U.S. forces over the next two decades

• under the condition of a cease-fire, met with Nicaraguan officials to end the rebellion after the U.S. Marines were recalled by President Hoover

• instead he was executed

• his rebellion led the United States to create the School of the Americas in 1946

Veracruz Incident

• tensions between Mexico and the United States increased after a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Dolphin, docked at a port in Mexico without permission

• Mexican authorities arrested U.S. sailors after they left their ship and entered the city

• President Wilson demanded the sailors’ release and an apology

• The Americans were unharmed and released, but without an apology

• President Wilson called for revenge by attacking and seizing the port city

• Over one-hundred fifty Mexican civilians were killed

• U.S. action angered Huerta and all Mexicans including Huerta’s opponents, Villa and Carranza

• war with Mexico was narrowly escaped

Pancho Villa

• became an enemy of the United States following the attack on Veracruz

• raided border towns in 1916, with the most infamous attack occurring in Columbus, New Mexico, where seventeen Americans were killed

• President Wilson sent General John Pershing and six thousand soldiers to find him in northern Mexico, they were unsuccessful

Causes of World War I

• revolutions in China, Iran, and Mexico, created a lot of instability around the world

• changes in world powers and alliances also created instability

• world powers were competing for colonies, resources, and markets and built up their militaries and created alliances to increase their power

• spoils of a potential world war included the diamonds and gold of South Africa, metals and rubber of Africa, oil in the Middle East, and rubber in Malaysia (the U.S. automobile industry’s demand for rubber helped create this desire for colonies in Africa and Asia)

• all the situation needed was a spark

• An assassination in the summer of 1914 ignited the war

• In June 1914, a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife

• Russia came to Serbia’s defense and began mobilizing its army to fight against austria-hungary, because they were angered that Serbia was seeking independence and their murder of the archduke

• Germany, Austria-Hungary’s ally, demanded Russia stay out of the conflict, and when the Russian Czar refused, Germany declared war on Russia

• basically they all declared war on each other and created the allies and the central powers

• underlying causes included nationalism, militarism, secret alliances, and imperialism

‘Lusitania’

• sank following a U-boat attack on May 7, 1915 off the coast of Ireland

• Nearly 1,200 people were killed, including 128 Americans

• Despite these attacks, most Americans favored neutrality and isolation in the war

Sussex Pledge

• an agreement to stop U-boat attacks against merchant ships without warning in 1916

• Germany hoped to prevent the United States from entering the war on the side of the Allies

• kept the United States out of the war in 1916

Zimmermann Note

• A secret diplomatic note was sent from Germany to Mexico in January 1917

• Germany asked Mexico to enter World War I as a Central Power if the United States entered the war on the side of the allies

• If Mexico agreed, Germany offered to help Mexico retake the U.S. southwest, which it lost during the Mexican-American War

• intercepted and published by the British, leading to increased anti-German sentiment in the United States

“Fourteen Points”

• Wilson feared if the United States did not enter the war, the world would be left open to socialism and communism because the victor in World War I would seek revenge and add more colonies, leading people to oppose capitalism and imperialism by turning to anti-imperialism, socialism, and communism

• Woodrow Wilson outlined his vision for ending World War I and establishing a lasting peace

• included: abolishing secret treaties, freedom of the seas, free trade (no tariffs), a reduction of armaments, self-determination for oppressed groups, self-rule (the end of colonies), and the creation of the League of Nations

• inspired many Americans and others around the world

Committee on Public Information

• To encourage support for the war the U.S. government sponsored a propaganda effort across the country through this committee

• george creel was the head of this

• used the media to promote support for the war and allied nations, while at the same time promoting hate of the Central Powers, especially germany

• sent the message that support for the war was patriotic and dissent was traitorous

• also used celebrities, such as Charlie Chaplin, to give short speeches in support of the war and urged Americans to buy war bonds to help pay for the war

• so successful in its efforts that after the war many of those who worked in it helped to found the modern advertising industry

Espionage and Sedition Acts

These laws restricted civil liberties and were used against any critics of the war and they provided a cover for use against anyone who dissented against U.S. institutions, showed what often happens to civil liberties during wartime

Schenck v. United States

• A socialist was arrested in Philadelphia for printing and distributing anti-war and anti-draft leaflets

• Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts

• established the “clear and present danger” clause, arguing that freedom of speech is not absolute

• he was sentenced to six months in jail

War Labor Board

created to oversee the wartime economy, mediating disputes between labor and businesses in order to avoid strikes, ensuring production would not be halted during the war

Food and Fuel Administrations

• organized agriculture to ensure food was distributed for both American and European civilians and soldiers

• regulated fuel production and consumption to ensure fuel was available for war and the home front

Schlieffen Plan

Germany attempted to prevent a two-front war by defeating France and Britain quickly on the Western Front so it could then focus on solely fighting Russia on the Eastern Front, failed to work in the end

Battle of the Somme

• began in July 1916 and lasted until November

• this battle was part of an Allied offensive

• Allies launched heavy bombings to soften the German defenses and cut the barbed wire that defended the German trenches

• Allied leaders believed the advance would be relatively easy following the bombardment, but most of the barbed wire remained intact and the Germans used machine guns to cut down Allied soldiers caught in no man’s land (the land between the trenches) after the battle began on July 1

• On the first day of the battle, the British suffered over 19,000 killed (57,000 casualties), making this the bloodiest day in British military history

• Many of the men killed were volunteers who were seeing their first combat action

• In August, the Germans retreated to create another line of defense that they quickly used to cause heavier casualties for the Allies

• The British introduced the tank into the war at the Battle, but they were mostly ineffective

• Due to the bad weather, and with winter on the horizon, the British called off the offensive in mid-November

• Allies had moved forward just seven miles over the course of the battle

• the bloodiest battle of the war, with over one million casualties (Germany had 450,000 and Britain had 420,000)

• Allied offensive was a failure, but it did damage German positions in France, forcing a retreat

Bolshevik Revolution

• a pivotal event in Russia in 1917, which saw Vladimir Lenin and his Party seize power from the Provisional Government

• marked the beginning of a violent, multi-year civil war that ultimately led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, the world's first communist state

Armenian Genocide

• began on April 24, 1915 and lasted until 1923

• Ottoman Turks (Muslims) controlled the empire, treating Christian Armenians as second-class citizens for decades prior to World War I

• minority group had to pay discriminatory taxes and could not participate in the government

• Many called for reforms and equality, leading to increased repression

• Between 1876-1909, 300,000 minorities were killed to intimidate and silence these demands for justice

• war was used to begin the killing, with the government falsely claiming it was fighting to suppress disloyalty in the war and brutality against Muslims

• minorities were forced from their homes and taken on death marches to Syria

• Property and wealth was confiscated from them

• soldiers were executed or worked to death to create less resistance

• Women were enslaved and forced to assimilate to Turkish culture and marry Turkish men

• many minorities were starved to death

• Turkey denied and continues to deny the event

• 1.5 million out of two million … were killed

• United States government did not officially recognize the event until 2021 under the Biden administration

Treaty of Versailles

• President Wilson and the other Allied leaders met in France to negotiate the peace treaty ending World War I

• reduced Germany’s army to 100,000 soldiers and had its air force and navy eliminated

• Germany also had to accept blame for the war and pay the Allies $33 billion in reparations

• was very different from the Fourteen Points, which Wilson had presented to Kaiser Wilhelm to encourage Germany’s surrender

• failure of the Treaty established the environment for the rise of Hitler, enabling him to falsely argue that German Jews sold out Germany, leading to the country’s surrender in World War I

• a peace treaty signed in 1919 that officially ended World War I between Germany and the Allied powers

League of Nations

• an international peacekeeping organization

• Joining this organization meant that member nations had to give up some of their national sovereignty in return for collective security

• was rejected by the u.s senate

Failure to ratify Treaty of Versailles and join League of Nations

• Wilson’s vision might have created a better world, but he ran up against opposition from Allied leaders and Republican opposition at home

• Wilson failed to create the political coalition at home that would have strengthened his position in negotiating the peace treaty after the war

• Wilson went above Congress and appealed directly to the American people to try to put pressure on Congress to ratify the Treaty and join the League

• Wilson launched a rigorous campaign across the country, and in the process suffered a severe stroke, ending his ability to win the public’s support

• Senator Lodge and the majority of Republican senators hoped to amend the Treaty to give the United States some independence to stay out of League’s conflicts without Congressional approval

• Wilson had no desire to compromise so he was unwilling to work with Lodge

• American public did not support joining the League and wanted to return to isolationism

• Some opposed the treaty for being either too lenient or too harsh on Germany

Independent internationalism

• the u.s acted on the world stage to promote its interests but held independence of action, untied to the League of Nations

• led to short-term successes and long-term failures

Washington Naval Disarmament Conference (1921-2922)

• This conference led to three separate treaties

• world powers met to discuss relations

• Four Power Pact, signed by the United States, Britain, France, and Japan, kept the status quo in regards to colonies in the Pacific

• Five Power Pact limited the total naval tonnage for the five major naval powers (United States, Britain, France, Japan, and Italy)

• Nine Power Pact guaranteed the Open Door Policy in China

Dawes Plan (1924)

• temporarily resolved the problem of German not being able to pay debt by providing loans from U.S. banks to Germany to help the country reconstruct, enabling Germany to raise taxes and pay reparations to the Allies

• Allies then paid back loans owed to the United States

• In return for an agreement to pay back reparations, the Allies ended their occupation of the Ruhr Valley region in Germany

• lasted until 1929

Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)

• joined most countries in the world in signing this pact

• Sixty-two nations signed this pact agreeing to eliminate war as national policy and to fight wars only for defensive purposes

• this meant an end to all wars, but the agreement had no enforcement mechanism so the question would quickly emerge about what would happen when a country violated the agreement

Japan invades Manchuria (1931)

• Japanese military blew up a section of a Japanese railroad in … and claimed the Chinese were responsible so it could justify the invasion

• Great Depression increased the importance of … to Japan

• invasion violated the League of Nations and Kellogg-Briand Pact, which called for the end of war except for defensive purposes

• Japan left the League of Nations and continued invading

Nuremberg Laws

stripped German Jews of citizenship and all legal rights in 1936

Italy invades Ethiopia

• In 1935, Benito Mussolini sent troops, supported by German tanks and planes, to … to create a new Italian Empire

• … selected because it had no military, making it vulnerable to attack

• … government pleaded for help from the League of Nations, arguing the attack violated the League’s tenets and the Kellogg-Briand Pact

• League condemned Italy, but offered nothing else in defense of …

• followed this invasion against a defenseless nation with another one

Japan invades China (1937)

• Japan seized control of most of eastern … and added valuable resources

• attack on Nanjing became known as the “Rape of Nanjing” because of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military against civilians

• At least forty thousand (some estimates range over 300,000) were killed and an estimated twenty thousand women and girls were raped by Japanese soldiers

• during the invasion, japan attacked an American ship, the USS Panay, on the Yangtze River

Spanish Civil War

• Fascist General Francisco Franco led the overthrow of a democratically-elected republican government

• Franco had the military support of Germany and Italy, while the Loyalist forces had only minimal support from the Soviet Union

• None of the world’s democracies came to the defense of this country

Good Neighbor Policy

• announced in 1933 at the Seventh Pan American Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay

• called for improving relations with Latin America by showing more respect to the region and limiting interventions only to situations that provided a direct threat to U.S. security

• the U.S. denounced the right to intervene in Latin American nations’ affairs, effectively reversing the Roosevelt Corollary

Nye Committee

• a U.S. Senate committee, officially the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, that investigated the sale and profit of arms during World War I

• operated from 1934 to 1936 and aimed to find out if a conspiracy between bankers and munitions makers pushed the U.S. into the war

• could not prove this hypothesis, but it did discover that U.S. companies were selling planes and aircraft equipment to Germany, helping Hitler to remilitarize (while refusing to produce planes as requested by President Roosevelt)

Neutrality Acts 1935-1937

• 1935, 1936, and 1937

• Roosevelt opposed these acts, preferring to have more flexibility to act, especially as events unfolded by 1936

• aimed at preventing the United States from getting dragged into another European war

• called for the embargo of all arms sales to belligerent nations (nations at war) for six months in the case of any war beginning

• gave the president the power to determine when a state of war existed and prohibited all loans or credits to belligerent nations

• gave the president the authority to determine if a civil war was covered by the acts

“Quarantine” Speech (1937)

• President Roosevelt gave a provocative speech

• president called for all democratic governments to quarantine all aggressor nations

• Without naming these aggressor nations, everybody understood that these countries were Germany, Italy, and Japan

• Critics argued that Roosevelt had already declared what side the United States would join in the case of an eventual war

• Most Americans and most in Congress were upset with Roosevelt’s speech, siding with isolationism in response to any potential war

Kristallnacht

• More than one hundred Jews were killed in the violence

• “Night of Broken Glass”

• All remaining rights for Jews were eliminated, Jewish-owned businesses were closed, Jews were banned from schools, driving, etc

• violence against Jews increased

Munich Pact

gave the Sudetenland to Germany and war was averted

Nonaggression Pact (1938)

Hitler and Stalin promised not to attack one another, also split parts of Eastern Europe

Cash and Carry Act (1939)

• allowed for the cash-and-carry sale of arms and loans to belligerent nations, reversing previous neutrality acts

• enabled the U.S. to aid Britain and France in case of war

Selective Service Act

• President Roosevelt began mobilizing for war

• trained men 21-35 years-old for the military

Beginning of World War II

• In the late summer of 1939, the German blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) invaded Poland and quickly conquered it, beginning the war

• In May 1940, Germany proceeded to invade and conquer Norway, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, each within days or weeks

• France shockingly fell within six weeks following Germany’s invasion in 1940

• Allies made a last-ditch effort to escape capture from western France, boarding any ships they could find and fled France from Dunkirk to England

• heroic escape was made possible because Hitler called for a three-day rest for his soldiers to regroup for a final assault against the Allies

• After France surrendered, the Germans set up a government in Vichy, France

• A Free French government, led by Charles de Gaulle, was established in London and vowed to resist German occupation

• Hitler and Mussolini then defeated Romania, Greece, and Yugoslavia

• Control of the Balkans opened the door to a future attack on the Soviet Union

Battle of Britain

• winston Churchill declared battle on germany

• lasted over three months and the British suffered more than ten thousand deaths and fifty thousand wounded, but as Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, Britain did not surrender

• The British Royal Air Force and the use of radar gave Hitler’s war machine its first defeat, Hitler called off a planned invasion of britain

• the U.S. and Britain agreed to the Destroyers-for-Bases Deal during this battle, British got old ships and u.s got 99 year lease of 7 Atlantic ocean bases

Breaking of Nonaggression Pact

• hilter attacked the Soviet Union, opening a two-front war

• Hitler broke the pact due to his desire for more land (lebensraum), oil, the defeat of Communism, and the elimination of the large Jewish population within the Soviet Union

• Initially, the German military moved quickly into Soviet territory, before stalemate ensued

Tripartite Pact

• In September 1940, Japan joined the Berlin-Rome Axis, forming the pact

• The Axis Powers agreed to aid one another if attacked by another country, hoping the threat of a two-front war would prevent the United States from entering the war

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

• us congress passed this act which gave the president the authority to lend or sell war materials to countries fighting the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan)

• This was seen as a necessity because Britain was unable to continue paying the United States for war resources

• served as an unofficial declaration of war to the Axis Powers because the United States was now positioned to help the Allies with any supplies needed, whether they had the money to buy them or not

Destroyers-for-Bases Deal

• During the Battle of Britain, the U.S. and Britain agreed to this deal

• British were desperate for ships and this deal gave the u.s fifty old destroyers from the U.S. Navy

• In return, Britain gave the United States ninety-nine year leases for seven bases in the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Charter

• Roosevelt and Churchill created this, patterned after Wilson’s Fourteen Points

• called for self-determination, disarmament, freedom of the seas, and the creation of a new international peace organization (eventually called the United Nations)

• Churchill and Roosevelt bonded and developed a trust of each other that helped lead the allies to victory in the war

Pearl Harbor attack

• Prime Minister Hideki Tojo approved of a plan to attack the United States

• Japanese military leaders set a negotiating deadline for November 29, 1941 that once passed would lead to war

• No agreement was made so Japan finalized its plans to attack the U.S. Pacific fleet

• Japanese war planners knew this was a gamble and would lead to war, but they hoped that by destroying the entire fleet, oil storage and naval repair facilities, the United States would need several years to completely rebuild its navy and air force and fight back

• By then, Japan believed it would be too firmly in control of the Pacific to be threatened

• U.S. government and military knew a Japanese attack was imminent at the beginning of December

• In November, the United States broke a Japanese code and learned that Japan was planning a surprise attack on a U.S. island during the first week of December

• U.S. leaders did not know which island, but most believed it would be in the Philippines since these islands were closer to Japan and because they stood between Japan and the oil fields of Indonesia

• Roosevelt knew an attack would finally lead to U.S. entrance into the war, but hoped to minimize any damage from an attack

• the u.s had a lot of miscommunication which led them to be unprepared for the attack

• u.s confused Japanese planes with American planes, even when they came from the wrong direction

• Japanese caught the u.s by surprise on December 7

• involved over 350 planes and lasted more than two hours

• Over 2,400 Americans were killed, including more than 1,000 sailors aboard the USS Arizona

• More than twenty battleships and cruisers and 200 planes were destroyed in the attack

• Japanese lost twenty-nine planes and ninety-six men

• While the attack surprised the United States and caused heavy damage, the attack was not a complete success for Japan

• The attack did not harm any of the four aircraft carriers (the key naval weapon)

• Japanese also failed to destroy the repair facilities and oil storage facilities, allowing the United States to repair most of the damaged ships by the summer of 1942

Battle of Stalingrad

• In August 1942, this battle began between the Germans and Soviet Union

• Located in southwest Russia, the battle lasted until February 1943

• Germany targeted this place because it was an important industrial location

• The Soviet Union moved its industry and resources out of the city to prevent the Germans from acquiring anything of value

• As winter began, the Red Army blockaded the Germany Army, preventing supplies from reaching them and leading German soldiers to go without food and supplies

• Thousands of German soldiers began dying due to the freezing conditions

• In February 1943, Russians retook control of the city and captured one hundred thousand German soldiers

• There were nearly two million casualties in this battle

• Soviet victory was a turning point in the war and Hitler’s first acknowledged defeat

Casablanca Conference (1943)

• first wartime conference held by the Allied leaders occurred in French-held territory in Morocco

• President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met at the conference in January 1943

• Soviet Premier Josef Stalin declined the invitation, saying he could not leave the Soviet Union while the country was fighting the Germans, including the heavy fighting at Stalingrad

• Germans broke the Allied code and knew a meeting was being held, but they translated the location name into Spanish and assumed it meant the White House

• At the conference, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed that an invasion across the English Channel would not happen in 1943

• Instead of opening a western front, Churchill and Roosevelt decided on the safer strategy of opening a second front in North Africa, where Germany was weakest, followed by an invasion of Italy

• The leaders also agreed to a Germany-first strategy in winning the war, japan would be secondary

Tehran Conference

• In November 1943, the “Big Three” (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) met for the second wartime conference of the Allied leaders

• marked the first time the three Allied leaders met

• leaders met to discuss and plan war strategy and to talk about plans for a peace settlement to shape the post-war world

• The Big Three agreed to an invasion of France, codenamed Operation Overlord, six months following the conference

• Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan after Germany was defeated

• leaders also agreed to create a world peace organization

• However, there was disagreement on what would be done to Germany after the war and over the future system of government in Poland

D-Day

• invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, was scheduled for early June 1944

• Churchill and Roosevelt selected General Dwight Eisenhower to lead the invasion

• Originally, it was scheduled for June 5, but the attack had to be postponed due to bad weather

• was assumed the attack would have to be delayed at least two weeks

• Germany, also keeping an eye on the weather and expecting an attack somewhere on the French coastline, believed an attack would not happen until at least mid-June consequently

• Germany also suspended its air and naval patrols on June 5 due to poor weather

• However, on the morning of June 5, General Eisenhower was informed by his meteorologist that within the two weeks of upcoming poor weather, there would be a twenty-four hour period of good weather beginning in the early morning hours of June 6

• Eisenhower quickly decided to go through with the attack the following day, hoping the forecast was accurate

• In the weeks leading up to the invasion, the Allies launched missions to make it appear that the invasion would occur in Calais, France, The goal was to force the Germans to extend their defenses across the French coastline

• Instead, American, British, and Canadian troops invaded the beaches of Normandy in the early morning hours of June 6

• the largest amphibious(vehicle that works on land/water) attack in world history

• The Allied invasion included 3.5 million men, sixteen million tons of weapons, five thousand ships, and eleven thousand aircraft

• Thousands of paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines to take control of bridges and roads

• Troops had to carry nearly seventy pounds of equipment as they swam or waded ashore, while facing machine gun fire from German troops and land mines on the beaches

• By the end of June 6, the British and Canadian troops had taken control of Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches and the Americans possessed Utah beach

• The fighting was heaviest on Omaha beach

• Over 150,000 Allied troops had landed on the Normandy coast and the Allies suffered ten thousand casualties, including four thousand killed

• Despite the heavy losses, the invasion was a success and within a week, the Allies gained control of the entire Normandy coastline and began moving to liberate Paris, while landing over 320,000 troops and more equipment

Battle of the Bulge

• In December 1944, Hitler used the additional troops brought to the west to launch a massive counterattack against the Allied line as it moved east toward Germany

• was fought in Belgium to divide the Allied troops

• The battle lasted six weeks and the Allies managed to prevent the Germans from breaking their lines

• The Allied line was bent backwards

• Despite defeating the Germans, this was the deadliest battle fought by the United States Army, with over 100,000 casualties

• Germany’s defeat in the battle in January 1945 marked its last major offensive of the war

• Germany was invaded in the east and west

• The Allies launched major firebombing raids of German cities like Dresden, causing massive civilian deaths

Holocaust

• *the genocide of european Jews during ww2*

• In September 1939, the German army forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews from their homes and into ghettos

• properties of Jews were given to Germans or non-Jewish Poles

• Hitler attempted to starve Jews in these walled and armed ghettos

• Starvation and disease were rampant in these overpopulated areas

• As Germany conquered most of Europe in 1940-1941 Jews from all over Europe were transported by rail to polish ghettos

• When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile units called the Einsatzgruppen, executed hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews

• Beginning in September 1941, Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David to make them identifiable

• In mid-1941, Germany began using an insecticide called Zyklon-B to kill people at the concentration camp in Auschwitz

• By the end of 1941, Jews were being sent from ghettos to concentration camps and the first mass killings began in early 1942 at several death camps in Poland and other parts of Europe under German control

• Nazi scientists carried out experiments on Jewish prisoners, exposing people to extreme temperatures, injections of various chemicals, and other horrific circumstances

• As Allied forces advanced into German-held territory in 1944, German soldiers began forced marches of the concentration camp prisoners away from the front lines of the war in order to hide the genocide

• Hundreds of thousands of Jews died in the process of these death marches

• Altogether, six million European Jews were killed out of a population of nine million

• Five million others were killed in these death camps, including the Romani people, homosexuals, people with mental or physical disabilities, and political opponents

Bataan Death March

• Following the attack on the Philippines on December 8, 1941, the Japanese defeated the United States and its Filipino allies

• Seventy-five thousand American and Filipino soldiers were forced on the March

• Soldiers walked eighty miles without food and water over the course of one week

• Between seven and ten thousand American and Filipino soldiers died

Battle of the Coral Sea

• In May 1942, the Allies defeated the Japanese at this battle, to the northeast of Australia

• This was the first battle fought completely by planes and aircraft carriers

• The Allied victory prevented the Japanese from invading Australia and extending their empire further south

Battle of Midway

• the United States cracked a japanese naval code that revealed the location of this battle

• the United States had the advantage of knowing the attack was coming as japanese were sailing to them

• The United States, led by Admiral Chester Nimitz, moved its four aircraft carriers to the east of the island and launched attacks from the air on the incoming Japanese fleet, destroying all four Japanese aircraft carriers

• This meant Japanese pilots had nowhere to land their planes so nearly all two-hundred forty-eight Japanese planes were lost

• Japan suffered over three thousand deaths and the United States had three hundred deaths

• Escaping the battle, a few Japanese Zero planes landed in the Aleutian Islands

• The victory in this battle prevented any future attacks on Hawai’i

• Japan would not expand its empire any further to the east

Leapfrogging or Island hopping

• The United States strategy in the Pacific War

• This meant the U.S. goal was to capture strategic islands, skipping less important islands, as it moved closer to the Japanese mainland

• Once within range, U.S. planes could begin bombing Japan itself

Battle of Guadalcanal

• The battle lasted from August 1942 to February 1943

• This battle marked the beginning of the U.S. turning from fighting a defensive war to an offensive war

• Consequently, this was an important psychological victory for the United States

• began its first major offensive against Japan in this Battle

Battle of Leyte Gulf (1944)

• Another significant U.S. victory in October 1944

• battle was fought for control of the Philippines

• was the largest naval battle in world history

• The U.S. victory deprived Japan of much-needed oil from the Dutch East Indies

• This battle was also the first time the Japanese used kamikaze attacks(suicide missions carried out by Japanese pilots who intentionally crashed their aircraft into Allied ships), a move made out of desperation

• Over the last ten months of the war, kamikaze attacks led to the destruction of four hundred U.S. ships and the death of ten thousand Americans

Yalta Conference

• The Allied leaders met again for a third wartime conference in Ukraine February 1945

• Stalin once again renewed the promise to enter the war against Japan after Germany was defeated

• All leaders agreed to create the United Nations with a Security Council, composed of world powers, that held veto power and a General Assembly with the other countries of the world

• The Allied powers could not agree on Poland’s postwar government

• germany’s postwar status was also a major point of contention

• Roosevelt favored a unified Germany, while Stalin wanted to dismantle Germany in order to weaken it

• The Allied leaders agreed to continue talks at the next meeting

• This ended up being the final meeting of the Big Three because President Roosevelt died two months after the conference ended

Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)

• The U.S. attacked this island of in February 1945

• island is eight square-miles in size and is located seven-hundred miles from the Japanese mainland

• Japan launched surprise attacks from concrete bunkers and underground tunnels

• The United States had twenty-six thousand casualties, including six-thousand deaths

• Twenty-thousand of twenty-one thousand Japanese civilians and soldiers on the island at the start of the battle were killed as Japan fought to the death, rather than surrender

• The Japanese government implored its people to take their lives rather than be captured, warning that the U.S. military would torture anybody captured

• Following the victory at this island, the United States began daily bombing raids of Japan, most infamously the firebombing of Tokyo on March 8-9, killing over eighty thousand people

Battle of Okinawa (1945)

• the United States invaded this island, located about three-hundred forty miles from the Japanese mainland

• The United States suffered fifty-thousand casualties, including twelve-thousand killed, in this battlefield victory

• Japan suffered 110,000 deaths

• the closer the United States moved to Japan, the harder the Japanese fought

• Once again, many civilians committed suicide, fearing capture

Truman’s “Get Tough” Policy

• directed towards the Soviet union

• a reaction to previous failed appeasement in the 1930s

• refers to truman’s foreign policy shift in the late 1940s toward a more confrontational stance against the Soviet Union, primarily characterized by the Truman Doctrine

Potsdam Conference (1945)

• Allied leaders met for a fourth wartime conference in the summer of 1945

• Roosevelt and Churchill were replaced by Truman and clement atlee

• the Allies agreed that Germany and its capital, Berlin, was to be divided into four occupied zones, held by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union

• Eventually the three zones occupied by the western powers were unified into West Germany and West Berlin

Decision to use the atomic bomb

• president Truman made this decision

• Japan refused to unconditionally surrender, leading this decision to be made

• this was decided because it would reduce the amount of American casualties in the battle

Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 1945)

• the United States dropped an atomic bomb on this city on August 6

• Japan refused to unconditionally surrender and on August 9 the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on another Japanese city

• Nearly 100,000 were killed by each bomb

• Many more died from radiation poisoning in the weeks and months that followed

• Japan surrendered on August 15 and signed the surrender on September 2 (V-J Day)

Cold War

• There was plenty of tension between the u.s and soviet union from the beginning of the U.S. entrance into ww2 and it quickly increased after the war ended, leading to this war

• an ideological struggle that dominated international affairs for more than four decades following the end of World War II

• controlled U.S. foreign policy concerns and also had an enormous impact on the country’s domestic policy

George Kennan’s “Long Telegram”

• an American diplomat wrote an opinion of how the United States should proceed against the Soviet Union (the u.s thought the Soviet union declared war on them, which was not true)

• In February 1946, he wrote this, warning the U.S. government about Soviet intentions to expand communism and argued the Soviet Union could not be compromised with

• urged the containment of the spread of communism

“Iron Curtain” speech

• former Prime Minister Winston Churchill was invited by President Truman to visit his home state of Missouri

• in this speech he warned the free world that communist dictatorship had “descended” across Eastern Europe

• Churchill made clear that he believed the United States needed to be willing to stop Soviet aggression

• became one of the more important metaphors of the Cold War

Containment policy

• developed to stop the spread of communism

• the U.S. foreign policy strategy during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism beyond its existing borders

Truman Doctrine

• Truman decided to provide military and economic aid to the governments of Turkey and Greece in response to communist rebellions which he believed was the soviet unions fault

• the U.S. would provide economic and military aid to countries facing communist threats in order to stop the spread of communism

Domino Theory

• the idea that if a country (ex. Greece or Turkey) fell to communism, others around it would follow

• once the first fell, others would too

National Security Act (1947)

• restructured the U.S. military and intelligence agencies

• renamed the Department of War the Department of Defense, which was set up to coordinate all branches of the military

• also created the National Security Council, run out of the White House to coordinate all aspects of U.S. foreign and military policy

• also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather information both overtly and covertly

Marshall Plan

• the United States provided economic aid for the rebuilding of Europe

• motivated by humanitarianism as Europe was devastated by the war and needed help

• Secondly, many feared if things remained as chaotic as they were after World War II, radical ideas such as communism and socialism might take root

• rebuilt European economy would also ensure a growing market for American-made goods

• also an interest in strengthening Europe so it could protect itself from the Soviet Union

• put into effect in 1948

• prevented the rise of communist governments in Western Europe and helped to rebuild Europe making the program a great success in a geopolitical and a humanitarian sense

Selective Service System

created a permanent draft

Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift

• Stalin closed all roads into West Berlin leaving only an air corridor into West Berlin

• Stalin was trying to pressure the West to give up Berlin, but Truman was unwilling to lose Berlin but also he did not want to go to war

• Truman decided to launch a 24/7 airlift of food and supplies to West Berlin through the only air corridor Stalin left open

• After eleven months, Stalin ended the blockade, realizing his failure

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

a voluntary alliance between the U.S., Canada, and Western European countries (now includes some countries in Eastern Europe) in which member countries agreed to come to the military assistance of other member nations in case of an attack on any one of them

Warsaw Pact

• the Soviet Union created its own military alliance, with its satellite communist countries in Eastern Europe

• membership was not voluntary

Creation of Israel

• caused controversy and presented President Truman with a multifaceted decision over whether to support the new state or not

• Truman ultimately decided to “unofficially” recognize the country and provide economic and military aid

• Many Jewish Americans supported the creation of an independent Jewish state

• Holocaust led to increasing calls for an independent Jewish state

• Americans feared war between Arabs and Jews, so many opposed the creation of this state

• Truman was a supporter because he sympathized with victims of the Holocaust

• Marshall’s opposition led Truman to back off a stronger support of the new state, leading to unofficial recognition

Communist victory in Chinese civil war

• began in the 1920s and paused in the 1930s, following invasions by Japan in 1931 and 1937 and World War II

• resumed once again in 1945

• The Soviet Union passed on weapons seized from Manchuria to the communists

• The war was fought by the official Chinese government (Nationalists) led by Chiang Kai-shek, a pro-Western leader, and communists led by Mao Zedong

• The U.S. supported Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, but in 1949 the communists won, forcing the Nationalists to flee to the island of Taiwan

• Americans were very concerned because the most populous nation in the world fell to communism

• Truman was blamed for this spread of communism

NSC-68

• a secret policy paper

• called for the United States to act unilaterally to stop communism

• also created a more aggressive CIA, leading to its use to destabilize foreign governments and carry out assassinations in the name of national security

Beginning of Korean War

• became the first “hot war” of the Cold War

• The U.S. and Soviet Union sent troops into Korea at the end of the war to fill the power vacuum left by Japan’s defeat to colonize korea

• Korea was divided at the 38th parallel with North Korea led by a pro-Soviet puppet government and South Korea led by a pro-U.S. government

• The U.S. left South Korea under the leadership of Syngman Rhee who was not very democratic, but was an anti-communist

• North Korea was ruled by Kim Il Sung, who wanted to reunite Korea under his control

• Kim Il-Sung, with Stalin’s approval, attacked South Korea on June 24, 1950

• Stalin also made clear, he would not provide troops to Kim Il-Sung so if additional troops were needed, Mao would have to provide them

• Quickly after the invasion began, North Korea occupied much of South Korea, including its capital, Seoul

• President Truman gave immediate military assistance to South Korea, and called for the un to intervene

• U.N. approved of intervention and General Douglas MacArthur was chosen to lead the U.N. war effort

• When the U.N. entered the war, South Korean forces had retreated to Busan in the southeastern part of the Korean peninsula

• The U.N. was able to build up its ground forces with troops and tanks

• In September 1950, General MacArthur led a successful counterattack against North Korea with an amphibious landing at Inchon on the western side of the peninsula while a simultaneous attack occurred on the eastern side

• Seoul was retaken within two weeks and the U.N. forces drove forward all the way to the Yalu River, along the Chinese border

• Mao saw an American victory as a threat to China’s security so he sent Chinese troops into the war in defense of North Korea

• The U.N. dropped more bombs in this War than the Allies had in World War II, destroying thousands of villages and irrigation networks that were needed for rice cultivation, leading to tens of thousands of people starving

• This war had a higher ratio of civilian to soldier deaths than World War II and the Vietnam War

Truman’s firing of MacArthur

• division over war strategy between Truman and MacArthur created a crisis in U.S. military command

• repeated public criticisms of Truman’s war policies caused this to happen

• this event was crucial to maintaining civilian control over the military even though the public sided with MacArthur

• Republicans in Congress and the Senate, led by Robert Taft, discussed impeaching Truman and others in the cabinet after this event

Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO)

• After the U.N. established a cease fire, the United States created this organization

• similar to NATO for the United States and its allies in Asia, providing collective security against communist aggression

New Look foreign policy

• National Security Council issued a new secret policy paper called NSC-168 (1954), calling for a new foreign policy based on the threat of massive retaliation

• Under NSC-168, the CIA engaged in more covert operations to destabilize or overthrow governments deemed unfriendly to the United States

• Dulles argued that containment policy had not succeeded and that the U.S. could not match communist troop numbers around the world

• led Dulles to argue that the U.S. must threaten and be willing to use a massive retaliation with nuclear weapons at any moment to stop the spread of communism

• Brinkmanship (meaning pushing the Soviet Union to the brink or edge of war to get concessions from them) policy was incredibly risky and it was a key part of the policy

Overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh

• he was elected Prime Minister by Iran’s Parliament

• He entered politics and became popular due to his calls for nationalism, including taking control of the British oil company, Anglo-Iranian Oil (later it became British Petroleum), who he believed had been exploiting Iran for decades

• nationalized oil and argued that it was no different from what the British had recently done in nationalizing the coal industry

• The British then turned to the United States for assistance

• A CIA-backed coup, called Operation Ajax, began in 1953

• U.S. government falsely claimed he was a communist to justify the overthrow of the Iranian government

• he was arrested and put on house arrest

• the shah was returned to power, this was an authoritarian government and it provided the u.s with cheap oil

Overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz

• the democratically-elected leader of Guatemala

• demand for change stemmed from the power held by the U.S.-based United Fruit Company (UFCO)

• The company owned 20% of the country’s arable land, controlled the country’s only port, the electrical grid, transportation systems, owned the telephone and telegraph facilities, and did not pay taxes

• Many Guatemalans wanted democracy and economic reforms

• won the first democratic Guatemalan presidential election in 1951 and took office, marking the first peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala’s history

• a nationalist leader who wanted to industrialize his country and create a strong middle class by redistributing land held by the wealthy elite and foreign companies

• created a minimum wage and gave workers the right to unionize (like Roosevelt’s New Deal)

• passed the Agrarian Land Reform Law of 1952, nationalizing uncultivated land on estates larger than 672 acres, compensating owners based on the land’s declared tax value

• disagreement exposed the fact that the UFCO had been cheating on its taxes to the Guatemalan government for decades by purposefully undervaluing its land

• reforms worried the UFCO because they might be repeated in other Central American countries

• CIA led a coup of his government, called Operation Success, and replaced a democracy with a military dictatorship led by General Carlos Castillo Armas

• Armas abolished unions, peasant organizations, political parties, and eliminated the Agrarian Reform Law

geneva accords (1954)

• first Indochina war came to an official end with the signing of this document

• established a temporary division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel

formosa resolution

• was passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress in 1955, in support of President Eisenhower’s policy toward Taiwan

• gave Eisenhower the power to use military force to protect Taiwan without a formal declaration of war by Congress

• significantly expanded the power of the executive branch and eliminated the system of checks and balances

• did not lead to war in this case, but it established a dangerous precedent where the president oversteps their power by controlling congress

suez crisis

• Nasser responded to the britain and u.s cease in giving Egypt money by nationalizing the Canal, taking it from the British in order to use revenues from the canal to fund the Aswan Dam Project

• Two-thirds of the oil used by Europe was brought through the Canal, so this action was viewed as a threat to Western Europe

• In October 1956, Israel attacked Egypt moving toward the canal

• The British and French soon joined the attack and attempted to retake the canal

• President Eisenhower refused to support this invasion, fearing a loss of Arab oil and fearing that this attack would lead Arab countries into the arms of the Soviet Union in the Cold War

• Soviet Union responded to the Crisis by throwing its support to Nasser and Egypt and appeared willing to go to war

• Eisenhower worried about the possibility of war with the Soviet Union over this crisis, leading U.S. forces to be put on high-alert around the world

• The U.S. supported an United Nations denunciation of the invasion and pressured its allies to withdraw from Egypt

hungarian revolution (1956)

• In a private speech to the Communist Party Congress, the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced Stalin and called for de-Stalinization

• Hungarian freedom fighters were also inspired to challenge the Soviet-controlled puppet government because they believed the U.S. would support the uprising

• Hungarian rebel leader Irme Nagy called for the creation of a multiparty democracy and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact

• the u.s did not come to the support of Hungary because of fear of war with the Soviet union

federal interstate highway act (1956)

• built America’s highway and freeway system, enabling Americans to go to sporting events, drive thru restaurants, drive-in movies, to explore the country on road trips and weekend getaways, or just while taking an afternoon drive

• the ulterior purpose of the system was for military preparedness in case of a war with the Soviet Union

• transportation system allowed the military to move troops and weapons systems around the country, and would help to evacuate areas in case of a nuclear attack

sputnik 1 (1957)

• Soviet Union successfully launched the first satellite into orbit

• created much concern in the United States, as Americans feared the Soviets had surpassed the United States in rocket technology

• Americans worried that the Soviets could launch nuclear missiles at the United States

• gap in technology became known as the missile gap

• began the space race