World Culture 9.1-9.2 vocab review

Lufftwaffe

German air force

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) (real name: Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) adopted the name Stalin, meaning "man of steel," after he joined the Bolshevik underground. He was the sole ruler of the Soviet Union for 33 years. Stalin stood his ground against Hitler and refused to leave Moscow. He eventually forced the Germans into retreat.

Dunkirk

port in France from which 300,000 Allied troops were evacuated when their retreat by land was cut off by the German advance in 1940

Vichy

city in central France where a puppet state governed unoccupied France and the French colonies

Operation Sea Lion

Name of Germany’s invasion of Great Britain

Erwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) was a career military officer and one of Hitler's most successful generals. He took his own life after a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler.

Operation Barbarossa

Name of the German invasion of Russia

Lend-Lease Act

act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1941 that allowed the president (FDR) to sell or lend war supplies to any country whose defense was considered vital to the United States

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was the longest serving American president, elected to the office four times. Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family in New York and was a distant cousin of the early president Theodore Roosevelt. Elected in 1932, his first term as president focused on lifting America out of the Great Depression. He successfully passed legislation, crafting a massive package of economic and social programs, called the New Deal. During his third term, Roosevelt inspired many through his strong leadership during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America's subsequent entry into World War II. He was elected to a fourth term in 1944, but his health deteriorated as the war came to an end. Roosevelt died in April 1945.

Atlantic Charter

agreement in which Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill set goals for the defeat of Nazi Germany and for the postwar world

Hideki Tojo

Hideki Tojo (1884–1948) was born in Tokyo and was a career military man. He was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army and the 40th prime minister of Japan during most of World War II, from 1941 to 1945. He was directly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was arrested and sentenced to death for Japanese war crimes

Pearl Harbour

Japanese invasion of the USA on the island of Hawaii

Sino-Japanese War

war between China and Japan in which Japan gained Taiwan

Appeasement

policy of giving in to an aggressor's demands in order to keep the peace

Haile Selassie

King of Ethiopia when Italy invaded in 1935

Sanctions

a series of punishments against a particular country for some sort of violation

Adolf Hitler

was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. After Hitler was appointed chancellor, he immediately transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich. He wanted to establish a "New Order" and create more "living space" for what he believed was the superior Aryan race. Hitler aggressively invaded neighboring nations. which led to World War II. As Germany faced defeat in 1945, Hitler committed suicide to avoid capture by the Soviets.

Pacifism

opposition to all war

Neutrality Acts

a series of acts passed by the U.S. Congress from 1935 to 1939 that aimed to keep the U.S. from becoming involved in WWII

Axis Powers

group of countries led by Germany, Italy, and Japan that fought the Allies in World War II

Allied Powers

group of countries led by Britain, France and Russia who fought together in WW2

Benito Mussolini

born into a poor household in Italy. His father was a blacksmith and his mother a schoolteacher. Although Mussolini grew up in a socialist home and strongly advocated socialist policies as a young man, he formed the Fascist party in Italy after returning from fighting in World War I. Using terror and fear tactics together with the Black Shirts, Mussolini created and ruled Italy as a totalitarian state. After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Mussolini and Hitler made an alliance and, with Japan, fought against the Allies in World War II.

Third Reich

official name of the Nazi party for its regime in Germany; held power from 1933 to 1945

Anschluss

union of Austria and Germany

Sudetenland

a region of western Czechoslovakia

Annexed

claiming land for a country

Munich Pact

An agreement between France and Britain and Germany that gave Germany the Sudetenland in return for peace

Edouard Daladier

leader of France during WW2

Winston Churchill

born to British aristocracy and became prime minister of the British empire in 1940. Early on, he proclaimed the threats posed by Nazi Germany. His determination persuaded the country to defend itself against an encroaching enemy.

Nazi-Soviet Pact

agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 in which the two nations promised not to fight each other and to divide up land in Eastern Europe

Blitzkrieg

lightning war

League of Nations

organization created at the end of WW1 that to keep peace throughout the world

Third Reich

all German speaking people under the leadership of Adolf Hitler