Unit 7: Global Conflict

• 7.1 | Shift in Power After 1900 (Heimler Views)

Large scale revolutions -> new ideologies

Revolutions:

Russia

-Internal Problems: early 20th century, had internal problems.

-Little wealth, growth, and power.

- Refused to extend voting rights and education to the people.

-The government did not like the internal rebellions and created the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1905.

•External Problems:

- lost the Crimean War to the Ottomans and lost the Russo-Japanese War.

-The Bolsheviks overthrew the government in 1917, led by Vladimir Lenin who represented the working class.

-Established a communist government by getting rid of free trade, nationalized factories and industries, and redistributing the crops to feed workers.

-Woodrow Wilson from the U.S became very scared.

China

•Internal Problems:

-ethnic tension.

-The Han people did not believe that the Qing (typically Manchu people) could be legitimate rulers due to where they were born.

-Also faced famine due to rapid population growth.

- Had extremely low taxes.

•External Problems:

- were losing economic hold due to industrial powers who forced free trade agreements due to their military.

-Sun Yat-Sen led a revolution to overthrow the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

-He upheld traditional Confucian values like social harmony and the veneration of ancestors, and tried to fix the unequal distribution of wealth.

-Gave power only to those who were educated rulers.

-Only worked for two months, decided to give power to other military leaders instead.

Ottoman Empire

•External Problems:

- sinking economy and several military defeats.

-Attempted to modernize from 1940-1870 under the Tanzimat (reforms).

-Young Turks wanted a constitutional government and Turkification (made people embrace Turkish culture).

-Led to the persecution of Christians.

-Ataturk focused on Turkey-like Western democracies and changing its culture from Islam.

Mexico

•Internal Problems:

-Porfirio Diaz allowed for foreign investors to control Mexico’s resources.

- Inequality of wealth distribution.

- He also arrested his political opponent, which fueled the Mexican Revolution.

-By 1917, Mexico created a new constitution that solved the problems under Diaz.

7.1: Causes of World War I

• M.A.I.N. Causes of WWI

-Militarism- the idea that a country should be stronger than its neighbors and aggressively prepared

-Alliances- created to maintain a power balance; it divided Europe

-Imperialism- the conflict over colonies created rivalries

-Nationalism- citizens grew a love for their country and hatred for other countries

• Tensions in Europe

-Europe divided into two major alliances:

-Triple Entente: Great Britain, France, Russia

-Created in response to German unification

-Tripple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary Empire, and Italy

• Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand

-In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot dead in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip

Takeaways:

Same date as the anniversary, of the war between Turks and Serbs, and some else

Assassin has tuberculosis.

Main Takeaway:

Alliances can protect/ defend you but hurt others.

Countries made alliances to become powerful and out of fear.

• Heimler Notes

7.2 causes of World War 1

• Militarism

- Definition: The desire of a state to develop and maintain a powerful military to aggressively advance their interests.

- In 1914: Britain and Germany had invested huge sums of money into bulking up their militaries.

-Each of these countries swelled the ranks of their ground forces through heavy recruitments, built up their navies, and developed new weapons.

- Massive stockpiling of weapons thanks to the Industrial Revolution

• Alliance

- Secret alliances were created with other nations due to the tensions between these military powers.

- Definition: An agreement between two states for mutual self-defense.

Imperialism

- Definition: An arrangement in which one country brings another country under its political (or economic) dominion.

- 1750-1900: Huge metric loads of empire building going on around the world.

-Long-standing quest for global dominance and colonial holdings all over the world, bitter rivalries had developed between these powers.

Nationalism

- Definition: A strong identification with one’s own nation and people, often to the exclusion of other people.

-Patriotism is different from nationalism in which patriotism is only a strong identification with a nation and its people, patriotism does not exclude-- nationalism does

Rising surge of nationalism during this time was happening

These causes weren't just apparent in hindsight— they had the people of the time period worried as well

-Fedrick passy in 1895 predicted it.

-He said it would happen by some accident

-He was right cuz on June 28, 1914, the archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated.--> by the Black Hand

-He was in a car going thru a parade.

-A Serbian nationalist group planned to attack assasinate him.

-At first all five assasins either didnt have the courage to carry it out or failed to assasinate him. One of the assassins sat at a cafe drowning his sorrows about not going through with his plan when the archduke passed by him in his car on an alternative less crowded route. This is where the duke was assassinated.

This all exploded and like literally all the wars declared war on each other within like a week because of their alliances and thus began WW1

7.2: World War I

• Opposing Sides during WWI
• Allied

-Britain

-France

-Russia (1917 exit)

-Italy (1915)

-US (1917 entrance)

• Central Powers

-Austria-Hungary

-Germany

-Bulgaria

-Ottoman Empire (Turkey

• Schlieffen Plan

-German plan to invade France through Belgium once Russia was involved

-Avoid fighting on two fronts

• Trench Warfare

-Trenches: Cold, wet, dirty, unsanitary (disease), rats, lice, and trench foot

-No-Man's Lands: area between trenches where fighting took place

• New Technology

-Poison gas

-tanks

-Artillery/mines

-grenades

-airplanes

-barbed wire

Takeaway: East to west the gas would go back to their soldiers

-Machine guns

-made the war defensive

-in the Battle of the Somme, there were over 1.2 million casualties

• Russian Revolution (1917)

-Causes:

-Heavy military loses

-sharp class differences

-food and fuel shortages

-opposition to the czar

-Bolsheviks supported peace with Germany

-Vladimir Lenin hoped to incite similar revolutions

• US Entrance

-US remained neutral to protect trade; Entered in 1917

Reasons:

-German Unrestricted Submarine Warfare

-Lusitania: (May 1915) British liner sunk by Germany (100+ Americans died)

-Protect trade & ensure loan repayment

-Zimmerman Telegram (1917): Britain intercepted a note by Germany telling Mexico to attack the US

-Russian Revolution (1917)

• Allied Powers Win

-The US, Great Britain, France and other allies won

Thesis: Filled with bloodshed and loss, WWI

Although inconsistent, alliances and new technology aided the Allied powers' victory; however, there was a lot of bloodshed and loss from diseases and technology.

• Heimler Notes 7.3

Conducting World War

Allies:

-Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the U.S. (Russia and U.S. dropped out)

Central:

-Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Empire

• War Time Technology

-machine guns, chemical warfare, trench warfare

-WW1 was a total war, women worked in factories since men were out

-Propaganda to keep people motivated

-U.S. tried to stay out of war but Germany sunk any ship in their territory

-Zimmerman Telegram got the U.S. into war, Germany sent a letter to Mexico asking them to start a war with the U.S., promised Mexico they would get back American lost land

-America intercepted the telegram then joined World War 1 and helped the allies

-Battles were fought in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and in the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

-Japan entered the war on the side of the Allies because they were interested in claiming some colonial territory that belonged to the Germans in the Pacific islands.

-Africans, Indians, and Australians all found themselves fighting for Britain and West Africans and the Indochinese joined the ranks of the French.

-The Allies won and in 1918 they called for the Paris Peace Conference, at which they would draw up a treaty to end the war, and in attendance were the Big Four: the United States, Britain, France, and Italy.

-Russia dropped out to have a communist revolution

-American President Woodrow Wilson argued that no one should be overly rewarded for victory and no one should be overly punished for defeat

-And so it was, that the Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war

-The Austria-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were broken up and new states were established, such as Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

-the treaty required Germany to pay reparations for the damages done during the war, the war guilt clause placed the entire blame for the war on Germany

Hiemler Notes:

Economy in the Interwar Period

-The countries that made up the Allied Powers, while victorious in the war, lost huge amounts of their workforce and they spent tremendous amounts of money on the war effort.

-Germany, in addition to paying reparations, was in debt

-And when that happened, the value of the German mark plummeted precipitously, and that led them into a situation called hyperinflation.

-Remember, they owed money in the form of reparations to powers like France and Britain

-But when Germany couldn’t pay them, They struggled to pay their debts to the United States.

-colonial economies suffered too because they had come to depend on their parent economies.

- in 1929 the United States stock market crashed and plunged it into a Great Depression

-New Deal- borrowing money to use for public projects WWII and the New Deal helped to solve the economic problems

-many of the European nations had transitioned into a more laissez-faire type economy in which there was very little government intervention in the affairs of the economy

-defecit spending-

-in 1921 Vladimir Lenin (Russia) introduced what he called, the New Economic Plan but that ended when he died

-Just like Lenin, Stalin also got the government heavily involved in economic affairs.

-Stalin introduced a series of Five Year Plans.--> Industrialize Russia

- The Mexican Revolution was over, and one political party came to dominate Mexican politics (institutional rev. party)--> Mexico improved greatly

-fascism is an authoritarian and nationalistic system of government and social organization,

-A chief characteristic of fascist governments is the glorification of military might and the necessity of armed struggle.

-often blamed problems on minorities

- Italy was the first proper fascist government in Europe during this time, Mussolini reorganized the Italian economy in terms of something called corporatism.

-Hitler and Mussolini joined together

7.3 Armenian Genocide

• Armenian Genocide (1915)

-After the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) joined WWI, they massacred the Armenian population

-Two Main Reasons:

-to expand east and the Armenians stood in their way

-they suspected the Armenians of collaborating with Russia

-1.5+ Armenians killed

Takeaways: They would stomp on them; line them up and kill them

7.4: Unresolved Tensions After WWI

• Wilson’s Plan

-Called the “Fourteen Points,” included:

-No secret treaties

-Freedom of the Seas

-More free trade

-Reduction of militaries

-Decolonization

-A League of Nations for a “Just and Lasting Peace”

• Treaty of Versailles (1919)

-signed by the Big Four (US, France, England, and Italy) and the defeated nations

-Established 9 new nations (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia)

-broke the Ottoman Emire and Austro-Hungary

-League of Nations-intergovernmental organization created to maintain peace

• Impact on Germany

-reduction of military

-Reparations ($33b)

-War Guilt Clause: forced them to admit responsibility

• Legacy of the War

-Strengthened the US military and the government

-Russia established the first Communist state (Soviet Union)

• Rise of Fascism

-Facism- nationalistic and totalitarian ideology that glorifies the state

-1922: Mussolini rose to power

-1933: Hitler’s Nazi Party took over Germany

-1939: Franco takes control of Spain

• League of Nations “ Mandate System”

-gave allied powers control over Ottoman and German territories

-Jewish migration increased to Palestine (part of British Mandate)

• Indian

-Indian National Congress supported independence from Britain

-Mohandas Gandhi: leader of the Indian Nationalist movement

-Amritsar Massacre (1919): Britain killed hundreds of Indians

-Salt March (1930): nonviolent protest against the British

-Takeaway: the women stayed back but helped gather thewounded; went row by row

• Heimler Notes

Unresolved Tensions After WWI

-wherever imperial nations held colonies, nationalistic movements were brewing

-People who fought in WW1 would trigger a process of decolonization

-India, and East Asia, and Africa, all of these continued to be crushed under the domineering thumb of European imperial power, colonial resistance movements springing up all over

• India

- in the late 19th century Indians formed the Indian National Congress, complaints against the british colonial govt

-indian national independence from congress

-peaceful protest (Salt March) but got killed by colonial soldiers (Massacre of Amritsar)

-gandhi lead resistance acts

-homespun movement against textiles→ made their own clothes

-split into india (Hindus) and pakistan (Muslims)

• Korea

-japan dominated korean peninsula

-when the war ended, Japan courted European support for even more colonial expansion on the asian continent

- the Korean emperor died suddenly, and it was widely believed that it was Japanese infiltrators that poisoned him.

-March 1st movement

-Over two million Koreans took to the streets in protest to Japanese colonial rule, And in response, the Japanese occupying troops squashed these protests brutally

-this movement showed the potency of Korean nationalism.

• China

-may 4th movement

-China supported the Allies during World War I, and by doing so they hoped to reclaim some land that the Germans had taken but japan wanted that land too

-people took to the streets in powerful anti-Japanese demonstrations.

-large scale rejection of western democracy and a turn towards communism

Two Groups:

- Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong., inspired by russian communist rev. But with peasantry

-the Chinese Nationalist Party led by Sun Yat-sen,Sun Yat-sen wanted to see China independent and industrialized.

-after Sun Yat-sen's death, a guy named Chiang Kai-shek took over leadership, and he went and attacked Mao’s forces in 1927, which led to the Chinese Civil War.

• West Africa

-independence movements in West Africa began with Africans educated in European institutions.

- black workers in French West Africa began striking,

-In 1917 railway workers went on strike, and by 1946 workers were striking across dozens of industries,

-workers agitated for fair wages and an end of discriminatory practices, and in some cases, they won what they wanted.

7.5 Causes of WWII

• Main Causes

-Treaty of Versailes (1919)

-Rise of Totalitarianism

-Failure of the League of Nations

-Axis Pact (Tripartite Pact)

-Expansionism

-Failure of Diplomacy

• Great Depression

-Global economic downturn that began in the US

-Causes:

-Overproduction of agriculture/industry

-Stock market crash

-Banking crisis

-High unemployment

• Global Economy

-Five Year Plans: Soviet economic plan to collectivize agriculture and industrialize

-New Deal: US programs, projects, reforms, and regulations enacted by FDR

-John Maynard Keynes: economist who believes government spending stimulates the economy

• Tripartite Pact

-Pact formed by Japan, Italy, and Germany (Axis Powers)

-All three countries wanted to aggressively expand and militarize

• East Asia

-1920s: Chinese Civil War between nationalists and communists

-1931: Japan invaded Manchuria (China) to gain resources (Manchuria became Manchukuo)

-Japan left the League of Nations

-1937: Japan invaded the rest of China

• Italy

-Italy looked to Africa and the Balkans

-1935: Invaded Ethiopia

-1939: Invaded Albania

-1949: Invaded Greece and Egypt

• Germany

-Hitler rejected the Versailles Treaty and looked to expand for Lebensraum (living space)

-1938: Unified with Austria and annexed the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia)

-Appeasment: British policy to allow Hitler to expand unchecked to avoid war

-1939: Invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland

-Britain and France declared war on Germany

THESIS:

Argumentative: Although the appeasement policy seemed peaceful at the time, Great Britain and other countries later realized the major mistake and declared war.

Causes: Not even a century later, WWII erupted because of the Treaty of Versailles’s failure, which induced other underlying causes:

Heimler Notes

Causes of WWII

- treaty of versailles meant that Germany had to pay reparations for the war

- this led to the failing of their economy

- Great depression and hyperinflation

- war guilt clause: Germans had to take full responsibility for the war and the destruction caused by it

- rise of nazism

- weimar republic replaced by Nazi Party because it didn’t do much to help the economy

- 1933 Adolf Hitler appointed chancellor of the german gov

- Hitler targetted jews can discriminated against them

- Nuremberg laws: pushed jews to the margins of society

- Kristallnacht: where riots of germans destroyed jews homes and killed 90 jews

- jews sents to concentration camps

- Lebenstraum: Hitler wanted to claim more land for his ppl

- Germany allied with Japan and Italy became known as axis powers

- in march of 1935 Hitler broke the treaty of versailles and built up the military to claim more land

- he also sent troops into the Phine land in 1936

- Britian and France kept an appeasement to keep the peace and not start another world war

- Hitler kept invading land and until he reaches Poland that's when the allied powers declared war on Britian

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7.6: WWII in Europe

• Maginot Line

-series of fortifications to stop a German invasion

-Germany invaded France via Belgium

• US and WWII

-Initially stayed our the war, but expanded the navy to counter Japan

-WWI and Great Depression contributed to isolation

-1941: Lend- Lease= provided aid to Allies

• Pearl Harbor

-US placed an embargo on scrap iron, steel, and oil exports to Japan

-Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and other US ports (killed over 2,400 Americans)

-US entered war against Axis Powers

-Takeaway: attacked the ships; attacked the water; and the bombs are the colors of the flag

• Battle of Stalingrad

-1941: Germany invaded the Soviet Union

-Nazis were unprepared for winter

-Stalin used brutal tactics to win (“Order 227”)

-2mil+ Soviets died

-First major turning point

• Tehran Conference

-Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met to open a Western Front and launch D-Day

• DDay

-Largest land-sea-air invasion in history (3mil+ troops)

-German retaliation was brutal (Omaha Beach)

-Forced Germany to open two fronts

-Allies freed France

• Battle of the Bulge

-1944: The US captured their first German town

-Last-ditch German offensive to break Allied supply lines

-Nazis retreated

1. Thesis: Initially isolating and recovering from prior wars, the US entered WWII after the Bombing of Pearl Harbor and proved to be a major enemy on the Axis lines.

7.6: WWII in Asia

• War in the Pacific

-Japan conquered much of Southeast Asia

-Rape of Nanking: Japan invaded Nanking (300k+ killed)

-Takeaway: I am speechless

• Unit 731

-Japan’s biological and chemical warfare research unit

-Infected prisoner with diseases (plague, anthrax, cholera, and other pathogens)

-Horrific experiments w/o anesthesia

-After the War, the US gave Japan immunity in return for data

• Major Battles

-Battle of Midway: US victory marked as a turning point

-Iwo Jima: US victory to achieve a base to attack mainland Japan

-Okinawa: US victory (14,009 US dead) over 100k Japanese dead

• Nuclear Bomb

-countries rushed to create a nuclear weapon

-US codename: “Manhattan Project”

-To avoid invasion, the US dropped two atomic bombs (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

-Japan surrendered

-takeaway: there were no remnants and such; people thought nothing of it since it was only one plane (thought it was a dud as well)

Heimler Notes

• Conduction WWII:

Examples and Evidence of Total War

- WW2 also total war (similar to WW1)

○ Those fighting used all of their resources, both military and domestic, in order to fight

§ USA used industrialized economy to create ships, tanks, aircrafts, guns, ammunition, and aircraft carriers to use in the war

○ USA: Women went to work in the absence of men, who were fighting

○ Japan: did not send women to work

○ Propaganda used to motivate common people against the enemy

- Those under colonial rule also fighting for the side of their colonizers

Examples and evidence of ideologies used to mobilize resources:

- Japan:

○ Used imperialism to justify intense expansion, conquered Korea and China, then moved onto the Siberian portion of Soviet Russa

§ Nonaggression Pact signed by Russia and Germany said that Japan couldn't expand into Russia

○ Expanded into Southeast Asia instead

§ Most territories controlled by US and other European powers

§ Started a plot by Japanese to get US and other European powers under their imperial rule triggered by US imposed harsh economic sanctions on Japan

○ Like Germany, Japan won very rapid victories in Pacific theater

§ December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor result of Japan attempting to punish US for their economic sanctions

§ USA declared war on Japan, Germany declared war on USA

○ USA had defeated Japan in several Pacific Islands, came to a fork in the road:

§ Could do a mainland invasion, or use atomic weaponry

□ On August 6th, 1945 Truman ordered the first atomic bomb be dropped on Hiroshima

- Reduced to dust in the blink of an eye, along with most of its inhabitants

- Japanese still did not surrender until a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki

- Killed around 140,000-200,000 people in total

- Europe:

○ War had broken out in 1939, Germany used opportunity to start conquering a lot of territory

§ Chief method of doing so was Blitzkrieg

□ Method of waging war which relied on shock and awe campaigns headed by armored tanks and airstrikes

□ Dealt massive blows of damage in very little time

○ Poland fell to Germans in 1939, split it with the Russians (because of terms of the Non-Aggression pact)

§ German success in Poland led to Germans conquering Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France (and more)

○ Britian feared they would be next, ask US for help

§ US responded with Lend-Lease Act that sent huge amounts of war material to Britain

□ US no longer neutral

§ Germany did attack Britain

□ Started by attacking military targets but soon started to bomb civilian cities

□ Ultimately a failure

○ After failure of British invasion, Germany turned sights on Russia

§ June 22, 1941: Germany started an invasion on Soviet Union (violation of Non-Aggression pact)

□ Russia taken by surprise, Germany made huge advances

§ Leningrad: Germany pushed there, but Soviets successfully held off Germany for 3 years

□ Weakened by Russian winters

○ Axis started crumbling:

§ 1943: Allies defeated Italy, led to fall of Mussolini

§ Amphibious Normandy Beach Battle in 1944 led to Allies' win (with heavy losses) and beginning of the liberation of France

□ August 25, 1944: Nazis pushed out of Paris

§ After liberation of France, Allied forces turned their sights on Germany

□ Air raids destroyed German infastructure

□ By 1954, Allied soldiers crossed the Rhine into Germany and were marching towards Berlin

□ Hitler refused to surrender, spent final days of the war hiding in a bunker

- Committed suicide when defeat was inevitable

□ Germany surrendered on May 8th, 1945

Examples of repression of basic freedoms in totalitarian states:

- Holocaust:

○ Hitler imprisoned and then killed over 10 million Jews, as well as many peoples of marginalized groups (and prisoners of war) as "ethnic cleansing"

Examples of military technology and new tactics:

- Atomic weaponry

○ Developed within the Manhattan Project

§ Oppenheimer and Einstein

○ Released the energy of destabilized atoms, exploded with the force of 15 kilotons of dynamite, obliterated everything in its path

§ Used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by USA

- Blitzkrieg (used by Germany)

○ Method of waging war which relied on shock and awe campaigns headed by armored tanks and airstrikes

○ Dealt massive blows of damage in very little time

• 7.8: The Holocaust
• “Final Solution”

-Holocaust: Nazis carried out the systematic persecution and murder of “undesirables” (mostly Jews

-Jews were rounded into “ghettos” before being transferred to camps

-Mobile Killings Squads: ¼ of all Jews who died were killed by Nazi killing squads

-Takeaway: his father was hung → fifteen last time saw parents

-he got each of his teeth pulled out for gold

-he had to dig through someones stomach for a small diamond for food

• Liberation of Death Camps

-As the Allies advanced, Allied troops discovered “death camps”

-Takeaway: holding onbto the soldiers; thought they were going to work but instead sent to death

Reflection: The man took a risk and saved some Jews. People were burned alive in crematoriums.

Heimler Notes:

Mass Atrocities 1900-Present

-Various causes of mass atrocities:

Famine:

-Ukraine/Soviet Union: farmers didn’t like the collectivization of agriculture b/c the food they grew was sent 2 urban centers 2 feed ppl there

-Peasants burnt crops + killed their livestock -> famine in the Soviet Union 1932/1933 7-10 million peasants died

-Diseases: influenza pandemic killed 20-50 million ppl by 1919

-Fire-bombing: introduced during war world 2/ caused far more destruction than regular bombs (US firebombed Tokyo in WW2 70-100 thousand ppl dead)

-Genocide: the intentional slaughter of a large group of ppl who belong 2 a certain ethnicity or nationality

-Armenian Genocide: In Ottoman Empire 600,00- 1.5 mill. Armenian Christians were killed in a systematic ethnic cleansing starting in 1915 the ottoman gov, accused Armenians (ethnic minority) of colluding w/ enemy Russians & gathered them in concentration camps

`- where many died of starvation & disease or were executed

German Holocaust:

- systematic removal of Slavic ppl into concentration camps where they labored 4 the war efforts

- sent political opponents + disabled ppl + homosexuals to concentration camps

-Nuremberg laws: banned Jews from certain professions & pushed them to the margins of society

-Final Solution: the goal was 2 completely remove Jews from the European continent

-Nazis round up Jews 2 send them to death camps (Auschwitz) /6 million Jews died from death camps

• 7.9 The End of WWII
• Yalta Conference

-1945: FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met in Yalta, Soviet Union

-Purpose: to resurrect Europe after the war

• Allies Take Berlin

-1945: Soviets stormed Berlin as the US bombed from the air

-Hitler commits suicide

Takeaway: He was acting like a child who blamed everyone but himself.

• Victory

-May 8, 1945: Allies celebrated V-E- Day (Victory in Europe Day)

-August 15, 1945: Japan surrendered V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day)

• Legacy of the War

-WWII was the deadliest war in history (75mil+ deaths, over 500k US deaths)

-United Nations was formed

-the US became the most powerful nation

-Launched the “Cold War”

-Takeaway: Not well- known, the Armenian Genocide inspired Hitler to create a genocide of his own.

-Potsdam Conference-

The Big Three—Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman—met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II.