United States History Study List

WORLD WAR II

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  1. Axis - It is one of the sides in World War II. This side had the dictatorships of Nazi Germany, Japan, and Italy.
  2. Allies – It is one of side in World War II. This side had the democracies of Great Britain, United States and Australia, plus the communist dictatorship of the USSR.
  3. Lend-Lease Act – It was one of Roosevelt’ 1940 measures barely short of getting the U.S. into World War II. With Great Britain almost bankrupt, he convinced Congress to pass a law allowing it (and soon after the Soviets) to obtain military equipment and supplies on almost giveaway terms. These supplies helped them stave off defeat.
  4. Battle of the Atlantic - It was the contest in the ocean between Britain (with U.S. help) and the Nazis. The German wolfpacks preying on merchant ships tried to close the supply lines from the New World to Britain.
  5. “Scorched Earth” – It was the Russian policy of destroying everything - even their first great hydroelectric structure, the Dnieper dam, - that could be of use to the advancing Germans.
  6. “Wolf Packs” - They were groups of 15 to 20 submarines that Hitler used to try and close the supply lines from the New World to Britain.
  7. “Pocket Battleships” - They were warships the size of cruisers, but with the firepower of battleships.
  8. Atlantic Charter - It was a general statement of war aims that came out of the Roosevelt/Churchill meeting on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland in 1941. It also contained six principles for a post war world that later became the basis for the United Nations.
  9. Russian Invasion - It was Hitler’s biggest mistake in World War II. Leaving Britain undefeated he attacked the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in June 1941 under the code name Operation Barbarossa. For months the German army won success after success along their 1000-mile front as the Soviets lost whole armies and retreated. But the USSR was a large country and by December just 25 miles short of Moscow the drive stalled. The terrible Russian winter and Siberian troops then inflicted great losses on the Nazi army.
  10. Pearl Harbor - It is “a date which will live in infamy.” It is Sunday December 7, 1941 when Japan successfully attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at anchor at Pearl Harbor. The fleet was mostly destroyed. The U.S., the next day declared war on Japan and entered World War II.

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  1. Liberty Ships - They were mass produced cargo ships that could be turned out of the shipyards in a record 56 days.
  2. Selective Service System - It was the draft. In World War II 16.5 million men were added to the armed forces in this way.
  3. Women’s Army Corps (WACS) - They are women who volunteered for the armed forces during World War II. Most of the 216,000 enlisted in the Army and served in non-combat units as accountants, bakers, bookkeepers, clerk-typists, drivers and radio operators. Women also joined the Army Air Corp and Navy to serve in non-combat roles.
  4. Black Americans in World War II - They were about one million Americans of African descent serving in the Armed Forces mostly in non-combat service jobs, such as cooks, messengers, mess halt attendants, etc. A few saw combat such as those in the Merchant Marine and the all colored 761st Tank Battalion.
  5. Nisei - They are Americans of Japanese ancestry. During World War II these Americans were rounded up and sent to interment camps in the western states. They lost their homes, businesses, and other property because of the doubt about their loyalty. 17,000 joined the military and fought with valor in Europe and put shame to the rest of Americans for their prejudice.
  6. “Rosie the Riveter” - She was 2 million women who replaced men In the nation’s war manufacturing plants. She received 60% less pay than a man and had little job security. She knew she would be laid off as soon as the war was over and the servicemen returned to claim their old jobs.
  7. Increased WWII Government Economic Involvement - It was the organization by the government of allocation of raw material for war time production; drives for collection of scrap iron, tin cans and fats; rationing of gasoline; supervision of government buying and contracts; tax rate changes and price controls to limit inflation; bond sales; etc.
  8. OPA - It was the Office of Price Administration. It had the power to fix rents and set maximum prices on goods. It set up the rationing system.
  9. Ration Stamps - They were the coupons given to Americans during World War II to help the government control the supply and demand for items needed by the armed forces. To buy staples such as meat, shoes, butter, sugar, coffee etc. these coupons must be presented to the store at tine of purchase. Inflation was kept below 30% for the war years.
  10. “Black Market” - It was the term for cheating when people managed to shop and buy rationed goods for higher prices than was set by the OPA. Individuals and regular stores which accepted ration stamps sometimes would cheat on the side, when opportunity or greed arose.
  11. World War II Technology Advances - It was the application of science to war. It was the use of radar by the RAF in the Battle of Britain; use of antibiotics such as penicillin; use of insecticide DDT, invention of the jet engine airplane by the Germans and use of rockets in war, etc. The biggest achievement was the creation of the atomic bomb.
  12. Manhattan Project - It was the secret U.S. government project to develop the atomic bomb. The project’s success was reported to President Truman at Potsdam in July 1945. The first and second atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in August 1945.

Video United States History 19: World War II

  1. “Arsenal of Democracy” - It was the United States industrial production of war material to supply our allies and ourselves.
  2. Navajo Code Talkers - They were Native American’s from a certain Western U.S. tribe that operated as scouts and message senders with the troops in the Pacific. They made a simple code from their native language that the Japanese were never able to break.

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  1. Partisans - They were the members of the underground resistance movement in Nazi-held countries. They hid Allied airmen who were shot down, derailed trains, sabotaged factories, smuggled Jews to safety, and did other things to help defeat the Nazis. Italian ones in 1945 captured Mussolini.
  2. AfrikaKorps- They were Rommel’s Nazi troops attempting to defeat the British in North Africa and take the Suez Canal. They were defeated at El Alamein in Egypt and eventually their remnants surrendered to the Allies in 1943.
  3. Amphibious - It is the coordinated land and sea invasion forces used in military operations. Examples include their use in the invasion of North Africa by the Allies in November 1942, their use in the invasion of Italy in 1943 and their use in the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
  4. Polar Bear Route - It was the sea route to Murmansk from Iceland around the North Cape of Norway, above the Artic Circle to Russia. It was a dangerous route as the amount of ships sunk and sailors killed proved.
  5. Europe First - It was the most far-reaching decision reached early in the war. Despite the U.S. entering the war because of the Japanese, it was decided that the priority was to give more effort to defeat Hitler. The all out effort against the Japanese had to wait, in our two front war.
  6. Battle of Stalingrad- It was one of the turning point battles of World War II. It was a city battle in the USSR. Here the Nazis in the fall and winter of 1942 fought a nasty building-by-building battle for the city named after the Soviet leader. In February 1943 when they almost had control of the city they were surrounded and cut off from German lines in a surprise attack by two Soviet armies. In the end the starved Nazis surrendered.
  7. Erwin Rommel - He was a German tank Corp commander who became a Nazi hero during the invasion of France. In North Africa, he commanded the Afrika Corp against the British in a back and forth warfare across the vast desert expanses. When he lost the Battle of El Alamein, his threat to the Suez Canal was ended. His final retreat across North Africa was masterful. Once back in Europe, he was placed in charge of building the coastal defense in France against the coming Allied invasion.
  8. Battle of El Alamein - It was the decisive battle of World War II in North Africa. It was really two battles with the first being a draw and the second a clear defeat for the German commander. The British, under Montgomery won this desert battle using American Sherman tanks and thereafter pushed the Germans back from endangering the Suez Canal and across North Africa. Some German’s escaped Africa and others were captured.
  9. Italian Invasion - It was the attack by the Allies on the soft underbelly of Europe. It opened a second front against the Axis powers in 1943, but despite the surrender of the Italians it proved to be a long bloody grind up the peninsula against stiff German defenses.
  10. Flying Fortress - It was the four-engine heavy bomber airplane relied on for much of World War II. The B-17 could carry four tons of bombs and had a range of 1,100 miles. During 1943, it was used for the unprotected deep penetration raids into Germany and could take a pounding and keep on flying.
  11. General Dwight Eisenhower - He was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II. This American general headed up the planning of Operation Overlord and made the critical and successful D-Day decisions. He is credited with the winning of the war in Western Europe after the successful campaigns in 1944 and 1945.
  12. D-Day - It was ‘The Longest Day. It was June 6, 1944 when Operation Overlord was put into action with the invasion of Normandy, France to open the Western Front against Nazi held Europe. It was the largest combined sea and land military operation in history. Despite enormous German defenses the Allies were successful and held six beaches by the end of the day.
  13. Battle of the Bulge - It was Hitler’s desperate gamble conceived to defeat the Allies on the Western Front and force them out of Europe. The German attack in foggy mid-December 1944 caught the Allies by surprise and broke through the American lines in a huge offensive. The Germans created a huge dent in the front 60 miles deep and 50 miles wide, but were unable to reach the vital port of Antwerp, Belgium. The American counterattack and air superiority, after the weather cleared, forced the Germans back to their earlier lines by January 21, 1945. It was our greatest and battle.
  14. Russian Offensive - It was the success on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union especially from 1942-1945 of stopping the Nazi’s and forcing them from Soviet soil. As the Nazi’s were slowly pushed back, the Red Army liberated Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc. The Soviets eventually invaded Germany from the east and took Berlin itself.
  15. German Surrender - It was the end of the war in Europe when General Jodl signed the Nazi surrender on May 7, 1945. With Hitler dead, the Nazi’s fleeing, the continent destroyed, Germany’s second attempt to dominate Europe and Western Asia had failed.

Holocaust

  1. Holocaust - It was referred to as “the final solution of the Jewish question.” It was the systematic killing of Jews (about 6 million) and other ethnic groups (almost 6 million) by the Nazis. This planned slaughter became very efficient in the death camps as World War II went on.
  2. Concentration Camps - They were prisons in which “enemies of the German nation” were taken to, beginning in 1933. Before the end of World War II, more than one hundred such camps had been set up.
  3. Dachau - It was the first Nazi concentration camp. It was neat Munich, Germany. As elsewhere, Jews were not the only victims. At this camp 2,771 Catholic priests were killed.
  4. Final Solution - It is the Nazi term for their plan to murder every Jew in Europe.
  5. Labor Camps - They were Nazi concentration camps in which the prisoners were used as slave laborers.
  6. Death Camps - They were camps built to kill Jews and other “enemies of the German nation.” There were six of then: Auschwitz, Belzec, Cheimno, Maidanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
  7. Deportation - It is the forced relocation of Jews from their homes to other places, usually ghettos or Nazi camps.
  8. Genocide - It is the systematic killing of a nation or race of people.
  9. Righteous of the Nations - It is the term used for people who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi persecution.
  10. Auschwitz-Birkenau - It was a Nazi concentration camp. It was a double camp combining slave-labor industries with a death camp. At east two million people were murdered here and it held the record of 6000 in one day. It was one of the first camps to install a crematorium due to the large numbers of dead. It was located in southern Po1and near the German and Czechoslovakian border.
  11. Selection - It is the process of deciding which prisoners in Nazi camps would be sent to their deaths immediately and which would be spared.
  12. Gas Chambers - They were sealed rooms in the death camps. Jewish prisoners were crowded into these rooms and poison gas was released, killing the prisoners.
  13. Zyklon B - It was the gas used to kill Jews in the death camps.
  14. Crematorium - It is the oven in which death-camp victim’s bodies were burned.
  15. Death Marches - It was the removal of prisoners from Polish concentration camps and their transfer to ones in Germany. The Nazi SS made prisoners move toward the end of the war as the Soviet army closed in.
  16. Total War - War was once mostly confined to fights between soldiers. That changed in the second half of the 1800s. This phrase describes how war came to be fought in the 20th Century. General Sherman of Civil War fame started it during the Civil War. By the time of World War II, civilians were being killed in greater numbers than soldiers.
  17. Costs of World War II - It was the damage to the world done by World War II. It was 55 million deaths worldwide — 45.5% military and 54.5% civilian. The U.S. lost 400 thousand, Soviet Union 9 million, Germany 2 million and Japan 1.5 million. The estimated worldwide cost of the war was over one trillion dollars.

World History Quiz Study List

WORLD WAR II

Western Man… Fascism/Rise of Hitler Part I and pages 628-632

  1. Fascism - It is the belief that the state in more important then the people and that a nation should have a strong central government headed by a dictator with absolute power. Individuals have no rights and all opposition to the dictator is suppressed by force. Examples of countries with this belief are Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini.
  2. Benito Mussolini - He was the leader of the Fascist party who became Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and then dictator. Il Duce conquered Ethiopia in Africa, intervened in the Spanish Civil War, signed an alliance pact with Germany and Japan, and helped arrange the Munich Pact. His military failures in early World War II, especially in conquering North Africa set the stage for the Allied invasion of Italy and his being forced from office. He fled to Nazi protection. He was killed after being recognized, while fleeing the victorious Allies, in April 1945.
  3. Italy Attacked Ethiopia - It was the military aggression, which killed off the League of Nations. In October 1935 Mussolini attacked Ethiopia and by May 1936 conquered it. The disagreement among the Democratic powers about applying sanctions and helping of Italy’s war machine by France and Britain made clear the League of Nations was useless as a means of preventing war.
  4. Treaty of Versailles - It was the peace treaty ending World War I, which punished Germany for starting the war. It disarmed Germany, stripped her of her overseas colonies, reduced the size of the nation itself and levied $33 billion for war damages.
  5. Weimar Republic - It is the elected government of Germany during the 1920s. The Kaiser fled at the end of World War I ending the First Reich (empire). Hitler’s taking of power in 1933 ended this government.
  6. Adolf Hitler - He was a poor Austrian failed artist who became a Corporal in the German Army. After World War I he learned politics in Munich, Germany and tried a putsch in the early 1920s. After he got out of jail, with help of friends, he built up Nazi strength.
  7. Aryan - They were Hitler’s supposed master race. They were the blond haired blue-eyed Nordic people who were descended from the ancient Indo-European speakers who migrated into Europe during prehistoric times.
  8. Putsch - It is a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government.
  9. Mein Kampf- It is Adolf Hitler’s book meaning in English “My Struggle”. Hitler wrote about his goals for Germany including his plan to conquer Europe, that the German people were the “Superior Race,” and that Jews were the blame for all of Germany’s problems and ought to be killed.

Part II