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HOME   -   WARS, BATTLES & REVOLUTIONS   -   WORLD WAR II

 
 

 

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Historians

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Tribes & Peoples

 

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Assassinations in History
Who got slain, almost slain, when, how, why, and by whom?

Go to the Assassination Archive
 


King John of England 1167-1216

 

Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible 1530 - 1584

 

Adolf Hitler 1889 - 1945


 

 

Online History Dictionary A - Z

Online History Dictionary A - Z

 

All-Time Records in History
What was the bloodiest battle, the battle with the least casualties, who was the greatest military leader?

Go to Records in History

 

Wars, Battles & Revolutions in History

 

Video Clip: World War II in Color



Faces of World War II

Adolf Hitler

Arthur Neville Chamberlain

Benito Mussolini

Charles de Gaulle

Chiang Kai She

Dwight D. Eisenhower


Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Isoroku Yamamoto

Joseph Stalin

Winston Churchill

 

World War II Timelines

World War II - 1939

World War II - 1940

World War II - 1941

World War II - 1942

World War II - 1943

World War II - 1944

World War II - 1945

World War II in the Stream of Time

Who All Watched WWII?

World War II - Europe

World War II - Asia / Pacific

 


World War II Maps

Map of WWII - Major Operations 1939-1945
MAJOR OPERATIONS OF WWII IN EUROPE
Click map to enlarge

Map of WWII: Major Operations in Asia and the Pacific
MAJOR OPERATIONS OF WWII IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Click map to enlarge


Battle of Stalingrad July 17, 1942- February 2, 1943
Click map to enlarge


World War II: Allied Gains in Europe in 1944
Click map to enlarge

Map of Operation Overlord - 1944
Map of Operation Overlord - 1944
Click map to enlarge

Map of WWII: Allied Gains in Europe - December 15, 1944-May 7, 1945
Allied Gains in Europe -
December 15, 1944-May 7, 1945

Click map to enlarge

Map of Central Europe 1945: Allied Occupation Zones
Central Europe 1945: Allied Occupation Zones
Click map to enlarge

 

Ever Wondered How to Tutor a Problem Child?

Observe and learn from
Seneca.

Suicide optional.

 

About Mata Hari

 

The Divine Almanac
Who all roamed the heavens in olden times? The Who's Who of ancient gods.

Check out the Divine Almanac

 

 

The Ancient Greeks in a Nutshell

 

 

 

 


Photo of Marine Pfc. Douglas Lightheart (right) and his 30-cal. machine gun, and his buddy Pfc. Gerald Churchby taking time out for a cigarette, while mopping up the enemy on Peleliu
WORLD WAR II
1939-1945


The Bloodiest War. Ever.

WWII set a record as both, the largest war in history and the bloodiest war in history.
 

Main Opponents of World War II

The Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) fought the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, China).


Issues behind WWII

After the unsatisfactory peace treaties of  World War I and the  Great Depression in the early 1930s, Germany, Italy, and Japan developed into totalitarian regimes eager to expand their national boundaries.

On a map, the world and Europe looked like this before World War Two:

Map of the World in 1919: Political Realignment Following the First World War
1919 World Map:
Political Realignment Following the First World War

Map of Europe in 1919: the national boundary realignments resulting from the First World War
1919 Europe:
The National Boundary Realignments Resulting From the First World War

 

What Started World War II?

After years of committing military acts of aggression, see map below, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3.

Check this event in the Timeline of WWII.


Map of Europe 1936-1939: German aggressions
1936-1939 Europe: German aggressions



What Ended World War II?

Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. This day became known as VJ-Day (Victory over Japan Day).

Check this event in the Timeline of WWII.


Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943. Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945. This day became known as VE-Day (Victory in Europe Day).

Check this event in the Timeline of WWII.


 

Iwo Jima - Mount Suribachi

One of the most famous photographs of WWII was taken on February 23, 1945. Five marines and a Navy corpsman planted the Stars and Stripes on the rocky peak of Mount Suribachi.


Check this event in the World War II Timeline


Joe Rosenthal was the guy who took the picture. He died on August 20, 2006, age 94.


This was the second flag raising and Alan Wood was the 22-year-old Navy officer who provided the flag. Or, in other words, he gave this 37-square-foot flag to the Marine who asked for it, a flag that he had found months before in a Pearl Harbor Navy depot.

Alan Wood died on April 18, 2013, age 90.


Here is a quote from the May 2, 2000, NY Times article Demystifying the Flag at Iwo Jima by Richard Bernstein:

Iwo Jima, an island that lay athwart the main air route to Japan, was defended by 22,000 dug-in Japanese soldiers whose orders were to kill 10 Americans each and then to die. On the morning of Feb. 19, 1945, it was invaded by 70,000 American marines, of whom 26,000 were to be killed or wounded as they carried out the grim task of rooting out the defenders, 21,000 of whom died by the time it was over. "Death became demystified, an occupational hazard," Mr. Bradley writes.

On the fourth day, according to Mr. Bradley's careful reconstruction of the battle, six men put up a flag on the island's highest point. They were merely replacing a smaller flag that had been raised earlier by a different group of men. Almost by accident, an Associated Press photographer, Joe Rosenthal, snapped a picture of the second flag-raising. He did not, contrary to what is commonly said about this historic moment, pose the photograph beforehand. The picture was authentic, but the sentiment that it aroused was not. In fact, the second flag was basically unnoticed by the marines on Iwo Jima, who had cheered when the first flag went up. Still, the picture -- The Photograph, as Mr. Bradley aptly calls it -- became an icon of American patriotism, and the act of raising it was surrounded by a fabricated epic of battlefield heroics.



Here is more about
Joe Rosenthal and the flag at Iwo Jima


And here is the map

Map of World War II: The Western Pacific 1945. Allied Invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (Operation Iceberg) 1945.
1945, February 19: The Battle for Iwo Jima, February 19 - March 26, 1945. Allied Invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (Operation Iceberg) 1945.


See also Stars and Stripes



Who Won and Who Lost World War II?

The Allies were the victors of World War II.

Estimates of total deaths caused by World War II vary from 40,000,000 to 60,000,000.

Germany was divided into four zones of occupation by UK, US, France, and USSR forces. The country remained divided into two nations, East and West Germany, until 1990.



Germany was divided into occupation zones
which laid the foundation for the
Cold War



 


Atomic bomb on Nagasaki

Atomic Bomb

Made possible by the  Manhattan Project, on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima. It pulverized everything in the explosion's immediate vicinity.

Four square miles were burned out completely, 75,000 people were killed, and more than 70,000 were injured.

Three days later a second atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki. It killed 40,000 people, injured the same amount, and devastated 1.8 square miles.

Check here for pictures of the first atomic bomb explosion, the Trinity Site explosion July 16, 1945.

Trinity Site, First Atomic Bomb Explosion, July 16, 1945
TRINITY SITE ATOMIC BOMB
JULY 16, 1945





The Allies in World War II

Here is a map of the allied operations in WWII in Europe.

World War II: Allied Operations in Europe and North Africa 1942-1945
Allied Operations in Europe and North Africa
1942-1945

 


The U.S. and World War II

Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941.

Check this event in the WWII Timeline.

Check Roosevelt's Day of Infamy address in the Speech Archive.


And just FYI, here is a map of all US Battle Sites

United States - Battle Sites 1689 - 1945
United States Battle Sites 1689-1945
Click Map to enlarge


Check the costs of major US wars in comparison.

Check the American war casualties report

 

The U.S.S.R. and World War II

The Soviets called WWII the Great Patriotic War.

One of the reasons Russia's troops performed badly against the invading Germans in June 1941, was Stalin's Great Purges which included the elimination of many experienced military leaders.

All in all, the Soviet Union suffered an estimated total of 18 million deaths in WWII, 7 million of which were civilians.

 

Women in World War II


Women war workers of Marinship Corp., 1942
National Archives




Battles and Events of World War II

July 10 - October 31, 1940

Battle of Britain

 

 

December 7, 1941

Pearl Harbor Attack

 

 

December 8-23, 1941

Battle of Wake Island

 

 

January 23 - 25, 1942

Battle of Balikpapan

 

 

February 18 - 19, 1942

Battle of Lombok Strait

 

 

February 27, 1942

Battle of the Java Sea

 

 

February 28 - March 1, 1942

Battle of Sunda Strait

 

 

April 9, 1942

Bataan Death March

 

 

May 4 - 8, 1942

Battle of the Coral Sea

 

 

June 3 - 6, 1942

Battle of Midway

 

 

July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943

Battle of Stalingrad

 

 

July 5 - August 23, 1943

Battle of Kursk

 

 

June 6, 1944

D-Day - Invasion of Normandy

 

 

October 23 - 26, 1944

Battle of Leyte Gulf

 

 

December 16, 1944 - January 16, 1945

Battle of the Bulge, also called Battle of the Ardennes

 

 

February 19 - March 26, 1945

Battle for Iwo Jima

 

 

April 16 - May 2, 1945

Battle for Berlin

 

 

   


Go here for the
Timelines of World War Two

 

World War II Trivia

Talk about unfinished business. Japan wants its four islands back which Russia had taken at the end of WWII. These guys still don't have a WWII peace document signed. Find more info here.

If you visited Norway lately and your fish tasted a little bit odd... this might be the reason why.

Personalize your World War Two experience. Now you can! Read all about George Craxford and his days in Montgomery's Battle of El-Alamein.

And here is John William Nessworthy's journal.

Here is more on U.S. General Douglas MacArthur.

And here is more about the British SAS (Special Air Service). Fine history pages.

 

 


 

 

WWII Impact on Humankind

Approximately six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

The war paved the way for the Cold War between the Western powers (Capitalism) and the Eastern powers ( Communism).




World War II Quotes

"Magnificent! Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor
shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so!"
George Patton
American specialist of tank warfare in World War II



"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."
Anne Frank
Holocaust victim

 

 

 

See also American Timeline

 

Maybe, see also Human Rights

 

 

 

 

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