WORLD WAR II

(1939-45)
 WORLD WAR II (1939-45)
■ World War II was fought between the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) and the
Allied Powers (Britain, United States, Soviet Union, France).
■ Most of the countries in the world were involved in some way. It was the deadliest war in all
of human history with around 70 million people killed.
■ Leading up to the War
■ 1933 January 30 - Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. His Nazi Party, or the
Third Reich, takes power and Hitler is essentially the dictator of Germany.
■ 1936 October 25 - Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy form the Rome-Berlin Axis treaty.
■ 1936 November 25 - Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact. This
was a pact against communism and Russia.
■ 1937 July 7 - Japan invades China.
■ 1938 March 12 - Hitler annexes the country of Austria into Germany.
 Causes of WWII
■ There were many events throughout the world that led to the beginning of World War 2.
■ In many ways, World War 2 was a direct result of the turmoil left behind by World
War 1.
■ 1. Treaty of Versailles
■ The Treaty of Versailles ended World War I between Germany and the Allied Powers.
Because Germany had lost the war, the treaty was very harsh against Germany.
Germany was forced to "accept the responsibility" of the war damages suffered by the
Allies. The treaty required that Germany pay a huge sum of money called reparations.
The problem with the treaty is that it left the German economy in ruins. People were
starving and the government was in chaos.
■ 2.Japanese Expansion
■ In the period before World War II, Japan was growing rapidly. However, as an island nation
they did not have the land or the natural resources to sustain their growth. Japan began to
look to grow their empire in order to gain new resources.
■ They invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937.
 Causes of WWII
■ 3. Fascism
■ With the economic turmoil left behind by World War 1, some countries were taken over by
dictators who formed powerful fascist governments. These dictators wanted to expand
their empires and were looking for new lands to conquer. The first fascist government was
Italy which was ruled by the dictator Mussolini. Italy invaded and took over Ethiopia in 1935.
■ Adolf Hitler would later emulate Mussolini in his takeover of Germany. Another Fascist
government was Spain ruled by the dictator Franco.
■ 4.Hitler and the Nazi Party
■ In Germany, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power. The Germans were desperate for
someone to turn around their economy and restore their national pride. Hitler offered
them hope. In 1934, Hitler was proclaimed the "Fuhrer" (leader) and became dictator of
Germany. Hitler resented the restrictions put on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles.
■ While talking about peace, Hitler began to rearm Germany. He allied Germany with Mussolini
and Italy. Then Hitler looked to restore Germany to power by expanding his empire. He first
took over Austria in 1938. When the League of Nations did nothing to stop him, Hitler became
bolder and took over Czechoslovakia in 1939.
 Causes of WWII
■ 5. Appeasement
■ After World War 1, the nations of Europe were weary and did not want another war.
When countries such as Italy and Germany became aggressive and began to take
over their neighbors and build up their armies, countries such as Britain and France
hoped to keep peace through "appeasement."
■ This meant that they tried to make Germany and Hitler happy rather than try to stop him.
They hoped that by meeting his demands he would be satisfied and there wouldn't be any
war. Unfortunately, the policy of appeasement backfired. It only made Hitler bolder. It
also gave him time to build up his army.
■ 6. Great Depression
■ The period before World War II was a time of great economic suffering throughout the
world called the Great Depression. Many people were out of work and struggling to
survive. This created unstable governments and worldwide turmoil that helped lead
to World War II.
 WORLD WAR II (1939-45)
■ World War II
■ 1939 September 1 - Germany invades Poland. World War II begins.
■ 1939 September 3 - France and Great Britain reluctantly declare war on Germany.
■ 1940 May 10 to June 22 - Germany uses quick strikes called blitzkrieg, meaning lightning
war, to take over much of western Europe including the Netherlands, Belgium, and
northern France.
■ 1940 May 30 – Winston Churchill becomes leader of the British government.
■ 1940 June 10 - Italy enters the war as a member of the Axis powers.
■ 1940 July 10 - Germany launches an air attack on Great Britain. These attacks last until
the end of October and are known as the Battle of Britain.
■ 1940 September 22 - Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact creating the Axis
Alliance.
■ 1941 December 7 - The Japanese attack the US Navy in Pearl Harbor. The next day
the US enters World War II on the side of the Allies.
 WORLD WAR II (1939-45)
■ 1942 June 4 - The US Navy defeats the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway.
■ 1942- Battle of Stalingrad-The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the largest and deadliest battles in World
War II. It was a turning point in the war. After losing the battle, the German army lost so many soldiers
and took such a defeat that they never quite recovered.
■ After months of fighting and finally nearly starving to death, the Germans surrendered on February 2,
1943.
■ 1943 September 3 - Italy surrenders to the Allies, however Germany helps Mussolini to escape and set
up a government in Northern Italy.
■ 1944 June 6 - D-day and the Normandy invasion. Allied forces invade France and push back the
Germans.
■ 1944 August 25 - Paris is liberated from German control.
■ 1945 April 12 - US President Franklin Roosevelt dies. He is succeeded by President Harry Truman.
■ 1945 April 30 - Adolf Hitler commits suicide as he knows Germany has lost the war.
■ 1945 May 7 - Germany surrenders to the Allies.
■ 1945 August 6 - The United States drops the Atomic Bomb (LITTLE BOY) on Hiroshima , Japan. The city
is devastated.
■ 1945 August 9 - Another atomic bomb (FAT MAN) is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
■ 1945 September 2 - Japan surrenders to US General Douglass MacArthur and the Allies.
 US IN TO THE WAR
■ 1941 December 7 - The Japanese attack the US Navy in Pearl Harbor. The next day
the US enters World War II on the side of the Allies.

■ IMPACTS
 AFTER WWII:
■ United Nations
■ The Allies formed the United Nations in order to try and prevent World War III from
happening. The United Nations was formed on October 24, 1945. There were 51 original
member nations including 5 permanent Security Council members: China, France, the
Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
■ The Cold War Begins
■ Europe became divided into the Eastern Bloc of nations and the West. The Eastern Bloc
was led and controlled by the Soviet Union (Russia). These countries were run by
communist governments and had their own alliance called the Warsaw Pact.
■ The Western countries, including the United States, formed an alliance against
communism called NATO. These two alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, would take
part in an arms race war called the Cold War. The Cold War never escalated into full war
due to the fear of what would happen to the world if many countries started dropping
atomic bombs. The Cold War would last for the next 45 years.
 COLD WAR
■ The Cold War was a long period of tension between the democracies of the Western World and the
communist countries of Eastern Europe.
■ The west was led by the United States and Eastern Europe was led by the Soviet Union.
■ These two countries became known as superpowers.
■ Although the two superpowers never officially declared war on each other, they fought indirectly in
proxy wars, the arms race, and the space race.
 COLD WAR
■ Blockading Berlin (1948)
 COLD WAR
■ The Cold War was a long period of tension between the democracies of the Western World and the
communist countries of Eastern Europe.
■ The west was led by the United States and Eastern Europe was led by the Soviet Union.
■ These two countries became known as superpowers.
■ Although the two superpowers never officially declared war on each other, they fought indirectly in
proxy wars, the arms race, and the space race.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Civil rights are basic rights that every citizen has under the laws of the government.
■ In the United States the civil rights of each individual citizen are protected by the
Constitution. Civil rights for every person means that regardless of gender, skin color,
religion, nationality, age, disability, or religion, a person should not be discriminated
against. Civil rights include the right to free speech, privacy, religion, assembly, a fair trial,
and freedom of thought.
■ Throughout history there have been different civil rights movements. Each movement
fought for the rights of a given section of the population that was being discriminated
against.
■ The African-American Civil Rights Movement was an ongoing fight for racial
equality that took place for over 100 years after the Civil War.
■ When most people talk about the "Civil Rights Movement" they are talking about the
protests in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ The Civil Rights Movement has its background in the abolitionist movement before the
Civil War.
■ Abolitionists were people that thought slavery was morally wrong and wanted it to come to
an end. Before the Civil War, many of the northern states had outlawed slavery. During the
Civil War, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. After the
war, slavery was made illegal with the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
■ KU KLAX KLAN.
■ Segregation and the Jim Crow Laws
■ After the Civil War, many southern states continued to treat African-Americans as
second class citizens. They implemented laws that kept black people separate from
white people. These laws became known as Jim Crow laws.
■ They required separate schools, restaurants, restrooms, and transportation based on the
color of a person's skin. Other laws prevented many black people from voting.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Jim Crow laws were designed to keep black and white people apart.
■ Alabama - All passenger stations shall have separate waiting rooms and separate ticket
windows for the white and colored races.
■ Florida - The schools for white children and the schools for black children shall be conducted
separately.
■ Georgia - The officer in charge shall not bury any colored persons upon the ground set apart
for the burial of white persons.
■ Mississippi - Prison wardens shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments
for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts.
■ There were also laws that tried to prevent black people from voting. These included poll
taxes (a fee people had to pay to vote) and reading tests that people had to pass before
they could vote.
■ These laws were further validated by Supreme Court in Plessy v/s Ferguson Case in 1896.
■ WWI.
■ WWII changed the course.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Brown v. Board of Education
■ In order to fight against segregation in schools, a lawsuit called Brown v. Board of
Education was brought to the Supreme Court in 1954.
■ The case was won and the Supreme Court said that segregation in schools was
unconstitutional.
■ Despite the new ruling of the Supreme Court, some schools in the South did not allow
black children.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Montgomery Bus Boycott
■ The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the major events in the Civil Rights Movement in the
United States.
■ It signaled that a peaceful protest could result in the changing of laws to protect the equal rights of
all people regardless of race.
■ Before 1955, segregation between the races was common in the south. This meant that public areas
such as schools, rest rooms, water fountains, and restaurants had separate areas for black people
and white people.
■ This was also true of public transportation such as buses and trains. There were areas where black
people could sit and other areas where white people could sit.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks was taking the bus home from work in Montgomery,
Alabama.
■ She was already sitting down and was in the row closest to the front for black people.
When the bus began to fill up, the driver told the people in Rosa's row to move back in
order to make room for a white passenger. Rosa was tired of being treated like a second
class person.
■ She refused to move. Rosa was then arrested and fined $10.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ It was Rosa's arrest that sparked a protest against segregation.
■ Civil rights leaders and ministers got together to organize a day to boycott the buses.
■ That meant that for one day black people would not ride the buses.
■ They picked December 5th. They handed out pamphlets so people would know what to do
and on December 5th around 90% of black people in Montgomery did not ride the buses.
■ Martin Luther King, Jr.
■ The boycott was planned at a meeting in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church.
■ They formed a group called the Montgomery Improvement Association with Martin Luther
King, Jr. as the leader.
■ After the first day of the boycott, the group voted to continue the boycott. King made a
speech about the boycott where he said "If we are wrong, the Supreme Court is wrong, …
the Constitution is wrong, ....God Almighty is wrong.“
■ The boycott lasted for over a year. It finally ended on December 20, 1956 after 381
days.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ The Montgomery Bus Boycott brought the subject of racial segregation to the forefront of
American politics.
■ A lawsuit was filed against the racial segregation laws. On June 4, 1956 the laws were
determined unconstitutional.
■ The boycott had worked in that black people were now allowed to sit wherever they wanted to on
the bus. In addition, the boycott had created a new leader for the civil rights movement in
Martin Luther King, Jr.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Little Rock Nine
■ One of the high schools that blacks were not allowed to attend was Central High School in
Little Rock, Arkansas.
■ The local leader of the NAACP was a lady named Daisy Bates. Daisy recruited nine African-
American high school students to enroll at Central High.
■ These students became known as the Little Rock Nine.
■ When the Little Rock Nine went to attend the first day of school on September 4, 1957 they
were probably scared and worried. It's bad enough to go to a first day at a new school, but
this was much worse.
■ When the students arrived there were people yelling at them. They told them to go away and
that they didn't want them there.
■ In addition to the other students, there were National Guard soldiers blocking their way into
the school. The governor of Arkansas had deployed the soldiers to prevent the
students from going to school and in defiance of the Supreme Court. The students were
scared and they returned home.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Little Rock Nine
■ After the Arkansas governor got involved in stopping the Little Rock Nine from attending
school, President Dwight Eisenhower took action.
■ He sent the U.S. Army to Little Rock to protect the students. A few weeks later, the
students attended school surrounded by army soldiers.

■ Other protests
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
■ Civil Rights Act of 1964
■ In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. This act
outlawed segregation and the Jim Crow laws of the south. It also outlawed discrimination
based on race, national background, and gender. Although there were still many issues,
this law gave the NAACP and other organizations a strong base on which to fight
discrimination in the courts.
■ Voting Rights Act of 1965
■ In 1965, another law was passed called the Voting Rights Act. This law said that citizens
could not be denied the right to vote based on their race. It outlawed literacy tests (a
requirement that people be able to read) and poll taxes (a fee that people had to pay to
vote).

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BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
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