During the war some 16,112,566 Americans served in the United States Armed Forces, with 405,399 killed and 671,278 wounded. Introduction The military history of the United States in World War II covers the war against the Axis Powers, starting with the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. During the first two years of World War II, the United States had maintained[…]
During the interwar period, deep German anger arose in the Weimar Republic on the conditions of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Introduction The causes of World War II, a global war from 1939 to 1945 that was the deadliest conflict in human history, have been given considerable attention by historians from many countries who studied and understood[…]
Throughout the wartime years, the need for workers in agriculture, as well as in manufacturing and the military, was unprecedented. By Dr. Judy Barrett LitoffProfessor of HistoryBryant University By Dr. David C. SmithBird and Bird Professor Emeritus of American HistoryThe University of Maine We’re working for Victory, too; growing food for ourselves and our countrymen.[…]
Examining Europe’s rise out of the ashes of the ruined continent to lasting stability, peace, and prosperity. This lecture seeks to explain why the Second World War, the most destructive conflict in history, produced such a contrasting outcome to the First. It suggests that the Second World War’s maelstrom of destruction replaced a catastrophic matrix[…]
The Second World War was one of the most cataclysmic events humanity has ever experienced, wreaking havoc and destruction across the world. So far reaching across the globe were the effects of the war that it comes as no surprise that many history courses will dedicate a large amount of the curriculum to understanding the[…]
Prohibited from attending the white GIs, the women felt betrayed by the country they fought to serve. On the summer afternoon in 1944 that 23-year-old Elinor Powell walked into the Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Phoenix, it never occurred to her that she would be refused service. She was, after all, an officer in the[…]
More than seven decades later, millions of books, documentaries, and films about the 2nd World War and one would think that everything has been said. However, if you dig a little bit beneath the rubble, you will come across very interesting facts about the war that are not taught in class. Expert offering history homework[…]
Examining how the popular media documented the people and activities of the homefront and the battlefront. Originally published by Newberry Digital Collections for the Classroom, 08.29.2017, Newberry Library, republished with permission for educational, non-commercial purposes. Introduction The second global war of the twentieth century, World War II (1939-1945) began when Adolph Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland[…]
Rationed foods were categorized as either needing red or blue points. Introduction The events on December 7, 1941 catapulted the United States into World War II. The country’s entrance into the war meant many changes on the home front. Chief among these alterations was the introduction of food rationing in 1942. On January 30th of[…]
Born in Seattle in 1920, Harry Fukuhara was fully bicultural, bilingual, and binational. When I first met Harry Fukuhara, in 1994, he was orchestrating a Tokyo press conference for Japanese Foreign Ministry officials, former Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, and veterans of the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The groups were there to commemorate the[…]
The best way to honor D-Day veteran’s sacrifice is to work for that elusive, but achievable eternal world peace. My father Vincent was wounded clearing the mines on Omaha Beach following the D-Day invasion 75 years ago. At the hospital next to him was one of the D-Day paratroopers who got dropped into France to fight the Nazi Germans. When[…]
While D-Day was extraordinarily significant, it was neither the decisive battle of the Second World War nor did it turn the tide. By Kevin Kennedy Last Friday (May 31, 2019), the NPR radio program “On Point” conducted a special live broadcast from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans entitled “75th Anniversary Of D-Day: Preserving[…]
Amid the anniversary of the D-Day invasion, it is important to note, too, the anniversary of an event that unfolded just two days earlier: the Allied liberation of Rome. By Gregory Sumner Amid the justifiable hoopla this week surrounding the launch of the D-Day invasion, it is important to note, too, the anniversary of an event[…]
How engineers helped the Allies defeat Nazi Germany and win World War II. Introduction When Allied troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, France on June 6, 1944 – a bold invasion of Nazi-held territory that helped tip the balance of World War II – they were using a remarkable and entirely untested technology: artificial ports. To stage[…]
Operation Overlord, better known as D-Day, was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Launched on June 6, 1944, it targeted roughly fifty miles of coastline in Normandy, France. D-Day’s success guaranteed the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Road to D-Day D-Day took more than two years to plan. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British[…]
It was the first stage in the liberation of western Europe and a major step towards the defeat of Nazi Germany. Operation Overlord Overview “Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies on the northern coast of France.” – First Overlord communiqué, 6 June 1944.[…]
Their experiences and memories—in oral histories, interviews, as well as in fiction and film—challenge the narrative of a glorious nation in unison. Even 70 years after it ended, World War II continues to endure in the global imagination. In the United States, images of the “Good War” prevail, and memories of the soldiers have been[…]
Artists suddenly became soldiers on the front to win the hearts and minds of the American public. Introduction In 1917, James Montgomery Flagg created his iconic Uncle Sam poster encouraging American men to join the war cause with the clear message, “I want you for the U.S. Army!” as the U.S. ramped up preparations to enter[…]
Bombing bridges and railway lines over which both deported Jews and German troops were transported could have qualified as necessary for military purposes. By Dr. Rafael MedovFounder and DirectorThe David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies Seventy-five years ago this week—on March 19, 1944—German troops marched into Hungary. The country’s 800,000 Jews, the last major[…]
The appeasement policy pursued by Britain and France was founded on the premise that Germany was maltreated by the victors of World War I. A turning point in the history of international relations refers to an event that alters significantly the present process in international relations, which entails a long-lasting, considerable effect in it. A turning[…]
From the summer of 1944 till the end of the war in Europe, the US fielded a unique ‘Ghost Army’. By Jeremy Bender From the summer of 1944 till the end of the war in Europe, the US fielded a unique ‘Ghost Army’ throughout France and the Rhine Valley in order to deceive the Third[…]
After the attack by the Japanese Empire on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, American attitudes towards people of Japanese ancestry indicated a strong sense of racism. Introduction Propaganda for Japanese-American internment is a form of propaganda created between 1941 and 1944 within the United States that focused on the relocation of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast to internment[…]