Glossary
| World War II | | Also called the “Second World War”, a global armed conflict that ensnared countries on every inhabited continent. Prompted by the aggressive conquests of Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler in Europe, and a surprise attack on an American naval ship in Pearl Harbor by Japanese fighter planes, the war pitted the Allies—U.S., U.S.SR and England—against the Axis Powers—Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. From 1939 to 1945 the war resulted in 40-50 million casualties, making it the bloodiest conflict in history. Six million of these deaths were Jewish civilians ruthlessly exterminated in the Holocaust by Hitler’s Nazi regime. In 1945, American President Harry Truman ordered the atom bomb to be dropped on the Japanese islands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This would represent the only wartime deployment of nuclear weapons in history. The bombings resulted in the death of nearly 200,000 civilians and Japan’s unconditional surrender in 1945. After a long and bitter struggle, the Allies emerged victorious. |
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