World War II in Depth Flashcards
Grade 9 · Social Studies · Flashcards
Key terms, events, people, and concepts from the Second World War for Grade 9 review.
Flashcards
- Causes of WWII
- Treaty of Versailles grievances, global economic depression, rise of fascism and Nazism, failure of appeasement, and the weakness of the League of Nations.
- Adolf Hitler
- Leader of Nazi Germany (Führer) from 1933–1945; his aggressive expansionism and ideology of racial superiority were central causes of World War II and the Holocaust.
- Axis Powers
- Germany, Italy, and Japan — the three major nations that opposed the Allied powers in World War II, bound by the Tripartite Pact of 1940.
- Operation Overlord
- The codename for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Western Europe, beginning with D-Day landings in Normandy, France on June 6, 1944.
- Holocaust
- Nazi Germany's state-sponsored, systematic murder of six million Jews and millions of others (Roma, disabled, political prisoners) using ghettos, death squads, and extermination camps.
- Island Hopping
- The U.S. Pacific strategy of capturing strategically important islands while bypassing heavily fortified ones, gradually advancing toward the Japanese home islands.
- Atomic Bomb
- Nuclear weapon developed by the Manhattan Project; dropped on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945), leading to Japan's surrender.
- Battle of Britain
- The 1940 air campaign in which the German Luftwaffe attempted to destroy Britain's Royal Air Force and force a British surrender; Germany's first major defeat.
- Stalingrad
- City in the Soviet Union (now Volgograd) where a 1942–43 battle ended with Soviet forces encircling and capturing an entire German army — a decisive turning point.
- United Nations
- International organization founded in 1945 to replace the failed League of Nations, promote peace, and prevent future world wars through collective security and diplomacy.
- V-J Day
- September 2, 1945 — Victory over Japan Day; Japan formally signed the surrender documents aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II.
- Marshall Plan
- U.S. economic assistance program (1948) that provided over $13 billion to rebuild war-devastated Western European economies and resist the spread of communism.
- Resistance Movements
- Underground groups in Nazi-occupied countries that engaged in sabotage, intelligence gathering, and helping Allied soldiers and persecuted people escape.
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