World War II - AP World History: Modern

The Treaty of Versailles ended World War One, but it imposed a series of strict regulations on German recovery and encumbered the already-struggling German nation with an almost unpayable debt. This caused Germany to feel as if the terms were too harsh and to resent them, and contributed to the rise of Hitler and Nazism.

The various options given that were battles or attacks (Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor, and Midway) cannot possibly have occurred after the war was over, so they can be ruled out. V-E Day is the day when victory was secured for the allied forces in Europe. This came a couple of months before V-J Day—"Victory over Japan" Day. V-J Day was August 15th, 1945.

The Munich Agreement was signed by various major European powers in 1938. It allowed the Nazi government of Germany to annex territory (the Sudetenland) in Czechoslovakia. The European powers conceded this because they feared Hitler's aggressive ambitions and sought to placate him with the policy of appeasement.

In World War Two, the Allied Powers were Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Opposing them were the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Benito Mussolini was the ruler of fascist Italy; Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of imperial Britain; and Josef Stalin the leader of the communist USSR. Harry Truman became President of the United States in the waning months of the war following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Douglas MacArthur, however, was an American general who led a large number of forces in the Pacific theatre of the war.

The Atlantic Charter was an agreement signed by the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom in 1941 prior to America's entrance into the Second World War. The purpose of this charter was to establish the post-war goals of the Allied powers. Namely, it specified that neither power would seek to make territorial gains and that in the post-war era both powers would seek to promote economic prosperity, social equality, and national autonomy around the world. All of these answer choices were part of the charter except the disarmament of nuclear weapons. The atomic bomb was not invented for another few years.

Benito Mussolini and his Fascist party came to power in the 1920s and promptly suspended several freedoms in the Italian state. In 1935 Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia. The move was widely condemned by the League of Nations and helped further allign Italy with Nazi Germany against much of the rest of Europe.

Fransisco Franco was a deeply conservative general in the burgeoning Spanish Republic of the 1930s. Franco was dismayed by the movement towards leftist poilitical thinking in Spain and, along with other generals, began the Spanish Civil War to overthrow the Republic. He was succesful (backed by the Italian and German governments) and became a fascist dictator in 1939. He would remain dictator until 1975, but famously kept Spain out of World War Two.

The Battle of Britain was a prolonged campaign by the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) to bomb Britain into submission. The battle was primarily fought in the air between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force.

Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister of Britain from 1937 to 1940. He supported and encouraged other countries to sign the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland (a region of Czechoslovakia with many ethnic-German inhabitants). This policy of "appeasement"—letting Hitler have some territory in the hope that this would quell his ambitious aggression—is generally considered a massive failure considering what was to follow, but at the time, Chamberlain was celebrated as a visionary hero.

The Maginot Line was a series of defensive fortifications established by the French on their borders with Germany and Switzerland. The French experience of World War One taught them that solid and well-established defensive fortifications would be vital to protecting France in any future European conflict. The French established the Maginot Line to discourage or prevent German attacks on France.

Germany was able to overcome the French line of defense, known as the Maginot Line, by simply invading Belgium first and marching its troops into France through Belgium. The French overreliance on the Maginot Line contributed to its rapid surrender in the first few weeks of the Second World War.

In the early years of World War Two, Roosevelt and the American government maintained an official policy of neutrality. However, unoficially Roosevelt was firmly on the side of Churchill and the British. The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 was a way to provide war supplies to the British despite Britain's lack of credit. It was a precursor to direct American involvement in the conflict.

The Battle of Britain was fought in the summer and autumn of 1940, shortly after Nazi Germany occupied France. The Battle was fought in the skies above Britain and the English Channel between the German Luftwaffe (air force) and the Royal Air Force of Britain. The Germans hoped to achieve aerial supremacy over the British in preparation for a later land invasion of the island. However, they eventually resorted to trying to terror bomb the British public into submission. The Battle ended in victory, at enormous cost, for the British. But, it also filled the British public with a resolve that would prove enormously important throughout the rest of the war, as for a time Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany in Europe.

The Nuremberg Laws were established in 1935 by the German Nazi Party. The laws declared that all Jews in Germany were no longer German citizens and deprived Jews of certain human rights. It was not until the so-called "Final Solution" that the systematic execution of Jews began.

In 1939, the Germans and the Soviet Union signed a nonagression pact promising that they would not attack each other during the Second World War. The secret treaty was effective for a time but was ended by Hitler's planned invasion of Russian territory.

Erwin Rommel, usually referred to as just Rommel or the "Desert Fox," was a German military leader during the Second World War. He became famous among the Allied powers for his brilliant leadership and diplomatic decorum. He was a war hero to Nazi Germany, but he also loathed Hitler, and when his loathing became public knowledge, he was pressured to commit suicide by the German high command on pain of having his family executed and took his own life.

In 1923 Hitler was a well-known and charismatic political speaker in Germany, but he was not yet the powerful leader that popular history remembers. He attempted to organize an overthrow of the German government by the Nazi Party, but he misjudged the moment and the revloution was a spectacular failure. Hitler was tried and imprisoned, but the momentum for his cause continued to build as many millions of Germans began to sympathize with Hitler. He spent his time in prison writing Mien Kempf which clearly outlines his horrifying philosophy.

The nonagression pact signed between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 involved both powers pledging not to attack each other. It also featured a plan to divide the nation of Poland between the two powers during the Second World War.

The Siege of Stalingrad took place for six months from August of 1942 to February of 1943. It involved the forces of Nazi Germany laying siege to the Soviet city of Stalingrad. The Nazi forces inflicted heavy civilian casualties on the Soviet population, but were unable to hold the city for any length of time. The siege ended with the complete destruction of the Nazi Sixth Army and the forced retreat of Nazi forces out of Soviet territory.