Post on 20-Jan-2016
World War Two
The Neutrality Acts and A New European Alliance
World War Two
• After WWI, many Americans supported isolationism, or the belief that the United States should avoid international commitments that might drag the nation into another war.
• In fact several books emerged, arguing that arms manufacturers had tricked the United States into entering WWI.
• This fueled even stronger support for isolationism.
• In response Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1935, which made it illegal for Americans to sell arms to any country at war.
• Ironically, in 1936 Germany, Italy, and Japan agreed to cooperate on several international issues.
• The three nations became known as the Axis Powers.
• Germany also assisted the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, providing them with new tanks and mechanized armor.
• The United States passed the Neutrality Act of 1937, which continued to ban the sale of arms.
• It also required that countries at war had to send their own ships to pick up nonmilitary supplies in the United States, and that they pay cash.
• This was done in order to avoid a situation that had helped bring the U.S. into World War I.
The Lend Lease Act
World War Two
• Although the United States was officially committed to a policy of neutrality, President Roosevelt soon found a way around the Neutrality Acts to provide aid, including warships, to Great Britain.
• In 1941, Roosevelt convinced Congress tom pass the Lend Lease Act, which allowed the U.S. to sell or lend war materials to “any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”
• Roosevelt intended to keep the United States out of war, but he said that the nation would become the “arsenal of democracy,” supplying arms to those who were fighting for freedom.
World War II in Review
World War Two
• World War II began in 1939, when German forces invaded Poland.
• In Germany and Italy, totalitarian governments were established based on the philosophy of fascism.
• Fascism places the importance of the nation above all else, as individual rights and freedoms are lost.
• World War II was fought primarily in two major regions: Europe and North Africa, and in the Pacific.
Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor
World War Two
• The United States did not enter World War II until 1941.
• President Roosevelt had promised that the United States would not fight in a war in which the country was not directly involved.
• However, on December 7, 1941, Japanese war planes attacked the U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
• Roosevelt called the attack a day that would “live in infamy,” a day that Americans would never forget.
• This surprise attack shattered the American belief that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would safely isolate the United States from fighting in Europe and Asia.
• The day after the attack, Congress agreed to President Roosevelt’s request to declare war on Japan.
The Big Three
World War Two
• The war pitted 26 nations together as the Allies against the eight Axis Powers.
• The major powers among the Allies known as the “Big Three” were Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
• Germany, Italy, and Japan remained the major Axis nations.
The European and Pacific Theatres
World War Two
Major Theatre Events of WWII
1939-Germany invades Poland
1940-Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and much of northern France fall to the Nazi invasion.
1941-Germany invades the Soviet Union. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
1941,42-japan seizes the Philippines, Burma, and Singapore.
1942-Battle of Midway occurs with the U.S. being victorious.
1942,43-Battle of Stalingrad forces the Germans to surrender their siege of the Soviet Union.
1943-In North Africa, Allied troops defeat Axis armies and take control of the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal.
June 6, 1944-”D-Day” Allied invasion of Normandy, France.
(150,000 troops)1944,45-Bitter
fighting in the Pacific erupts in Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
December 1944-Battle of the Bulge, German troops slow the Allied movement towards Germany.
April 1945-Hitler commits suicide, Allied troops (East/West) meet in Germany.
May 8, 1945-The war ends in Europe.
August 6, 1945-The U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
August 9, 1945-The U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.
August 14, 1945-Hirohito announces Japan’s defeat.
September 2, 1945-Japan formally surrenders.
The Atomic Bomb
World War Two
• In an effort to bring the war to a speedy conclusion and to prevent further destruction and loss of life, Allied leaders decided to embark on an atomic research project.
The Manhattan Project
World War Two
• In the spring of 1943, a group of scientists from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and other European countries began work on the top-secret atomic research program known as the Manhattan Project.
• The research was done primarily at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer.
• Many of the scientist involved in the projects were refugees from Hitler’s Germany.
• By July 1945, the first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico.
• The success of this project left the United States in the position of determining the ultimate use of the new weapon.
Truman’s Use of the A-Bomb
World War Two
• Within days after the first atomic test, Allied leaders warned Japan to surrender or face “prompt and utter destruction.”
• Since no surrender occurred, President Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• The bomb killed more than 100,000 Japanese instantly, and thousands more died later from radiation sickness.
• For a time after World War II, the United States held a monopoly on atomic weapons.
• This event marked the beginning of the atomic age.
The Holocaust
World War Two
• When Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, he did so by finding a scapegoat, someone to blame for Germany’s problems after World War I.
• By appealing to anti-Semitism, feelings of hatred against Jewish people, Hitler encouraged the Germans to turn viciously on all Jewish citizens.
• Early in his rise to power, Hitler had seized Jewish property, homes, and businesses and barred Jews from many jobs.
• At the Wannsee Conference of 1942, the Nazis set as a primary goal the total extermination, or genocide, of all Jewish under their domination.
• This effort was to be kept secret from the German people and from the rest of the world.
• Hitler’s plan to eliminate the Jews was known to the Nazis as the Final Solution.
• Ultimately more than 6 million Jews were killed in the concentration camps, as were another 4 million people-dissenters, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally and physically handicapped, Protestant ministers, and Catholic priests.
• Today, concentration camp names such as Aushwitz, Treblinka, and Dachau stand as memorials to the incredible human suffering and death of this time, a period now called the Holocaust.
War Crimes Trials
World War Two
• A final chapter in the Holocaust occurred in Nuremburg, Germany, in 1945 and 1946.
• At that time an international military court tried 24 high-level Nazis for atrocities committed during World War II.
• By finding former Nazis guilty of “crimes against humanity,” a precedent was established that soldiers, officers, and national leaders could be held responsible for such brutal actions.
• War crime trials also occurred in Japan.• These trials led to the execution of former
premier Tojo and six other war leaders.• About 4,000 other Japanese war criminals
were also convicted and received less severe sentences.
American Patriotism and Fear During World
War IIWorld War two
• After the United States entered the war, the nation moved to full-scale wartime production and mobilization of the armed forces.
• Americans rallied behind this war effort with the re-emergence of “meatless Tuesdays” and victory gardens.
• More than 5 million women eventually worked in factories devoted to wartime production, although their pay never came close to equaling men’s pay of the time.
• One song about a woman named “Rosie the Riveter" became popular during the war years because it captured the sense of duty and patriotism felt by millions of women.
• The term “Rosie the Riveter” became a slang term for all women who worked in wartime factories.
Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA)
• After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans feared that Japanese Americans presented a threat to national security.
• Anti-Japanese sentiment grew, and in 1942 President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.
• Executive Order 9066 established military zones for the imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
• More than 100,000 people of Japanese descent were forced to leave their homes and move to WRA Camps, hastily constructed military-style barracks ringed with barbed wire and guarded by troops.
Korematsu vs United States
• In the 1944 landmark case Korematsu vs United States, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the forced evacuation as a reasonable wartime emergency measure.
• Almost 50 years after WWII, the United States government admitted that the wartime relocation program had been unjust.
• In 1988, Congress voted to pay $20,000 to each of the approximately 60,000 surviving Americans who had been interned.
• The first payments were made in 1990, and the government also issued a formal apology.
Demobilization
World War Two
• During the war, American factories, that geared up for wartime production, had helped the nation recover from the Great Depression.
• Now the challenge was to convert from a wartime to a peacetime society.
• This period was known as demobilization.
• During President Truman’s administration, legislation was passed to deal with different issues raised by demobilization.
G.I. Bill
• Servicemen’s Readjustment Act also known as the G.I. Bill of Rights, this act authorized billions of dollars to pay for veterans’ benefits, such as college education, medical treatment, unemployment insurance, and home and business loans.
• The G.I. Bill made it possible for more people to attend college and buy homes than ever before.
An End To Price Controls
• Wartime legislation had put controls on the prices of most goods.
• In 1946, the government moved to end such controls.
• However, the end of controls and a tax cut caused rapid increase in inflation, with food prices soaring up to 25% in just two years.
The Taft-Hartley Act
• Worker’s wages could not keep up with inflation after the war.
• Major strikes were held as unions pushed for higher wages.
• Anti-union feelings led Congress to pass the Taft-Hartley Act over Truman’s veto.
• This act:a) Provided an 80-day “cooling off” period
which the President could delay a strike that threatened national welfare.
b) States passed “right to work” lawsc) Banned union contributions to political
campaignsd) Required union leaders to swear they were
not communists
National Security Act of 1947
• Truman also moved to help the nation meet postwar international concerns.
• The National Security Act of 1947 created the national Military Establishment, which later became known as the Department of Defense.
• The act also created the Central Intelligence Committee, (CIA) to oversee intelligence gathering activities.
United Nations
World War Two
• American foreign policy changed dramatically as a result of WWII.
• Even before the conclusion of the war, the United States began planning for an international peacekeeping organization.
• Plans were made at the Yalta Conference for a United Nations Conference to be held in San Francisco in April 1945.
• The Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, agreed to participate in planning the new organization which would be known as the United Nations.
• The United States Senate approved the United Nations Charter by a vote of 82 to 2.
• The structure of the United Nations (UN) includes a General Assembly of all its members and a Security Council of 15 members.
• The Security Council consists of 10 rotating member nations and five permanent members; United States, China, Britain, France, and the Russian Federation.
• The General Assembly serves as a forum for world leaders to speak on a variety of concerns.
• Although the UN has become militarily involved in a number of world crisis, it also fights hunger, disease, and provides education.
• The headquarters of the UN is in New York City.