http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/september-1937-german-dictator-adolf-hitler-and-italian-dictator-il-picture-id3334023

Depression led to Fascism and Totalitarianism governments in Germany, Italy and Russia.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-reoccupies-the-rhineland

Total War

In 1931, Japan, eager for the vast natural resources to be found in China and seeing her obvious weakness, invaded and occupied Manchuria.

POLICY OF APPEASEMENT In 1936, Hitler sent German troops to occupy the Rhineland, a German region on the

border with France. The Treaty of Versailles prohibited [prohibited: to forbid by authority, such as a law or treaty] military action in this region. But the League of Nations did nothing to stop Germany.

1938-Hitler demands the Sudetenland, the German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia.

As you can see, areas near the borders with Germany (to the Northwest) and Austria (to the Southwest) were predominantly German-speaking. Hitler claimed that these regions should be part of Germany, and his threats to take them by force sparked a political crisis. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich, in September 1938 to discuss the crisis. The Czechoslovakian government wasn't invited the the negotiations. Chamberlain agreed to let Hitler annex these portions of Czechoslovakia in exchange for a promise from Hitler not to seek further territorial gains. Chamberlain declared that the agreement represented "peace for our time," which of course it didn't.

.

Hitler and Russia invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 officially starting WWII.

The United States Provides Aid President Franklin Roosevelt knew that Americans were not yet ready to abandon isolationism and join the war. But he was able to persuade Congress to sell, lend, or lease war supplies to “any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” Passed in early 1941, this legislation was called the Lend-Lease Act. Over the course of the war, the United States gave about $50 billion in war supplies to more than 40 Allied nations. Most of the aid went to Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. At the same time, Roosevelt prepared for war. He got

funding from Congress for ships and planes, and started the first peacetime draft.

Hitler betrays Stalin and invades RussiaIn 1939, Hitler had signed a pact vowing not to attack the Soviet Union. But in June 1941 Hitler broke his promise and invaded his eastern neighbor. Germany simply didn't have the manpower or industrial base to fight a prolonged two-front war against the Soviet Union and the British Empire.

Japan Attacks the United States

The morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, dawned cloudy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the home of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet. Aboard the battleship Oklahoma, crew members were eating breakfast when loud¬speakers blared out, “Real planes, real bombs; this is no drill!” Japanese planes roared out of the clouds, raining bombs on the naval base.

The Oklahoma sank almost immediately. Four hundred and twenty-nine crew members aboard were killed. In a little more than two hours, the Japanese had sunk or damaged all eight battleships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The attack destroyed or damaged 347 aircraft. More than 2,400 Americans were killed.

The next day, President Roosevelt spoke to a shocked nation. “Yesterday,” he began, “December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy [evil fame]—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Within an hour, Congress declared war on Japan. In turn, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. America was finished with isolationism. It was time to fight.

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history/videos/america-enters-world-war-ii

The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War

The turning point in the Pacific war came in June 1942, when American and Japanese naval forces met near the American-held Midway Islands. The Japanese attacked the islands, hoping to provoke a battle.

Japanese kill thousands in the Bataan Death March- April 9, 1942

When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, a US colony at the time, the American and Filipino troops stationed there were outgunned, and they soon got cornered on the Bataan Peninsula. They surrendered after a 3-month siege. The victorious Japanese took around 75,000 prisoners, including around 10,000 American troops. The prisoners were then forced to march 65 miles up the peninsula to San Fernando, where they boarded railcars bound for a prisoner-of-war camp further north. Japanese troops beat the prisoners, denied them food and water, and coldly executed stragglers. Precise casualty counts are disputed, but it is believed that the march cost hundreds of American lives along with several thousand Filipinos. The Bataan Death March, as it became known to Americans, was hardly the worst atrocity of the war — the Japanese atrocities in Nanking killed many more non-combatants, for example. But Bataan was one of the biggest atrocities to take American lives, and so became widely known in the United States. A Japanese general who oversaw the Philippines campaign was tried for war crimes and executed in 1946.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Nanking_bodies_1937.jpg

A Nazi-friendly French government takes power in Vichy

On this day in 1942, November 10th, German troops occupy Vichy France, which had

previously been free of an Axis military presence.

http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2417232/1000px-France_map_Lambert-93_with_regions_and_departments-occupation.svg.0.png

A massive invasion on the beaches of NormandyThe Western Allies finally felt ready to retake France in June 1944. This map shows the invasion plan, which was dubbed Operation Overlord. It involved the amphibious landing of 150,000 British, American, French, and Canadian troops to beaches in Normandy, across the English Channel from Great Britain. Operation Overlord succeeded. The summer and fall of 1944 saw the Axis powers in Europe retreating along all fronts. In the West, British, American, and French troops recaptured France. In the East, the

Soviets took parts of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Balkan nations. The Allies also advanced somewhat on the Italian front. This progress set the stage for the final advance on Germany's homeland in 1945.

The aircraft carrier and RadarShips became floating platforms for aircraft that could fly much further than any gun could shoot, dropping bombs or torpedoes on enemy ships. Places that were formerally safe were not safe anymore.

The Allies Push Toward Japan The Allies’ push through the Pacific steadily shrank the defensive forces the Japanese had established around Japan. Those forces disappeared after the Allies captured the key islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in early 1945. The month-long Battle of Iwo Jima was among the bloodiest of the war. Nearly all of the 22,000 Japanese troops fought to their deaths. More than 6,800 American troops also died.

The War Ends in Europe By April 30, 1945, Hitler knew the war was lost. Rather than surrender, the German dictator committed suicide in his Berlin headquarters. A week later, Germany surrendered to the Allies.

Throughout the Allied countries, people celebrated V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day). But the struggle was only half over. On the other side of the world, the Pacific war still raged.

The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War

The turning point in the Pacific war came in June 1942, when American and Japanese naval forces met near the American-held Midway Islands. The Japanese attacked the islands, hoping to provoke a battle.

The Allies Push Toward Japan The Allies’ push through the Pacific steadily shrank the defensive forces the Japanese had established around Japan. Those forces disappeared after the Allies captured the key islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in early 1945. The month-long Battle of Iwo Jima was among the bloodiest of the war. Nearly all of the 22,000 Japanese troops fought to their deaths. More than 6,800 American troops also died.

To capture the much larger island of Okinawa, the Allies mounted a huge invasion in April 1945. More than 1,300 American ships, including 40 aircraft carriers, supported a force of 182,000 American troops. As on Iwo Jima, the 120,000 Japanese troops defending Okinawa fiercely

resisted the invaders. The Battle of Okinawa continued for three months. It claimed the lives of some 12,000 American and more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers.

Earlier in the Pacific war, the Japanese had introduced a new method of attack. Japanese pilots flew planes filled with explosives into American warships to blow them up. The men flying these suicide missions were called kamikaze pilots. Kamikaze, which means “divine wind,” was the name given to a legendary storm that saved Japan from an invasion by sea in 1281. In the Battle of Okinawa alone, kamikaze attacks killed 5,000 American seamen.

The US drops an atomic bomb on HiroshimaIn the summer of 1945, the Japanese military situation was hopeless. The US Navy controlled the waters around Japan and could bomb its cities with impunity. Yet the Japanese refused to surrender, hoping that by holding out they could negotiate more favorable terms. In August, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Manhattan Project

Scientists detonated the first nuclear explosion in history at the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

In response to these fears, President Roosevelt ordered the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast in 1942. About 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and businesses and move to distant internment camps [internment camp: a prison camp where people are forcibly confined] . There they would remain for three long years, even though not one Japanese American was ever accused of spying or treason.

In 1988, Congress passed legislation that gave $20,000 to every Japanese American who had been interned, or confined, in the camps. With each check came a written apology from President George H.W. Bush for “the serious injustices that were done to Japanese Americans during World War II.”

African American Servicemen Almost 900,000 African Americans served in the military during the war. Trained in segregated camps, they were assigned to noncombat jobs such as driving trucks and cooking.

Under great pressure from civil rights organizations, the military changed its policy. African Americans began to serve in every kind of combat position, from fighter pilots to tank operators to sailors. Although still in segregated units, by the end of the war blacks served alongside whites on Navy ships.

http://archive.itvs.org/facetoface/flash.html comparing japanese experience to muslim in 9/11

http://archive.itvs.org/facetoface/activities/

all about comparing WWII and 9/11