World War II

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war from 1939 to 1945 in which most of the world's countries, including all the great powers, eventually formed two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged that directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries, as major participants committed their economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities to the war effort and blurred the distinction between civilian and military resources. It was the deadliest conflict in human history, with 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of them civilians in the Soviet Union and China, and it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war. The war began on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, and on September 3 France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. In 1940 Germany used blitzkrieg from May 10 to June 22 to overrun much of western Europe, launched the Battle of Britain on July 10, and on September 22 Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact creating the Axis Alliance. In 1941 Germany and the Axis Powers attacked Russia on June 22 with over four million troops, and after the Japanese attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor on December 7, the US entered the war on the side of the Allies the next day. In 1942 the Battle of the Coral Sea took place from May 4 to 8, the Battle of Midway on June 4 brought a US Navy victory over the Japanese navy, the Guadalcanal Campaign lasted from August 7 to February 1943, and the Battle of Stalingrad, which began on August 23 and ended on February 2, 1943, began the German retreat from Russia. In 1944 the Allied invasion of France began with D-day and the Normandy invasion on June 6, the Battle of Guam occurred on July 21, and the Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, ending in an Allied victory that sealed the fate of the German army. In 1945 the Battle of Iwo Jima began on February 19, the Battle of Okinawa on April 1, Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 7, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, and on September 2 Japan surrendered to US General Douglas MacArthur and the Allies.

Whitehouse, Ohio · United States