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1939–1945 War Cross (France)
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Changde
The Battle of Changde (Battle of Changteh; ) was a major engagement in the Second Sino-Japanese War in and around the Republic of China (1912–49), Chinese city of Changde (Changteh) in the province of Hunan. During the battle, the Imperial Japanese Army extensively used chemical weapons. The purpose of the Japanese offensive was not to hold the city but to maintain pressure on the Chinese National Revolutionary Army to reduce its combat ability in the region and its ability to reinforce the Burma Campaign. The Japanese were initially successful in their offensive operation by bacteria-infected bombs and captured parts of the city of Changde, which forced civilians to evacuate. However, the Japanese were pinned down in the city by a single Chinese division long enough for other Chinese units to surround them with a counterencirclement. Heavy casualties and the loss of their supply lines then forced the Japanese to withdraw, which returned territorial control to the original st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Raids On Japan
Air raids conducted by Allied forces on Japan during World War II caused extensive destruction to the country's cities and killed between 241,000 and 900,000 people. During the first years of the Pacific War these attacks were limited to the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and small-scale raids on military positions in the Kuril Islands from mid-1943. Strategic bombing raids began in June 1944 and continued until the end of the war in August 1945. Allied naval and land-based tactical air units also attacked Japan during 1945. The United States military air campaign waged against Japan began in earnest in mid-1944 and intensified during the war's last months. While plans for attacks on Japan had been prepared prior to the Pacific War, these could not begin until the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber was ready for combat. From June 1944 until January 1945, B-29s stationed in India staged through bases in China to make a series of nine raids on targets in western Japan, but this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allied-occupied Germany
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France) asserted joint authority and sovereignty at the 1945 Berlin Declaration. At first, defining Allied-occupied Germany as all territories of the former German Reich before Nazi annexing Austria; however later in the 1945 Potsdam Conference of Allies, the Potsdam Agreement decided the new German border as it stands today. Said border gave Poland and the Soviet Union all regions of Germany (eastern parts of Pomerania, Neumark, Posen-West Prussia, Free City of Danzig, East-Prussia & Silesia) east of the Oder–Neisse line and divided the remaining "Germany as a whole" into the four occupation zones for administrative purposes under the three Western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) and the Soviet Union. Although the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empire Of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent formation of modern Japan. It encompassed the Japanese archipelago and several colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories. Under the slogans of and following the Boshin War and restoration of power to the Emperor from the Shogun, Japan underwent a period of industrialization and militarization, the Meiji Restoration, which is often regarded as the fastest modernisation of any country to date. All of these aspects contributed to Japan's emergence as a great power and the establishment of a colonial empire following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s, including the Great Depression, led to the rise of militarism, nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fascist Italy (1922–1943)
The Kingdom of Italy was governed by the National Fascist Party from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister of Italy, prime minister. The Italian Fascism, Italian Fascists imposed Authoritarianism, authoritarian rule and crushed political and intellectual opposition, while promoting economic modernization, traditional social values and a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church. According to Payne (1996), "[the] Fascist government passed through several relatively distinct phases". The first phase (1922–1925) was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, albeit with a "legally-organized executive dictatorship". The second phase (1925–1929) was "the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper". The third phase (1929–1934) was with less interventionism (politics), interventionism in foreign policy. The fourth phase (1935–1940) was characterized by an aggressive foreign policy: the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which was launched from Italian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allies Of World War II
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Its principal members by 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China. Membership in the Allies varied during the course of the war. When the conflict broke out on 1 September 1939, the Allied coalition consisted of the United Kingdom, France, and Poland, as well as their respective dependencies, such as British India. They were soon joined by the independent dominions of the British Commonwealth: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Consequently, the initial alliance resembled that of the First World War. As Axis forces began invading northern Europe and the Balkans, the Allies added the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Greece, and Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union, which initially had a nonaggression pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The River Plate
The Battle of the River Plate was fought in the South Atlantic on 13 December 1939 as the first naval battle of the Second World War. The Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser , commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, engaged a Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Commodore Henry Harwood, comprising the light cruisers , (on loan to the New Zealand Division) and the heavy cruiser . ''Graf Spee'' had sailed into the South Atlantic in August 1939, before the war began, and had begun commerce raiding after receiving appropriate authorisation on 26 September 1939. Harwood's squadron was one of several search groups sent in pursuit by the British Admiralty. They sighted ''Graf Spee'' off the estuary of the River Plate near the coasts of Argentina and Uruguay. In the ensuing battle, ''Exeter'' was severely damaged and forced to retire; ''Ajax'' and ''Achilles'' suffered moderate damage. Damage to ''Graf Spee'', although not extensive, was critical because her fuel system was crippled. ''Ajax'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Theater (World War II)
The American Theater was a theater of operations during World War II including all continental American territory, and extending into the ocean. Owing to North and South America's geographical separation from the central theaters of conflict (in Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, and the Pacific) the threat of an invasion of the continental U.S. or other areas in the Americas by the Axis Powers was negligible and the theater saw relatively little conflict. However, despite the relative unimportance of the American Theater, some battles took place within it, including the Battle of the River Plate, submarine attacks off the East Coast, the Aleutian Islands campaign, the Battle of the St. Lawrence, and the attacks on Newfoundland. Espionage efforts included Operation Bolívar. German operations South America ''See also Latin America during World War II'' Battle of the River Plate The first naval battle during the war was fought on December 13, 1939, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Caribbean
The Battle of the Caribbean refers to a naval campaign waged during World War II that was part of the Battle of the Atlantic, from 1941 to 1945. German U-boats and Italian submarines attempted to disrupt the Allied supply of oil and other material. They sank shipping in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico and attacked coastal targets in the Antilles. Improved Allied anti-submarine warfare eventually drove the Axis submarines out of the Caribbean region. Background The Caribbean was strategically significant because of Venezuelan oil fields in the southeast and the Panama Canal in the southwest. The Royal Dutch Shell refinery on Dutch-owned Curaçao was processing eleven million barrels per month making it the largest oil refinery in the world; the refinery at Pointe-à-Pierre on Trinidad was the largest in the British Empire; and there was another large refinery on Dutch-owned Aruba. The British Isles required four oil tankers of petroleum daily during the early war years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attacks On Australia During World War II
Attacks on continental Australia during World War II were relatively rare due to Australia's geographic position. However, Axis surface raiders and submarines periodically attacked shipping in the Australian coastal waters from late 1940 to early 1945. Japanese aircraft bombed towns and airfields in Northern Australia on ninety-seven occasions during 1942 and 1943. Papua New Guinea was in part of Australia's overseas territories until 1975, and so the large Japanese invasion in 1942 was a significant invasion of territory under Australian control. Naval attacks Six German surface raiders operated in Australian waters at different times between 1940 and 1943. These ships sank a small number of merchant ships and the Australian light cruiser HMAS ''Sydney''. The German submarine ''U-862'' also carried out attacks in Australian waters in late 1944 and early 1945. Japanese submarines operated in Australian waters from January 1942 until July 1944. Major submarine offensives were c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Gabon
The Battle of Gabon (French: ''Bataille du Gabon''), also called the Gabon Campaign (''Campagne du Gabon''), occurred in November 1940 during World War II. The battle resulted in forces under the orders of General de Gaulle taking the colony of Gabon and its capital, Libreville, from Vichy France, and the rallying of French Equatorial Africa to Free France. Background In June 1940, Germany invaded and defeated France, and subsequently occupied a portion of the country. Philippe Pétain established a collaborationist government in Vichy to administer unoccupied French territory. On 18 June French General Charles De Gaulle broadcast an appeal over the radio to his compatriots abroad, calling on them to reject the Vichy regime and join the United Kingdom in its war against Germany and Italy. The broadcast provoked division in France's African territories, where colonists were forced to choose sides. On 26 August, the governor and military commanders in the colony of French C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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