WW2 VOCAB

APPEASMENT

• appeasement definition. A political policy of conceding to aggression by a warlike nation. Note: A classic example of appeasement is the Munich Pact of 1938, negotiated between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain, the prime minister of Britain, allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia to Germany.

ISOLATIONISM

• a policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other groups, especially the political affairs of other countries.

LEND-LEASE ACT

• Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II.

INVASION OF MANCHURIA

• The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 19, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II.

INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

• Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops in an invasion of Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague.

INVASION OF POLAND

• Poland, invasion of definition. The action by Germany that began World War II in 1939. Germany invaded Poland only days after signing the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, under which the Soviet Union agreed not to defend Poland from the east if Germany attacked it from the west.

BATTLE OF BRITAIN

• The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England, literally "Air battle for England") is the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940.

INVASION OF SOVIET UNION

• Under the codename Operation "Barbarossa," Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II.

STALINGRAD

• The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943) was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe.

D-DAY

• the day (June 6, 1944) in World War II on which Allied forces invaded northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy.

PEARL HARBOR

• The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.

ISLAND HOPPING

• Leapfrogging, or Island-Hopping, was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against Japan and the Axis powers during World War II.

HIROSHIMA

• On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was almost completely destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a populated area. Followed by the bombing of Nagasaki, on August 9, this show of Allied strength hastened the surrender of Japan in World War II.

NAGASAKI

• During World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Nagasaki the second and, to date, last city in the world to experience a nuclear attack.

"FINAL SOLUTION"

• Final Solution definition. A term applied by Nazis to the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Before instituting the Final Solution, the Nazi government had abolished the Jews' rights, destroyed and confiscated their property, and confined Jews in concentration camps.