World History Key Notes:
LEADERS OF WORLD WAR II
Axis Powers: Germany (Hitler),
Austrian born - German politician - Leader of the Nazi party - Centre of WWII
Dates around him:
Appointed Chancellor in 1933 - Took over Germany in 1983
Hitler and Eva Braun:
Married on April 29 1945
Both commit suicide (same bullet) in a Berlin bunker the next day (April 30th)
(Mentioned in history => they both died. Speculation => Hitler faked their death, then they fled to Austria, then Argentina.
Germany surrendered on May 7 1945
Italy (Benito Mussolini),
Italian politician and journalist - Leader and founder of the National Fascist Party - Prime Minister - Was killed by his people in Milan (shot in the head and hanged upside down)
Military failures: defeated many times in WWII (especially in North Africa and Greece)
Japan (Hideki Tojo),
33rd Prime Minister of Japan - General in the Japanese army - Pearl Harbour attack - Commited suicide
Allied Forces: France (none),
BIG THREE:
UK (Winston Churchill), (he became prime minister after Chamberlain resigned)
1 of the strongest UK prime ministers - Led his country from the brink of defeat to victory - Showed signs of fragile health - Lost the election in 1945 (to Atlee), then came back in 1951
USA (Franklin D. Roosevelt) (Truman replaced him when he died),
32nd President - Longest serving president - Led the USA to WWII after the Pearl Harbour attack - Part of the Manhattan Project.
USSR (Joesph Stalin),
Born in Gori, Georgia - The 2nd USSR leader after Vladimir Lenin - Leader of the Red Army - Won against Hitler
What happened in April 1945? 4 people died (Hitler, Eva Braun, FDR, Benito Mussolini)
The Start of WWII
Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland without declaring war.
Hitler used Blitzkrieg/ lightning war (a fast and powerful military attack using tanks, planes, and soldiers).
Main Causes of WWII
Treaty of Versailles (1919): This treaty ended WWI and punished Germany harshly. Many Germans were angry about the terms, which helped Hitler gain support.
Expansionism: Hitler wanted to expand Germany’s territory and unite all German-speaking people.
Appeasement: Britain and France allowed Hitler to take over land (like Austria and Czechoslovakia) without stopping him, hoping to avoid war.
Nazi-Soviet Pact (August 1939): Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other and secretly divided Poland.
Invasion of Poland
1 September => German invasion of Poland (WEST)
3 September => Britain and France declare war on Germany (WWII begins)
17 September => USSR invasion of Poland (EAST) (2 weeks after Germany took 2 days to meet German troops advancing)
27 September => The Capital of Poland, Warsaw, surrendered
Results
Poland was defeated in 4 weeks, and was divided between Germany and the USSR
Munich Conference (1938) vs Non-Aggression Pact (1939)
Feature
Munich Conference 1938
Non-Aggression Pact 1939
Countries involved
Germany, Italy, Britain, France
Germany, USSR
Purpose
Stop Hitler from invading other countries by agreeing to his demands
Secret agreement not to fight and divide Poland
Result
Hitler invaded most of Czechoslovakia
Led to the invasion of Poland and WWII
War avoided?
Temporarily
No
Type of agreement
Appeasemnt
Military strategy/ deception
Non-Aggression pact: USSR also got Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia + half of Poland
(should last 100 years, but it lasted 1 day)
Caricature 1:
It depicts a grim scene following the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Two uniformed figures, representing Hitler and Stalin, stand over the bloodied body of Poland. Stalin is looking down at Poland and speaking, questioning the other about the victim's identity using derogatory terms they previously used against each other. The other figure is looking away, seemingly nonchalant. The bloodied figure of Poland on the ground shows the violent consequences of the pact. The dialogue highlights the hypocrisy of the two regimes, which, despite their ideological differences, were willing to collaborate for territorial gain at Poland's expense.
Caricature 2:
The caricature shows the temporary and unnatural alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Depicting them as an odd and ill-suited couple on their honeymoon. It suggests that this "marriage of convenience," born out of strategic necessity rather than genuine affinity, was unlikely to last. The picture is later proved to be true, as Germany would invade the Soviet Union in 1941, abruptly ending their "honeymoon."
The Invasion of France
The attack:
10-14 May 1940 => German attack against the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (to distract and move allied troops)
1-14 June => German Invasion of France
22 June => France Surrenders
Germany used the Schlieffen Plan and Blitzkrieg to invade France.
Instead of attacking through Belgium from the North, Germany surprised the
French by going through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium (the French thought it was impossible to pass).
Schlieffen Plan:
Hitler separated his army into 25% (northern Belgium and Netherlands) and 75% (southern Belgium, Ardennes Forest). He sent fake news of his advance through Belgium and went through the Ardennes Forest on a path to the capital of France (Paris).
The allies:
The French thought it was impossible to pass through the Ardennes Forest.
The French and the British put most of their troops in Belgium
The results:
North: Under the control of Hitler (they were not happy and later formed Free France)
South: Signed an armistice with Hitler, they became a puppet government (Vichy) (they cooperated with Hitler)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki (The only nuclear weapons ever used in warfare)
The US dropped (Truman, not FDR):
Hiroshima: August 6, 1945 (Little Boy) (70,000 dead) (dropped from a B-29 called the Enola)
(estimated total death 200,000)
Nagasaki: August 9, 1945 (Fat Man) (40,000 dead)
People died after the impact from radiation sickness and injuries
Japan surrendered on August 15 1945
Why Were They Used? The U.S. wanted to force Japan to surrender quickly and end the war without an Invasion.
The Manhattan Project: 1939 - 1945
What? It was a secret U.S. research and development project during World War II to develop the first atomic bombs.
Who? It involved top scientists, including J. Robert Oppenheimer (scientific director) (more than 600,000 people were involved).
Why? They started this project to develop atomic bombs before the Germans.
Location: Research took place at multiple sites, including Los Alamos, New Mexico,
and other facilities across the U.S.
Funding: The U.S. government spent over $2 billion (about $23 billion today) on the project.
First Successful Test: On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb, called the “Trinity test”, was successfully detonated in the New Mexico desert (Los Alamos)
Albert Einstein: Wrote a letter to FDR warning him that Germany was secretly trying to develop atomic bombs (NOT PART OF THE PROJECT).
Germany after WWII
Yalta Conference (Feb 4-11, 1945): Was a meeting between 3 WWII allies (FDR, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin). The “Big Three” Allied leaders met in Yalta, Ukraine, and discussed the post-war fate of Germany and the rest of Europe. It was thought to be the beginning of the Cold War
Problems of the Yalta Conference:
US: They thought the agreement to ‘democracy and free elections’ meant that Eastern Europe would have freedom of speech and proper elections (freedom).
USSR: Their idea of democracy was the communist one, where the Communist Party
represented the people, and all worked for the good of the nation (mostly everything goes to the government)(no freedom).
The Potsdam Conference (July-August): The leaders of the US (Truman), Britain (Clement Attlee), and the USSR (Stalin) met (after Japan’s surrender) in the city of Potsdam near Berlin to negotiate terms for the end of World War II.
Tensions at the Potsdam Conference:
1. Stalin found out from his spies that Truman was in the middle of trials for the new atomic bomb. So he became mad at Truman for keeping it a ‘secret’.
2. Truman was determined to force free elections in Eastern Europe to encourage countries to recover.
US and USSR Before and After WWII
Before: Allies against Hitler and Japan.
After: Against each other, especially when the tension came in Germany.
German separation
1945: Divided into 4 zones (Trizonia (US, UK, and France )) and the USSR Zone.
1947: Trizonia became Bizonia (US + UK and France ) and the USSR Zone.
1949: Germany became West Germany (US + UK + France ) and East Germany (USSR).
Berlin Wall 1961-1962
1946-1961: Around 2.5 million East Berliners fled to West Berlin, threatening to destroy East Berlin’s economy.
The wall was built because East Berliners were escaping to West Berlin.
West Berlin: Better than the East. East Berlin: Communist-led.
Building of the Wall:
Hundreds of guard dogs - Electric fences - Concrete wall (12 feet high) - Mines buried under the ground - Checkpoints: Charlie/ Alpha/ Bravo (named using the American military alphabet)
Casualties: Around 940 people died trying to escape, and others died by jumping off buildings/ drowning.
Cuban Missiles (October 1962):
What? It was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict.
How? An American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union in Cuba.
WWIII preventor: Vasili refused to fire a nuclear torpedo at an American aircraft carrier and likely prevented a third world war and nuclear destruction.
Results: The Cuban Missile Crisis showed that neither the US nor the USSR were ready to use nuclear weapons out of fear of the other’s retaliation (and mutual atomic annihilation). The two superpowers signed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned above-ground nuclear weapons testing.
Korean War (1950-1953)
The leaders:
Kim Il-sung (Communist leader of North Korea (USSR controlled)) - Syngman Rhee (President of South Korea (US controlled)) - Harry Truman (US President) - Douglas MacArthur (commander of UN forces)
Facts: Korea is split along the 38th parallel - North Militarises, South doesn’t
Beginning and end: It began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and ceased after an armistice on 27 July 1953.
Events:
1) 25 June: North Korean attack against South Korea
2) North Korea took control of Seoul (South Korea's capital city) and pushed the UN and South Korean forces to Pusan (pork + American military base).
3) The armies (South Korea and UN) under the command of Douglas went to Incheon and recaptured South Korea.
4) They kept pushing the North Koreans until they reached the Yalu River ( border between China and North Korea).
5) 300,000 Chinese soldiers wearing the North Korean army's clothes joined forces with them and pushed South Korea and the UN back to the 38th parallel.
Espionage War during the Cold War
What? The act of spying and gathering information on one’s rivals.
When? During the Cold War
Purpose? Gaining an advantage in information about the enemy’s capabilities, especially in atomic weaponry.
Who started it? The United States and the Soviet Union.
Spy equipment: Coded messages, double agents, and invisible ink
Spies called now:
United States: FBI and CIA (intelligence/security agency).
Russia: KGB classifies its spies as agents (intel) and controllers (relays intel).
Space Race
Who and when? The United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cold War (late 1950s to the mid-1970s).
Competition: The two superpowers competed to see who could “conquer” outer space first. The Americans and Soviets also competed to prove their technological and intellectual superiority by becoming the first nation to put a human into space.
The launch of the first satellite led to a joint mission between the two superpowers.
Space Race benefits: Technological and scientific advances provided benefits to societies on Earth, like: Health and medicine - Transportation - public safety - consumer goods - energy and environment - information technology - industrial productivity.
Apollo 11 moon landing: It was a major victory for the United States in the Space Race, and it demonstrated the superiority of American technology and engineering. This was a major blow to the Soviet Union, which had been leading the Space Race up until that point.