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- World War II also marked the beginning of trends that took decades to fully develop, including technological disruption, global economic integration and digital communication. More broadly, the wartime home front put a premium on something that’s even more crucial today: innovation. It helped explain America’s production miracle.
www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/18/70-years-later-how-world-war-ii-changed-america/30334203/70 years later: How World War II changed America - USA TODAY
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- Overview
- The outbreak of war
World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3. The war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany began on June 22, 1941, with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The war in the Pacific began on December 7/8, 1941, when Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor and other American, Dutch, and British military installations throughout Asia.
Read more below: Axis initiative and Allied reaction: The outbreak of war
Pacific War
Read more about the war in the Pacific.
What countries fought in World War II?
The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China).
By the early part of 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbour. Secret negotiations led on August 23–24 to the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R.
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Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler thought that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British intervention and gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26. News of the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance between Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous though temporary agreement) caused him to postpone the start of hostilities for a few days. He was still determined, however, to ignore the diplomatic efforts of the western powers to restrain him. Finally, at 12:40 pm on August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 am and at 5:00 pm, respectively. World War II had begun.
After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, and the Second World War came to an end. The war cost the lives of more than 330,000 American soldiers. Many more were permanently injured or maimed.
Sep 2, 2020 · The United States emerged from World War II with extraordinary advantages that ensured prosperity for decades: an intact, thriving industrial base; a population relatively unscarred by war; cheap energy; two-thirds of the world’s gold supply; great optimism.
Oct 29, 2009 · The war began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and raged across the globe until 1945, when Japan surrendered to the United States after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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2 days ago · United States - WWII, Allies, Axis: After World War I most Americans concluded that participating in international affairs had been a mistake. They sought peace through isolation and throughout the 1920s advocated a policy of disarmament and nonintervention.
The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and Japan’s formal surrender on September 2 ended the war. An estimated 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 people died during World War II, including about 6,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children who died in the Holocaust.
