US History Era 18: World War II
About this set
Created by:
jreznick on September 25, 2009
Subjects:
Description:
Based on SparkNotes Study Cards. Improved for Reznick's students.
Classes:
U.S. History, SAT Subject Test - US History, US History, Reznick AP US History
Log in to favorite or report as inappropriate.
Order by
35 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Joint Chiefs of Staff | a group created by FDR in Feb. 1942 to advise the president and oversee rapidly growing military; it still consists of representatives from the army, navy, and air force |
| Axis powers | WWII alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan—the nations that signed the Tripartite Pact in Sept 1940 |
| Atlantic Charter | (1) the document on Aug 14, 1941, after a meeting btwn FDR & British Prime Minister Winston Churchill; (2) it described an ideal postwar world, condemned military aggression, asserted the right to national self-determination, and advocated disarmament |
| Battle of Britain | (1) the Nazi bombing of England in summer & fall of 1940--preparation for an amphibious assault that Hitler never was able to launch; (2) American radio news reports from London increased US sympathy for the Allied side |
| America First Committee | (1) isolationist organization that opposed FDR's reelection in 1940 & urged neutrality in WWII ("the US wouldn't be harmed by Hitler's advances in Europe"); (2) pilot/celebrity Charles Lindbergh was its most visible spokesperson |
| Cash-and-carry | policy enacted in Sept 1939 as part of a new, amended Neutrality Act, which allowed warring nations to purchase arms from the US as long as they paid in full and transported the arms away on their own ships |
| Declaration of the United Nations | This document was signed on January 1, 1942, by 26 nations that agreed not to make separate peace agreements with the enemy and to uphold the Atlantic Charter. In 1945 the agreement evolved into another that became the basis for the successor organization to the League of Nations. |
| Francisco Franco | (1) right-wing fascist leader who won the Spanish Civil War and who ruled Spain 1939-1975; Mussolini and Hitler helped him come to power, and he kept Spain neutral throughout the war (except for helping the Axis Powers invade the USSR); (2) later he was an anti-communist US ally in the first half of the Cold War. |
| Holocaust | known in Hebrew as the "Shoah," the Nazis' systematic efforts to exterminate all of Europe's Jews from 1933-1945; more than 6 million Jews died in concentration camps throughout Germany and Nazi-occupied territory |
| Adolph Hitler | (1) elected Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the fascist Nazi leader who oversaw German economic recovery by mobilizing industry for military purposes; (2) he aggressively sought global hegemony & oversaw one of the century's most notorious genocide attempts |
| Hiroshima & Nagasaki | two cities that were targets of Fat Man and Little Boy, the first nuclear weapons to be used in wartime. The August 6, 1945, bomb killed 70,000 instantaneously and another 70,000 over time with radiation poisoning. The August 9, 1945, bomb caused 40,000 immediate deaths and 60,000 injuries. |
| Lend-Lease Act | (1) March 1941 law that allowed any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the US" (Britain & even the USSR after Hitler attacked it) to borrow/rent weapons; (2) a key move in support of the Allied cause before the US formally entered WWII, and one that provoked German naval attacks on American targets even before the Pearl Harbor attacks |
| Manhattan Project | (1) the $2 billion, 3-year secret American scientific initiative to develop the atomic bomb; (2) scientists worked for almost three years in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and other sities until the successful July 16, 1945, detonation; (3) prominent members included Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and the project's military commander, Gen. Leslie Groves |
| Munich Pact | (1) 1938 agreement between Britain, France, Italy, and Germany that allowed Germany to annex the Czech Sudentenland after Hitler declared he was willing to take it by force; (2) this "appeasement" policy only emboldened Hitler, thus convincing later foreign policymakers of the need to take a hard stance against dictators (esp. in the 1st half of the Cold War) |
| Neutrality Acts | several laws passed by Congress btwn 1935 and 1937 banning arms sales to warring countries and forbidding American citizens from traveling aboard ships of belligerent nations (in an effort to keep the US out of WWII) |
| Nuremberg Trials | 13 trials of Nazi war criminals that began in Nov. 1945 & that were overseen by the Allies; 200 defendants were indicted & all but 38 were convicted of conspiring to wage aggressive war and of mistreating prisoners of war & inhabitants of occupied territories |
| National War Labor Board | federal agency that monitored and regulated the efforts of organized labor during WWII; the agency restricted wage increases but encouraged the extension of many fringe benefits (such as health care) to workers |
| Office of Strategic Services (OSS) | (1) secret agency created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1942 to conduct espionage, collect information for strategic planning, & assess the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy; (2) this organization eventually evolved into the CIA during the Cold War |
| Office of Censorship | created in Dec. 1941, a government agency that examined all letters sent overseas and that worked with media firms to control information broadcast during WWII |
| Office of War Information | government agency that employed artists, writers, and advertisers to shape public opinion during WWII; it publicized reasons for US entry into the war & often portrayed the Axis powers as barbaric and cruel |
| Operation Overlord | (1) the Allied air, land, and sea assault on occupied France that centered on the "D-Day" invasion on June 6, 1944, when American, British, and Canadian troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, in northern France; (2) this costly operation took gave the Allies a beachhead in Hitler's "Fortress Europe" from where they were able to gradually move inland |
| Pearl Harbor | American naval base in Hawaii bombed by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941; >2,400 Americans were killed & the US declared war on Japan the next day |
| Potsdam Conference | July 17-Aug. 2, 1945 conference in which Truman, Churchill, & Stalin met to divide Germany into occupation zones & plan for the Nuremberg Trials, the final meeting between the Big Three powers during the war |
| Rosie the Riveter | popular WWII advertising character—a strong woman factory worker who symbolized the important role American women played on the home front |
| Revenue Act of 1942 | (1) law that raised taxes to help finance the WWII effort by raising rates for the wealthiest Americans; (2) it included new middle- and lower-income tax brackets, vastly increasing the number of Americans responsible for paying taxes |
| J. Robert Oppenheimer | physicist who was the civilian head of the Manhattan Project |
| Leslie Groves | (1) Army general in charge of the Manhattan Project; (2) later in charge of design of the Pentagon home to the military and the Defense Department (though only 5 stories tall--and thus less susceptible to attack--the Pentagon is by floor surface area the largest office building in the world) |
| Joseph Stalin | totalitarian ruler of the Soviet Union 1928-1953 who cooperated with the Allies during WWII--but whose relations with the west soured after the war, a condition that eventually led to the Cold War |
| Smith-Connally Act | aka the War Labor Disputes Act, a law was passed in 1943 over FDR's veto which limited the right to strike in industries key to the war effort and that authorized federal intervention in any strike; this law eroded what had been amiable relations btwn the govt and organized labor |
| shoot-on-sight order | US military order issued in 1941 before Pearl Harbor (in response to German submarine attacks on American ships in the Atlantic Ocean) that allowed naval patrols to fire on any Axis ships found between the US and Iceland |
| Tripartite Pact | Sept. 1940 agreement signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan that created the Axis powers |
| Tehran Conference | 1st major meeting between the Big Three leaders (Churchill, FDR, & Stalin), held from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, 1943 in which the 1944 assault on Vichy France & the division of Germany was first planned |
| War Production Board | created in 1942, the government agency that oversaw production of thousands of planes, tanks, artillery pieces, and munitions that FDR requested once the US entered the war; the agency allocated scarce resources and shifted domestic production from civilian to military goods |
| Winston Churchill | (1) Prime minister of England from 1940 to 1945 and one of the "Big Three," famous for his inspirational speeches and zealous pursuit of war victory; (2) in 1946, he leader coined the term "iron curtain" to describe the USSR's harsh occupation of eastern Europe |
| Yalta Conference | (1) Feb. 4-11, 1945 meeting btwn the Big Three in which Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan soon after Germany surrendered; (2) plans for a UN conference in April 1945 were also approved along with territorial divisions of Europe |
First Time Here?
Welcome to Quizlet, a fun, free place to study. Try these flashcards, find others to study, or make your own.
Set Champions
Space Race Champion
86,600 points by cindy9554
Speller Champion
100% correct by jenniecoco
Completed “Learn” mode
21024ParkKernyu , juicyhyuk95 , haejo84 , cindy9554 , hammypoopy , jiyoonsohn , chose , jenniecoco , juneyo , katieeunjilew123 , nightlord84 , AnthonySunghoonKim , 21130Kyu-rokJeong , jinheelee1995 , 21131_Youngjun_Joh (See all 26)