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World war IIWorld War II, or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict fought between the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, from 1939 until 1945. It was the largest armed conflict the world has ever seen, and remains one of the most significant events in all of human history. World War II involved military forces from over seventy nations; air, land and sea battles spanning much of the globe; and resulted in the death of over sixty million people. The war was brought to an end in 1945 with the Allies victorious.
WWII in Europe The war started in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France responded by declaring war on Germany two days later, initiating a widespread naval war. The German Blitzkrieg rapidly overwhelmed Poland in 1939, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France in 1940, and Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941. Italian and, later, German troops attacked British forces in North Africa. By summer 1941, Germany had conquered France and most of Western Europe, but it had failed to subdue the United Kingdom due to the success of the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. Hitler then turned on the Soviet Union, opening a surprise attack on June 22, 1941. Despite enormous gains, the invasion bogged down outside of Moscow in late 1941. The Soviets later encircled and captured the German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43), decisively defeated the Axis during the Battle of Kursk, and broke the Siege of Leningrad. The Red Army then pursued the retreating Wehrmacht all the way to Berlin, and won the street-by-street Battle of Berlin, as Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker on 30 April 1945. Meanwhile, the western Allies invaded North Africa (1942) and Italy (1943), then liberated France following amphibious landings in the Battle of Normandy in 1944. Repulsing a German counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge in December, the Allies crossed the Rhine River and linked up with the Soviets at the Elbe River in central Germany. During the war, the Germans murdered millions of Jews, Roma, and other minorities in a state-sponsored genocide known as the Holocaust.
Asia and the Pacific Japan invaded China on July 7th, 1937 with plans to expand to most of East and South-East Asia. On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack against the American fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, thereby drawing the United States into World War II. After six months of sweeping successes, the Japanese were checked at the Battle of the Coral Sea and decisively defeated in the Battle of Midway, in which they lost four aircraft carriers. Japanese expansion was finally stopped and the Allies went on the offensive at the Battle of Milne Bay and the Battle of Guadalcanal, both in the Southwest Pacific. The Allies then conducted a drive across the Central Pacific, and were victorious in a series of great naval battles such as the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, and invasions of key islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. In the meantime, American submarines gradually cut off the supply of oil and other raw materials to Japan. In the last year of the war Allied air forces conducted a strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese homeland. This destroyed most of Japan's larger cities and culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945.
Aftermath The war had many far-reaching consequences. About 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the war, though estimates vary greatly (refer to the Casualties section). The war concluded with the surrender and occupation of Germany and Japan. As a result of the destruction caused by the war, the allied nations formed the United Nations in 1945 with the hope of preventing further conflicts of this scope. The end of the war brought the breakup of global empires and the formation of new nations and alliances. Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence, which heightened already existing tensions between the two camps and helped form the conflict known as the Cold War. In Asia, the Japanese Empire was dismantled, replaced by a constitutional monarchy with the emperor as the figurehead. The defeat of Japan led to the independence of Korea, marked the end of China's civil war and the creation of the People's Republic of China. World War II spawned many new technologies that were applied to commercial, industrial, private and civil use, as well as to future wars. The enormous contributions and promises on the Allies' part led to the independences of many countries previously part of the British Empire. The war also led to the economic decline of the British Empire, as well as the rise of the United States of America as both an economic and military superpower.
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