User:Atcovi/History/WWII Study Guide


 * 1) WWII began with Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, followed shortly after by the Soviet Union's invasion of the same country from the east and the Baltic countries from the north.
 * 2) During the first two years of the war, the US stayed officially neutral as Germany overran France, most of Europe, and pounded London from the air (Battle of Britain).
 * 3) In mid-1941, Hitler violated the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded them.
 * 4) Despite strong isolationist sentiment at home, the US continued to help the UK.
 * 5) The US gave the UK war supplies and old naval warships in return for military bases in Bermuda and the Caribbean.
 * 6) Later, the Land-Lease Act gave the president authority to sell or land equipment to countries to defend themselves against the Axis powers.
 * 7) FDR compared it to "lending a garden house to a next-door neighbor whose house is on fire".
 * 8) During the 1930s a militaristic Japan invaded and brutalized Manchura in 1933 and China in 1937 as it sought military and economic domination over Asia.
 * 9) The US refused to recognize Japanese conquests in Asia and imposed an embargo on exports of oil and steel to Japan.
 * 10) While negotiating with the US and without warning, Japan carried out an air attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941.
 * 11) The attack by Japan destroyed much of the American Pacific fleet and killed several thousands of Americans.
 * 12) FDR called the Japanese attack "a date that will live in infamy" as he asked Congress to declare war on Japan.
 * 13) After Pearl Harbor, Hitler honored a pact with Japan and declared war on the US.
 * 14) America and its allies (Britain and the Soviet Union after being invaded by Germany), followed a "defeat Hitler 1st" strategy.
 * 15) When the US entered WWII, most American military resources were targeted for Europe.
 * 16) In the Pacific, American military strategy called for an "island hopping" campaign, seized islands closer and closer to Japan and using them as bases for air attacks on Japan, and cutting off Japanese supplies through submarine warfare against Japanese shipping.