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AC-Ch.18: U.S at War
Am. Cultures - Ch.18: U.S at War
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Selective Training and Service Act | 1940 law requiring all males aged 21 to 36 to register for military service |
GI | Term used for American soldiers in WWII, derived from the term "Government Issue" |
Office of War Mobilization | Federal agency formed to coordinate issues related to war production during WWII |
Liberty ship | A type of large, sturdy merchant ship built in WWII |
Victory garden | A home vegetable garden created to boost food production during WWII |
Atlantic Charter | Agreement signed by President FDR and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941 outlining the two nations' war aims |
Carpet bombing | Method of aerial bombing in which large numbers of bombs are dropped over a wide area |
D-Day | Code name for the allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944 |
Battle of the Bulge | WWII battle in which German forces launched a final counterattack in the west |
Anti-Semitism | Hostility or discrimination toward Jews |
Holocaust | Nazi Germany's systematic attempt to murder all European Jews |
Concentration camp | A place where political prisoners are confined, usually under harsh conditions |
Kristallnacht | The name given to the night of violence on November 9, 1938, when Nazi storm troopers looted and destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues and arrested thousands of Jews in Germany and Austria |
Warsaw ghetto | An area of Warsaw sealed off by the Nazis to confine the Jewish population, forcing them into poor, unsanitary conditions |
Wannsee Conference | 1942 conference in Germany concerning the plan to murder European Jews |
Death camp | In WWII, a German camp created solely for the purpose of mass murder |
War Refugee Board (WRB) | Federal agency created in 1944 to try to help people threatened with murder by the Nazis |
Nuremberg Trials | Series of trials in 1945 conducted by an International Military Tribunal in which former Nazi leaders were charged with crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes |
Bataan Death March | Brutal march of American and Filipino prisoners by Japanese soldiers in 1942 |
Geneva Convention | A set of international standards of conduct for treating prisoners of war, established in 1929 |
Battle of the Coral Sea | 1942 WWII battle between American and Japanese aircraft |
Battle of Midway | 1942 WWII battle between the U.S. and Japan, a turning point in the war in the Pacific |
Battle of Guadalcanal | 1942-1943 WWII battle between the U.S. and Japan |
Island-hopping | A military strategy used during WWII that involved selectively attacking specific enemy-held islands and bypassing others |
Battle of Leyte Gulf | 1944 WWII naval battle between the U.S. and Japan |
Kamikaze | In WWII, a Japanese suicide plane |
Battle of Iwo Jima | 1945 WWII battle between the U.S. and Japan |
Battle of Okinawa | 1945 WWII battle between the U.S. and Japan |
Manhattan Project | Secret American program during WWII to develop an atomic bomb |
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) | Organization founded by pacifists in 1942 to promote racial equality through peaceful means |
Bracero | A term used in 1942 to describe Mexican farm laborers brought to the U.S. |
Barrio | A Spanish-speaking neighborhood |
Interned | Confined |
Nisei | A Japanese American whose parents were born in Japan |