Question | Answer |
Great Depression | a global economic crisis that struck countries around the world in the 1930s |
stock market | an organization where shares of stocks in companies are "traded" (bought and sold) |
Nazis | a German political party that favored autocratic government, territorial expansion, anti-Semitism, and Aryan (Caucasian, blue-eyed blonde Northern Europeans) supremacy |
anti-Semitism | discrimination, prejudice, or hostility toward Jews |
genocide | the planned killing of a race of people |
Holocaust | the Nazis' effort to wipe out the Jewish people in WWII |
United Nations | an international organization of countries that promotes peace and security around the world |
Black Tuesday stock market crash | US event that triggered the Great Depression |
Joseph Stalin | dictator of the Soviet Union who made all economic decisions, restricted religious worship, and used secret police to spy on people |
Benito Mussolini | Italian dictator who suspended freedom of speech and trial by jury |
Adolf Hitler | German dictator who banned all political parties except the Nazi party and attempted to eliminate "inferior" races |
Germany and Italy | European countries whose invasions of other countries in the 1930s started Europe on the road to war |
Poland | Hitler's invasion of this country on September 1, 1939 triggered WWII |
Axis Powers | alliance formed by Germany, Italy, and Japan |
Allies | alliance formed by France and Great Britain and later joined by the Soviet Union and the US |
D-Day June 6, 1944 | date the Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France and began to advance on Germany |
atomic bombs | powerful new US weapons whose use caused Japan to surrender and end WWII |
United States | country whose banks and businesses loaned European countries money to recover from and rebuild after WWI |
France and Great Britain | countries that declared war on Germany and officially started WWII |