Term | Definition |
**"Good Neighbor" Policy** | Renounced any nation's right to intervene in affairs of another - FDR removed troops from Haiti/Dominican Republic, terminated Platt Amendment |
Cuba economic crisis 1933 | Instead of sending marines, FDR sent indirect aid to revolt's Fulgencio Batista |
Mexico's oil policy | Nationalized oil companies owned by US and British corporations. No US intervention, compromised with Mexico |
**Benito Mussolini | Italy's dictator 1922-'43 - Invaded Ethiopia 1935, persecuted Jews in 1938 |
**Adolf Hitler** | Germany's chancellor Jan 1933. Nazi Party gained support as result of depression. "Purified" nation of Jews |
Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia), Czechoslovakia, Poland | Taken over by Germany in 1935, 38 |
Neville Chamberlain | British prime minister |
Appeasement | Policy stating that Germany had no more territorial ambitions in return for not another war |
Manchuria | Chinese province taken over by Japan in 1931 before calling full war and taking over major parts |
Neutrality Acts 1935-1937 | Outlawed arms sales/loans to nations in war |
Louis Ludlow Amendment | Proposed but failed amendment for no US declaration of war unless direct attack |
1936 Olympics | Held in Berlin, Jesse Owens (Black US runner) mocked Nazi myth of racial superiority |
Joseph Stalin and German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact | Hitler agreement with Soviet leader to not fight and would divide Poland after Germany invasion |
Nuremberg Laws of 1935 | Got rid of Jewish German citizenship, increased Jews' restrictions on education, social, economic life |
St Louis | Vessel with 900 Jew refugees wanted to dock in Florida, Immigration officials disagreed, sent back to Germany where 700 were killed |
Danzig | Polish city demanded back by Germans, but denied. Nazi troops went into Poland Sep 1939. British and French declared war on Germany |
Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and Britain | Overwhelmed by Nazis (1940) after US began to sell weapons to belligerents |
Winston Churchill** | British New Prime Minister, wanted more US aid 1940 after Luftwaffe German attacks destroyed Coventry |
Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis | Forces fighting against Allies |
Election of 1940 | FDR w/ other Democrat Henry Wallace v Republican Wendell Willkie |
Selective Service and Training Act | First ever peacetime draft in US history |
America First Committee | Isolationism's national voice - financed by Ford, Lindbergh was most popular speaker (against war) |
Lend-Lease Program** | Supply war material to Britain |
Atlantic Charter** | Issued by Churchill and FDR: No international aggression, yes national self-determination, endorsed principles of free trade, disarmament, collective security |
Reuben James | Sunk by U-boat, killed 115 Americans. Pushed FDR to ask Congress for permission to use merchant ships into war zones (no more Neutrality Acts) |
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere | Japan desiring this empire made of much of China, Southeast Asia, western Pacific |
General Hideki Toji | Expansionist who replaced Japanese prime minister. Wanted to attack US in 1941 because of halt on trade with Japan |
Pearl Harbor on Oahu | Dive-bombed and torpedoed by Japan on December 7, 1941. Opened up Japanese attacks on Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong |
US declaration of war against Japan | December 8, 1941 |
German declaration of war against US | December 11, 1941 |
War Powers Act | Congress granted president unprecedented authority over all aspects of war |
Joint Chiefs of Staff | Army, Navy, Army Air Force |
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) | Conduct espionage required for strategic planning |
The War Production Board (WPB) | Gave materials, limited production, distributed contracts |
War Manpower Commission (WMC) | Watched mobilization of men/women in war, agriculture, and industry |
National War Labor Board (NWLB) | Figured our disputes between management and labor |
**Office of Price Administration (OPA) | Rationed extra products, placed price/rent to check inflation. President took over these to slow inflation at end of war |
John L Lewis - United Mine Workers (UMW) | led 1/2M coal-field workers out of pits - were striking (rare). States passed laws to limit union power |
Smith Connally War Labor Disputes Act | Empowered president to take over any facility where strikes interrupted war production |
Wildcat strikes | Strikes not authorized by union leaders, only lasted small time |
War bonds | Provided almost half of the money to finance the war |
Revenue Act of 1942 | Raised top-income tax 60% to 94%, imposed income taxes on middle/low class for first tiem |
Wizard War | Nickname Churchill have to the war (scientific/tech/medical developments) |
Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) | Developed new ordnance and military medicine. |
Mark I and ENIAC | Computing machines that increased the accuracy of artillery |
Insecticides and DDT | Killed malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Medical improvements help improved life overall |
Manhattan Project | Albert Einstein (Jewish refugee) warned Roosevelt of German atomic fission and bombs. Project used Urainium and Plutonium, Dropped a bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico's desert. |
Office of War Information (OWI) | Employed more than 4k artists, writers, advertisers to explain war, counter enemy propaganda (pushed people to defeat enemy) |
Operation TORCH | American troops landed in North Africa, trapped Germans/Italians eastward while British pushed west. 260K German/Italian troops surrender |
Wehrmacht | Name for the German Army |
Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943 | Russians defended Russia from Germans |
**Operation OVERLORD - June 6, 1944 | AKA DDay - 200K American/British w/ infantry stormed Normandy coast in largest invasion in history - led by Eisenhower. |
**Battle of the Bulge - December 1944 | Named after 80 mi x 50mi gap in American lines - last resort Germans were defeated |
Battle of Midway June 1942 | US broke Japanese naval code, knew plans. Carriers/planes beat Japanese, taking them to a defensive position |
Battles of Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf | After island-hopping from Australia to philippines, navy annihilated rest of Japanese fleet - controlled Japan's air/shipping lanes |
Election of 1944 | Harry S Truman replaced liberal Henry A Wallace from VP ticket. FDR barely beat Thomas E Dewey (Republican) |
**Rosie the Riveter | Became the idealistic symbol of the woman war worker |
Women's Army Corps (WACs) and Navy's Women Appointed for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) | Replaced men in noncombat jobs (mechanics/ radio/ mapmakers/ ferry pilots) |
Office of Scientific Research and Development | Sent $100B to Western universities |
Pocket Book Company | Introduced paperbacks in 1939, Armed Services Editions reprinted paperback reprints and distributed free to soldiers |
NAACP | Membership 10x to 1/2M in 1945, Pressed for no poll tax/ lynching/ discrimination/ disfranchisement |
Smith v Allwright (1944) | Texas all-white primary declared unconstitutional, other southern states affected but used other devices to minimize black votes |
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) (1942) | Sought to desegregate public places in north |
**A Philip Randolph** | Called for "thundering march" of 100K, threatening Washington if FDR did not end discrimination (Ex Order 8802) |
Executive Order 8802 | Prohibited discriminatory employment practices by agencies / unions & companies in war-related work, established Fair Employment Practices Commission |
761st Tank Battalion / 99th Pursuit Squadron | All black military groups that won distinction in fighting against Germany |
Detroit 1943 | City where black and white mobs and property was destroyed for over 30 hours |
National Congress of Native Americans (1944) | Created to end campaign for ending reservations / trust protections - discriminated in mainstream towns |
**Braceros | Temporary Mexican workers imported w/ an agreement with Mexico - encouraged illegal immigration desperate for employment |
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) | Returning Mexican-American GI's joined these anti-discrimination groups to press for equal rights |
Veteran's Benevolent Association (1945) | First organization in US to fight against homosexual discrimination |
Internment of Japanese Americans | 40 years of anti-Japanese sentiment in West coast |
Executive order 9066 | Authorized removal of military areas of anyone seen as threat. Military ordered eviction of all native/foreign born Japanese-Americans from the West (except Hawaii) |
Korematsu v US (1944) | Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of evacuation of Japanese to camps in this case. Slowly after, gov began program to begin gradual release and give Japs rights |
Personal Justice Denied | Report apologizing to Japanese and blaming Roosevelt's administration for race prejudice of Japanese. 1988, Congress gave $20K to all surviving internees |
Fred Korematsu | Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 by Clinton for protesting evacuation of Japanese |
The Yalta Conference (February 1945) and Yalta accords | FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met in Soviet city. Stalin vowed to declare war on Japan 2-3 months after Germany's surrender. FDR and Churchill promised to give back territories it had lost in Ruso-Japanese War (1904) |
United Nations | Agreed to a founding conference in San Francisco 1945 |
April 30, May 2, May 8 1945 | Hitler committed suicide / Berlin fell to Soviets / German gov surrendered unconditionally |
V-E Day | Victory in Europe in May 8, 1945 (Roosevelt died April 12) |
Harry S Truman | FRD successor, not familiarized with FRD policies. Attack Molotov (Russian ambassador) to cut off aid, Stalin ignored promises he made at Yalta |
Potsdam Conference (July-August) | Arranged postwar ideas begun at Yalta, barely agreed on how to punish Germany. Truman ordered use of atomic bomb if no Japanese surrender before August 3 |
Holocaust | Pushed military to speed winning of war. 1944, US planes flew over Auschwitz and bombed factories, ignored gas chambers |
War Refugee Board | Managed to save 220K Jews and non-Jews, other 6M Jews, gypsies, communists, gays were killed |
Okinawa / Iwo Jima | Japaneses cities invaded by US troops, high casualty rate |
Potsdam Declaration (July 26, 1945) | Truman warned Japan to surrender unconditionally, Japan refused |
Hiroshima / Nigasaki | Enola Gay and Bock's Car flew uranium and plutonium bombs that killed around 150K people |