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| A totalitarian government exerts total control over a nation. It dominates every aspect of life, using terror to suppress individual rights and silence all forms of opposition. |
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| Fascism emphasizes the importance of the nation or an ethnic group and the supreme authority of the leader. |
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| In political terms, a purge is the process of removing enemies and undesirable individuals from power. |
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| Nazism was a form of fascism shaped by Hitler's fanatical ideas about German nationalism and racial superiority. |
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| In 1936, Hitler signed an alliance with the Italian dictator, Mussolini. Their agreement created what Mussolini called an “axis” between Rome and Berlin, the capitals of the two nations. Germany and Italy, joined later by Japan, became known as the Axis Powers. |
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| Giving in to a competitor's demands in order to keep the peace. |
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| Called blitzkrieg (“lightning war”), this new military tactic included a fast, concentrated air and land attack that took the enemy's army by surprise. The German stuka, a divebombing warplane, began the blitzkrieg by shattering defenses and terrorizing civilians. Then the tanks and mobile artillery of the panzer divisions punched through enemy lines, encircling and capturing opposing troops. Finally, the infantry moved in to defeat the enemy and occupy the country. |
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| The Resistance consisted of groups of French citizens whose activities ranged from distributing anti-German leaflets to sabotaging German operations in France. |
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| the group of countries who opposed the Axis Powers. Eventually, the United States and the Soviet Union would join the Allies, but at that time Great Britain stood alone. |
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| In September 1931, a Japanese army stationed in Manchuria took matters into its own hands. Claiming that Chinese soldiers had tried to blow up a railway line, they captured several cities in southern Manchuria. Chinese troops withdrew from the area. Japan's civilian government tried but failed to prevent the army from taking further action. By February 1932, the army had seized all of Manchuria. World leaders and most Japanese expressed shock at what came to be called the Manchurian Incident. |
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| Manchukuo was a puppet state, or a supposedly independent country under the control of a powerful neighbor. Japan sent more than a million farmers, entrepreneurs, and soldiers with the goal of securing Manchuria as a Japanese colony. |
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| A 700-mile-long highway linking Burma (present-day Myanmar) to China. |
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| Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere |
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| Japanese leaders took this opportunity to expand their influence in the region to its south. In 1940, Japan's prime minister announced a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to be led by the Japanese, extending from Manchuria in the north to the Dutch East Indies in the south. Japan declared it would liberate Asia from European colonizers. In reality, Japan needed the region's natural resources, especially oil and rubber, to carry on its war against China. |
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