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| The Iron Curtain by Chris Pillion |
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| This infamous label for the Cold War denotes the physical and ideological separation of the Communists and those opposed to them. The Berlin Wall, which divided East Germany and West Germany, was the literal symbol of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. The name came about from Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech" at Westminster College in Missouri. An "iron curtain has descended across the Continent." To the right were those countries under the Warsaw Pact and to the left were those countries under the banner of NATO. It was Communism versus Capitalism and democracy. |
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Literally "lightning war", blitzkrieg refers to the all-out, speedy, powerful military technique Hilter's army employed during WWII, which flooded enemy lines with tanks, soldiers, and machinery. It was quite effective, even helping trump France's Maginot Line in 1940.
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Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of armoured warfare and advocate of military aviation, which he considered a means to break the stalemate of trench warfare. During World War II, he reached the temporary rank of Brigadier General, leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Fall of France, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. He escaped to England and gave a famous radio address in June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. |
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| Leader of the French Resistance during Nazi occupation and later President of France. |
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| After Hitler's annexation of Austria, he decided to focus on destroying Czechoslovakia. Hitler asked for control over the Sudetenland which contained close to 3 million ethnic Germans. But more importantly, it held Czech's most imortant frontier defenses and its industrial resources. Hitler said that he would go as far as world war for it. This led to the Munich Conference with GB, France, Germany, and Italy. They decided to appease Hitler's wishes. This led to internal disorder in Czechoslovakia which caused it to become the German's puppet state called Slovakia. For Hitler, this conference once again reaffirmed the notion that the West was weak and didn't want to fight |
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| A city on the coast of North Africa where British generals stopped Hitler's commander Rommel which ended the German control of places on the Afican continent. Refocused the war effort back on Europe. |
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Post WWI German government, was a liberal democracy led by a moderate Social Democrat (Freidrich Ebert).
Doomed to failure:
-Liberal democracy was not a type of government familiar to the people of Germany
-Percieved to be imposed by Germany's vengeful war enemies
-The system was blamed for the humiliating nature of the Treaty of Versailles
-Major economic problems that could nt support war reparations |
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| "The Master Race," blonde hair & blue eyes, played into Nazi eugenics and the attempt to create a perfect race. |
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Explain the Battle of Britain and its results.
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| Hitler understood that air superiority was important to his success. He unleashed his luftwaffe upon Britian in order to take control of the skies to allow an amphibious invasion. They targeted military targets such as air and naval bases, communication centers, harbors, and war industries. The British put up a difficult fight as they benefited from a radar system and the breaking of German military codes which allowed them to predict where and when attacks were coming. However, the British were most likely going to lose until Hitler changed his focused to the cities in order to hurt British morale. The British were then able to rebuild their airforce and ultimately win the battle so that Germany had to put off a land invasion. |
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| Suprise bombing of the American pacific fleet in Hawaii. brought America into the war on the side of the allies and truly put the war on a global scale when Germany and Italy declared war on the United States after the incident |
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| Midway has since been regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of WWII, because at this battle the U.S. defeated the Japanese Navy upon their attack on Midway Atoll. With Japan's defeat they also lost four of six fleet carriers,along with a large number of aircrew; successfully the U.S. ended Japanese expansion in the Pacific at this battle. |
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| A fascist dictator from Italy who rose to power during the 1920s. He gradually achieved success over many years, and eventually became dictator thanks to the weakness of the Italian government and his own desires. Violence was a huge part of his strategy; he believed that by intimidating the citizens using violence he could gain their support. But, his regime was not as dictatorial as many would think. He had little or no power over some government organizations, such as the military. Hitler, who came after Mussolini, was more successful in gaining control of the entire country of Germany. |
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