APUSH Chapter 25 Vocabulary

The Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy of the administration of United States President Franklin Roosevelt towards Latin America. The policy's main principle was that of non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of Latin America. It also reinforced the idea that the United States would be a "good neighbor" and engage in reciprocal exchanges with Latin American countries. Overall, the Roosevelt administration expected that this new policy would create new economic opportunities in the form of reciprocal trade agreements and reassert the influence of the United States in Latin America; however, many Latin American governments were not convinced. The "Good Neighbor" Policy was established in 1933.

Munich Conference was held in Munich, Germany in September, 1938. British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany to reach peace and appease Hitler since war over Czechoslovakia seemed imminent. Hitler invited Chamberlain and French President Édouard Daladier to conference in Munich with Mussolini (but excluded representation from Czechoslovakia). Chamberlain and Daladier ended up putting pressure on the Czechoslovakia to accept Hitler's terms, which was to grant Germany to annex Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia made up of primarily ethnic Germans) and bits of territory going to Hungary and Poland. France repudiated its treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia as did USSR since neither wanted to go to war and accepted Hitler's proposition to take Sudetenland. Chamberlain returned to England waving a piece of paper and claiming "peace in our time." In early 1939, despite promising not to do so, Hitler's forces marched in a took over the rest of Czechoslovakia. The western nations were agitated but took no serious action.

The Panay incident was a Japanese attack on the American gunboat USS Panay while the ship was anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking (Nanjing), China on 12 December 1937. The Japanese and the United States were not at war at the time and the Japanese claimed that they did not see the American flags painted on the deck of the gunboat, apologized, and paid an indemnity. Nevertheless, the attack and the subsequent Allison incident in Nanking caused US opinion to turn against the Japanese. Japan bombed a American gunboat that was trying to help Americans overseas. This greatly strained U.S-Japanese relations and pushed the U.S further away from isolationism even though Japan apologized.U.S-Japanese relations and pushed the U.S further away from

The Quarantine Speech was given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 5, 1937 in Chicago, calling for an international "quarantine of the aggressor nations" as an alternative to the political climate of American neutrality and non-intervention that was prevalent at the time. The "quarantine" implied sanctions against trading or making treaties with the so called "aggressors." The speech intensified America's isolationist mood, causing protest by non-interventionists and foes to intervene. No countries were directly mentioned in the speech, although it was interpreted as referring to Japan, Italy, and Germany.

The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a United States Senate committee chaired by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye. The committee investigated the financial and banking interests which underlay United States' involvement in World War I and came to the conclusion that big businesses had conspired to have America enter WWI so that war materials could be sold and the industry would make profit (it called the bankers and arms producers "merchants of death"). The Nye Committee was a significant factor in public and political support for American neutrality in the early stages of World War II.

The Neutrality Acts were laws passed in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 to limit U.S. involvement in future wars. They were based on the widespread disillusionment with World War I in the early 1930s and the belief that the United States had been drawn into the war through loans and trade with the Allies. The 1935 act banned munitions exports to belligerents and restricted American travel on belligerent ships. The 1936 act banned loans to belligerents. The 1937 act extended these provisions to civil wars and gave the president discretionary authority to restrict non-munitions sales to a "cash‐and‐carry" basis (belligerents had to pay in advance then export goods in their own ships). (These bills were signed and publicly applauded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, although he complained privately that they limited presidential authority.) The 1939 act, passed with President Roosevelt's active support in November under the shadow of the European war, banned U.S. ships from carrying goods or passengers to belligerent ports but allowed the United States to sell munitions, although on a "cash‐and‐carry" basis. Roosevelt further eroded neutrality over the next two years, trading surplus U.S. destroyers to Britain for access to naval and air bases and providing U.S. military equipment to enemies of Germany and Japan under the Lend‐Lease Act. Congress repealed the Neutrality Acts on 13 November 1941, officially ending any form of neutrality. Although seen as the high tide of interwar isolationism, the neutrality legislation of 1935-37 had minimal impact on U.S. defense planning. The 1939 act encouraged combat testing of U.S. equipment by Allied forces, but also created shortages as U.S. production initially was unable to meet requirements of both Allies and expanding U.S. forces.

The Ludlow Amendment was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States which called for a national referendum on any declaration of war by Congress, except in cases when the United States had been attacked first. Representative Louis Ludlow (D-Indiana) introduced the amendment several times between 1935 and 1940. Supporters argued that ordinary people, who were called upon to fight and die during wartime, should have a direct vote on their country's involvement in military conflicts.

Nazi-Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact signed between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union in Moscow. The pact's publicly stated intentions were a guarantee of non-belligerence by each party towards the other and a commitment that neither party would ally itself to or aid an enemy of the other party. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. After the Soviet-Japanese ceasefire agreement took effect on 16 September, Stalin ordered his own invasion of Poland on 17 September. Stalin agreed to this policy because he believed it would delay Germany fighting Russia (Russia was unprepared for immediate war at that point). Hitler would be too busy fighting the Western Powers and would leave Russia to fight at a better time. Germany promised not to interfere if the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland, Bessarabia, Latvia and Estonia.

Cash and carry was a policy requested by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a special session of the United States Congress on September 21, 1939, subsequent to the outbreak of war in Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1939. The revision allowed the sale of materiel to belligerents, as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash, assuming all risk in transportatio

Secretary of War during War World II who took charge of raising and training 13 million soldiers and airmen, supervised the spending of a third of the nation's GDP on the Army and the Air Forces, helped formulate military strategy, and took personal control of building and using the atomic bomb. Also serving as Secretary of State during the Hoover presidency, he issued the Stimson Doctrine, which announced American opposition to Japanese expansion in Asia.

The election between Roosevelt (Democrat) vs. Wendell Wilkie (Republican). The election was won by Roosevelt in a land slide due to his popularity and the dawning of war. Opponents of FDR claimed he was "maneuvering" US into another European war and FDR had to assure that the US would not be going into another European war. After election, however, the "lend-lease" policy replaces the "cash-and-carry" policy as U.S. became more intervening. The 1940 election was also the first time a president was elected for a third term.

Pres. Roosevelt pressured Congress to pass this act in 1940, which provided for all American males between the ages of 21 to 35 to register for compulsory military service. This was the first time a peacetime military draft had been initiated, signaling that the president's stance was shifting from isolationism to interventionism. This act was expanded to include all 18 to 65-year-old male when the United States entered World War II with declaration of war on Japan.

The America First Committee (AFC) was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 paid members in 450 chapters, it was one of the largest anti-war organizations in American history. Started on September 4, 1940, it was dissolved on December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the war to America. The committee consisted of influential figures such as: Charles Lindbergh, General Hugh Johnson, Senator Gerald Nye, and Senator Burton Wheeler.

The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled "An Act to Further Promote the Defense of the United States" was a program under which the United States supplied France, Great Britain, the Republic of China, and later the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. In general the aid was free, although some hardware (such as ships) were returned after the war. In return, the U.S. was given leases on bases in Allied territory during the war. A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $656 billion today) worth of supplies were shipped, nearly 20% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.

It was drafted by the leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States, and later agreed to by all the Allies of World War II. The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war: 1. no territorial expansion (end to colonialism) 2.no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people 3. restoration of self-government to those deprived of it 4. reduction of trade restrictions 5. global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all 7. freedom from fear and want 8. freedom of the seas 8. and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. Ultimately, the Charter sought a more Democratic world order and in the declaration by United Nations, the Allies pledged adherence to this charter's principles.

Yellow Peril (sometimes Yellow Terror) was a color metaphor for race, namely the theory that Asian peoples are a mortal danger to the rest of the world. The fear of Asian immigration and Japan's rising military power added directly to the competitive atmosphere. Within the United States, the concern lied in the fact that Chinese and Japanese were taking away American jobs and beginning to dominate the West coast. In response, the American government had already started restricting Chinese and Japanese immigration.

FDR put an embargo on Japan as a reaction to imperialism in China and freezes any assets coming from the U.S to Japan. U.S. sends a letter urging them to withdraw from China and receives a defiant reply. FDR takes this to mean that war is imminent. The next day, there is a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor with over 2000 dead, loss of a lot of the Pacific Fleet. The hope was that USA would back out facing heavy casualties with the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, this initiated the United States to actually declare war on Japan, officially making the U.S. side with the Allied forces.

The War Powers Act of 1941, also known as the First War Powers Act, was an American emergency law that increased Federal power during World War II. The act was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and put into law less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The act gave the President enormous authority to execute World War II in an efficient manner. The president was authorized to reorganize the executive branch, independent government agencies, and government corporations for the war cause. With the act, the President was allowed to censor mail and other forms of communication between the United States and foreign countries. Three months after passing the first, the Second War Powers Act was passed on March 27, 1942. This further strengthened the executive branch powers towards executing World War II. This act allowed the acquisition, under condemnation if necessary, of land for military or naval purposes.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President of the United States on military matters. The composition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is defined by statute and consists of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VCJCS), and the Military Service Chiefs from the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Marine Corps, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, all appointed by the President following Senate confirmation. The JCS was created in response to WWII for effective defense budgeting and planning.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS was formed in order to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for the branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other functions of the OSS included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning. The OSS was dissolved in in 1945 but the CIA soon formed 2 years later in September 18, 1947.

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. Designed by American architect, George Bergstrom, the Pentagon was completed in 1943 when Stimson complained that the War Department needed more space and a well-coordinated building for legislation. With U.S. involved in WWII, it was agreed that a new building was necessary and Congress and FDR both approved of the establishment of the Pentagon.

The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it on January 16, 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board and the Office of Production Management. The WPB directed conversion of industries from peacetime work to war needs, allocated scarce materials, established priorities in the distribution of materials and services, and prohibited nonessential production. It rationed such commodities as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper and plastics. Although the WPB played a big role in helping the United States ensure a victory, it was ultimately dissolved after the Japanese defeat.

The Office of Price Administration (OPA) was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money (price controls) and rents after the outbreak of World War II. The OPA was very strict in ensuring that the inflation and overproduction would not result, hoping to avoid the same effects as WWI (i.e. The Great Depression).

The National War Labor Board (NWLB) was a United States federal agency created in two different incarnations, the first by President Woodrow Wilson from 1918-19 during World War I and the second by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1942-45 during World War II. In both cases the board's purpose was to arbitrate disputes between workers and employers in order to ensure labor reliability and productivity during the war. By preventing potential strikes, the production was maximized and more people were employed with additional benefits.

The Office of War Mobilization (OWM) was an independent agency of the United States government formed during World War II to coordinate all government agencies involved in the war effort. It was formed on May 27, 1943 by Executive Order 9347. Headed by James F. Byrnes, the demands of OWM was responsible for maximum war efforts and advised the government, war industries, and the general public.

Byrnes was an American politician from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a U.S. Representative (1911-1925), a U.S. Senator (1931-1941), a Justice of the Supreme Court (1941-1942), Secretary of State (1945-1947), and as governor of South Carolina (1951-1955). Being one of the very few politicians to serve in all three branches of the American federal government and being active in state government, Byrnes was a confidant of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was one of the most powerful men in American domestic and foreign policy in the mid-1940s. He was often referred to as Franklin Roosevelt's "Assistant President" because he worked closely with him.

The Smith-Connally Act (also called the War Labor Disputes Act) was an American law passed on June 25, 1943, over President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto. The legislation was hurriedly created after 400,000 coal miners after having their wages significantly lowered due to high wartime inflation, formed a strike for a $2-a-day wage increase. The Act allowed the federal government to seize and operate industries threatened by or under strikes that would interfere with war production, and prohibited unions from making contributions in federal elections. The Act was passed with main concern for maximizing war production.

He was a miner known for creating the United Mined Workers. He helped found the CIO and was responsible for the Fair Labor Standards Act. The CIO established the United Steel Workers of America and helped organize millions of other industrial workers in the 1930s. After resigning as head of the CIO in 1941, he took the Mine Workers out of the CIO in 1942 and in 1944 took the union into the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

The Manhattan Project was the code name given to the development of the US atomic bomb during World War II (backed by United Kingdom and Canada). Work on the bomb was carried out in great secrecy by a team including US physicists Enrico Fermi and J. Robert Oppenheimer. The first test took place on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the next month the US Air Force dropped bombs on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 - February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is among the persons who are often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico; Oppenheimer remarked later that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II to consolidate existing government information services and deliver propaganda both at home and abroad. OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad.

The Office of Censorship was an emergency wartime agency set up on December 19, 1941 to aid in the censorship of all communications coming into and going out of the United States. All letters or any other form of communications going to and from the United States were examined. The government worked with publishers and broadcasters to suppress information that might damage the war effort.

The Normandy landings (code-named Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the invasion of German-occupied western Europe, led to the liberation of France from Nazi control, and contributed to an Allied victory in the war. 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight as more than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft began the assault on west Europe.

The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 - 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. Hitler planned the offensive with a surprise attack that caught the Allied forces completely off guard. United States forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties for any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces on the western front which Germany was largely unable to replace. German personnel and Luftwaffe aircraft also sustained heavy losses. The Allies were finally able to stop the German advance and threw them back across the Rhine but suffered heavy losses as well.

MacArthur (1880-1964) was the U.S. General.Commander of U.S. (later Allied) forces in the southwestern Pacific during World War II. He accepted Japan's surrender in 1945 and was put in charge of reassembling Japan back together. MacArthur was also in charge of UN forces in Korea (1950-51), where he took actions that went against his superiors (primarily Truman). An angered Truman removed MacArthur from his commands.

Nimitz was the United States Admiral of the Pacific Fleet during World War II. Under Nimitz, the Navy decoded Japanese naval codes, planning to knock out the American fleet and instead was able to destroy the Japanese ships instead. Being the major force in the Pacific seas, he was the one who directed the U.S. victories at Midway, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

The Battle of Midway was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theatre of world War II.Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy on Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating and irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. The destruction/sinking of 4 large carriers meant that the Japanese defeat in the Pacific was imminent.

Largest naval battle of World War II. Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) mobilized nearly all of its remaining major naval vessels in an attempt to defeat the Allied invasion but failed to achieve its objective and suffered very heavy losses. Losing all of its ships, Japan never sailed to battle in comparable force after the battle at Leyte Gulf. This was first battle in which Japanese aircraft began carrying out organized kamikaze attacks.

A wartime conference held at Casablanca, Morocco that was attended by De Gaulle, Churchill, and FDR. The conference addressed the specifics of tactical procedure, allocation of resources and the broader issues of diplomatic policy. The Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of the Axis (Casablanca Declaration), agreed to aid the Soviets, agreed on the invasion of Italy, and the joint leadership of the Free French by De Gaulle and Giraud. The idea of unconditional surrender marked the Allie's determination that the Axis powers would be fought to their ultimate defeat and annihilation.

The Cairo Conference (code-named Sextant) outlined the Allied position against Japan during World War II and made decisions about postwar Asia. The meeting was attended by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek of China (Stalin did not attend the conference because of the pact between Japan and the Soviets). The Allies announced their intention was to seek Japan's unconditional surrender and to strip Japan of all territory it had gained since WWI.

The Tehran Conference (code-named Eureka) was a strategy meeting held between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943 (first WWII conferences held between all of the "Big Three" Allied leaders). Although all three of the leaders present arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the commitment to the opening of a second front against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies. The conference also addressed relations between the Allies and Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan as well as a basic post-war settlement.

Roosevelt replaced his VP with Harry Truman and ran for a fourth term against Republican Thomas Dewey. The election was set in the backdrop of World War II, which was going well for the United States and its Allies. Roosevelt had already served longer than any other president, but remained popular. Dewey, the Governor of New York, campaigned against the New Deal and for a smaller government, but was ultimately unsuccessful in convincing the country to change course. FDR, once again, based on his popularity, won by a landslide.

Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military. Rosie the Riveter is commonly used as a symbol of feminism and women's economic power.

The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554. It provided non-combatant jobs such as clerical work, instructing, transport, etc. to women in the Army. The WAC was disbanded in 1978, and all units were integrated with male units.

WAVES was established on 30 July 1942 as a World War II division of the U.S. Navy, that consisted entirely of women. On 12 June 1948, women gained permanent status in the armed services of the United States. The name was an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" but the word "emergency" implied that the acceptance of women was due to the unusual circumstances of World War II and at the end of the war the women would not be allowed to continue in Navy careers. Despite the such belief, the WAVES continued on and although it official name was U.S. Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), the nickname WAVES stuck. Although never directly facing combat, these women supported the war effort by flying supply missions, decoding codes, and repairing machines.

Nonviolent civil rights organization founded in 1942 and committed to the "Double V"—victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. After World War II, CORE would become a major force in the civil rights movement. Though still existent, CORE has been much less influential since the end of the 1955-68 civil rights movement.

Randolph was a civil-rights activist who widely sought black rights during WWII. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African American labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington Movement, which convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully pressured President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services.

The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was established to implement the US Executive Order 8802, which required that companies with government contracts not discriminate on the basis of race or religion. It was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in the home front industry during World War II.

During WWI, Native Americans from the Navajo tribe used their own language to make a code for the U.S. military in the Pacific. Since Navajo is a difficult language and spoken by only a few, the Japanese could not decipher the vital messages that were being transmitted by the American army.

In the 1940's - Riots that occurred mostly in Los Angeles, CA between white marines and young Mexican Americans. White marines thought that the dress of "zoot suits" of the Mexican Americans was un-patriotic, although about 300,000 Mexican Americans were in the armed forces. Some Mexicans thought that they would be the next "Japanese" and be taken to camps. The Armed Forces took no actions during this incident and the L.A. Police actually arrested Mexican Zoot Suit-ers, although both were responsible for the conflict.

The Veterans Benevolent Association was an organization for LGBT veterans of the United States armed forces. The VBA was founded in New York City in 1945 by four honorably discharged gay veterans. Although serving primarily as a social outlet, the VBA formed in part in response to the sense of injustice that many gay veterans felt about being given blue discharges. These discharges, so-called because they were printed on blue paper, were issued to those whose military service ended under less-than-honorable, although not dishonorable, conditions.

After Pearl Harbor, Americans fear that Japanese are spies. Executive Order 9066 gave military the power to anything necessary to keep public safety. Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the United States during WWII were sent to hastily constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" in remote portions of the nation's interior. Nearly 120,000 Japanese were put to live in specific areas due to fear of them being enemies and were ordered to confinement. The United States eventually freed the Japanese and paid the survivors a sum of $20,000.

Nisei was the term given to American-born children of Japanese immigrants. They were typically the second generation of Japanese-Americans.

Korematsu v. United States was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship. In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government, ruling that the exclusion order was constitutional. The opinion, written by Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu's individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. Although Korematsu lost the case, he was eventually awarded the Medal of Freedom for his persistence to have his rights granted.

The Yalta Conference was the World War II meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin with the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea.The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Russia agreed to declare war on Japan after the surrender of Germany and in return FDR and Churchill promised the USSR concession in Manchuria and the territories that it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War. Stalin had also promised free elections and representative government in the Soviet-held Eastern European bloc (Poland, Romania, etc.), which ultimately fed into the Cold War. For these reasons, the Yalta Conference still remains controversial.

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established 24 October 1945, to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was created following the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN aims to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues.

Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day, or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. Its purpose is to celebrate and observe the end of World War II in Europe.

The Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam from 17 July to 2 August 1945 between Stalin, Churchill (later Clement Attlee), and Truman. Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—as well as Attlee, who participated alongside Churchill—gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on 8 May (V-E Day). The 3 powers set up zones of control and warned the Japanese to surrender and that if they refused to surrender at once, they would face total destruction. Ultimately, the Potsdam Conference failed to reach meaningful agreements with actual implications as this soon led to the onset of the Cold War.

I will be disappointed if you don't know this already. Get the hell out of APUSH if you don't. But regardless... The Holocaust was the mass murdering of European Jews and other groups systematically carried out by Nazis during WWII. The US did very little to help those who were being attacked by Nazis (primarily because most were unaware that it was even going on). In relation to US, it showed how little the US was willing to help if it meant maintaining neutrality. The Holocaust also illustrated Germany's brutality towards Jews and other races. Over 6 million Jewish were killed off during the Holocaust and thousands more are still unaccounted for.

The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan during World War II to systematically exterminate the Jewish population in Nazi-occupied Europe through genocide. This policy was formulated in procedural terms at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, and culminated in the Shoah or Holocaust which saw the killing of two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe. The Nazis killed in increasing amounts as the war waned on and placed the Jewish people and other minority groups in concentration camps, death camps, and also death marches.

The American navy attacked islands held by the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean. This technique was a safer way to reach a destination (especially Japan and it's surrounding islands), rather than risking attack on the open ocean. The capture of each successive island from the Japanese brought the American navy closer to an invasion of Japan and although US never had to directly invade Japan, the Americans were closing in on the Japanese mainland by the end of the war.

The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February - 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces landed and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the entire island, including the three Japanese-controlled airfields (including the South Field and the Central Field), to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II.

The U.S. Army in the Pacific had been pursuing an "island-hopping" campaign, moving north from Australia towards Japan. On April 1, 1945, they invaded Okinawa, only 300 miles south of the Japanese home islands. By the time the fighting ended on June 2, 1945, the U.S. had lost 50,000 men and the Japanese 100,000. The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or tetsu no bōfū ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle is considered one of the bloodiest in the Pacific.

The Kamikaze ("Divine" or "spirit wind") were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Japanese against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy warships more effectively than was possible with conventional attacks. During World War II, about 3,860 kamikaze pilots were killed but only about 19% of kamikaze attacks managed to hit a ship (most were shot down long before they ever reached the carriers; others simply flat out missed).

The name of the American B-29 bomber, piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets, Jr., that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. The bomb that was dropped was coded "Little Boy," an Uranium-235 based nuclear bomb.

A heavily populated city in Japan that was the first to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945. After the explosion, about 90,000-166,000 were killed in Hiroshima.

Japanese city that was devastated during World War II when the United States dropped the second atomic bomb (coded "Fat Boy") on August 8th, 1945. About 39,000-80,000 were killed in Nagasaki. Historians debate whether or not the bombing was necessary (especially the second bombing on Nagasaki) to force Japan to surrender since the Allied victory was seemingly inevitable at that point.