World War II
Fascism's rise, two theaters of war fought an ocean apart, and a home front and atomic decision that changed the postwar world.
7 topics · 22 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
Fascism Rises and America Moves from Neutrality
- How it worksHow did Lend-Lease let the US arm Britain and the Soviet Union while still officially staying neutral?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't appeasement at Munich in 1938 something that actually satisfied Hitler's ambitions?
- How it worksShow me Hitler's Germany annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia before invading Poland in 1939 without early resistance.
Your turn1 of 2
Germany emerged from World War I saddled with war debt and reparations, then was further battered by the Great Depression. Within a decade, it had built the most aggressive military in Europe. How did a country this devastated manage that?Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Island-Hopping Campaign
- How it worksShow me the island-hopping strategy skipping over heavily defended Japanese islands to seize weaker ones instead.
- Going furtherWhat happens to Japan's supply lines each time the US Navy captures another island closer to Japan itself.
- Worked exampleTrace the roughly 2,400 American deaths at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, against the fleet damage that day.
Your turn1 of 2
On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, thousands of miles from Japan's own shores. Why did Japan take that gamble?The European Theater and D-Day
- How it worksShow me the D-Day invasion landing five separate beaches in Normandy on June 6, 1944.
- Worked exampleTrace Allied forces pushing from the Normandy beaches to liberating Paris in about eleven weeks.
- How it worksWalk me through how the Soviet Union's Eastern Front tied down the bulk of Germany's army long before D-Day.
Your turn1 of 2
By 1944, Allied forces had been fighting their way up the Italian peninsula for months against difficult, mountainous terrain. Why did the Allies need to open an entirely new front in France instead of just pushing north from Italy?The Holocaust
- How it worksShow me the Nazi system escalating step by step from boycotts and ghettos to deportation and death camps.
- How it worksWalk me through how the rail network built for trade got repurposed to carry victims to camps like Auschwitz.
- Worked exampleTrace how the Holocaust killed roughly 6 million Jews, about two-thirds of Europe's prewar Jewish population.
Your turn1 of 2
Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews moved over several years from legal discrimination and boycotts, to forced ghettos, to organized mass murder in death camps. Why did this escalate from discrimination into a plan for mass murder rather than stopping at discrimination?The Home Front and Women Workers
- How it worksShow me the share of women in the manufacturing workforce climbing once men left for the military after 1941.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't Rosie the Riveter's factory job something most women were allowed to keep once the war ended?
- How it worksHow did rationing coupons and war bond drives turn every household into part of the war effort.
Your turn1 of 2
Before the war, most American factories refused to hire women for industrial jobs. Once the war began, millions of women took exactly those jobs. Why did factories that had turned women away now hire them?Japanese American Internment
- How it worksShow me the map of internment camps where Japanese Americans from the West Coast were forcibly relocated after 1942.
- How it worksWalk me through how Executive Order 9066 gave the military the power to remove an entire ethnic group from the coast.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't internment something the government's own wartime evidence ever actually justified as a security need?
Your turn1 of 2
Starting in 1942, the US government forcibly relocated and imprisoned over 100,000 Japanese Americans, most of them US citizens, without charging any of them with a crime. Why did the government do this?The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
- How it worksShow me the Manhattan Project's chain from splitting an atom in a lab to a working bomb in under four years.
- Going furtherWhat happens to the balance of world power once only one country holds a working atomic bomb.
- Worked exampleTrace the roughly 70,000 to 140,000 deaths at Hiroshima against Japan's surrender announced days after Nagasaki.
- Ties togetherHow does the atomic bomb's first use in 1945 set the stage for the arms race the Cold War runs on?
Your turn1 of 2
In August 1945, President Truman authorized dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, weapons capable of killing more people in one blast than any bomb before them. Why did he choose to use it?