There is so much that can be said about World War 2 – enough to fill several volumes of books. Below, you will find several of the more important facts concerning the war, as well as some other interesting pieces of information about the war.
This war was fought from 1939-1945, although the United States didn’t enter the war until December 1941. It truly was a worldwide war that encompassed most of the world’s nations.
It was considered the deadliest conflict in human history. If you add up all the military and civilian deaths on both sides of the conflict, it adds up to more than 73 million people, according to some estimates. This, of course, includes the 11 million people that were killed during the Nazi mass killings, known as the Holocaust, of which about 6 million were Jewish people – it changed international perceptions of the Jewish people and led to successful efforts to finally establish a Jewish state, known as Israel.
Although the United States did not enter the war until December 1941, which was when Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, many historians date the official beginning of the war in Europe to September 1939, more than two years earlier. This was when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and France and the United Kingdom reacted by declaring war on Germany.
Many historians date the beginning of the Asian side of the war to even earlier, to July 1937, almost 4 1/2 years before the U.S. entered the war. This is when China and Japan went to war, which was actually the second time they went to war against each other since the beginning of that decade.
And, the wars in Europe and Asia were considered by some to be separate wars for a while, that is, until they merged into a single conflagration near the end of 1941, about the time the United States entered the war.
Battles for the war raged all over the place. Although the war can be divided generally into the European war and the Asian war, and the European war can be divided grossly into the Eastern front and the Western front, the war raged in many other places as well. There were battles in the Balkan states, Italy, East Africa, North Africa, over Britain in the air, in the Atlantic Ocean, throughout the Pacific Ocean and its numerous islands, China, Burma, the Philippines, and Japan.
Here are a few other things to consider:
In June of 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. Because of the vast number of troops, military vehicles and weaponry, historians recognize this as the largest land theater in the history of war.
On July 26th, 1945, the United States, United Kingdom, and China put out a statement, known as the Potsdam Declaration, that called Japan to completely surrender. They refused, so the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th, and on Nagasaki on August 9th, which led Japan to formally surrender by the beginning of September of that year. These are the only times that atomic or nuclear devices have ever been used during war.
Although the Asian war ended by September 1945, the European war ended about four months earlier, in May, when Germany was finally defeated, as Soviet troops moved in from the east, and Allied troops moved in from the west.
After the war, the United Nations organization was formed, with the goal of stopping future armed conflicts from happening, and helping to create more international cooperation between nations (they’re doing a terrible job of it). This organization replaced the earlier League of Nations which had similar goals.
After the war ended, and everything subsided, only the United States and the Soviet Union were left as the world’s superpowers. The rivalry that developed between both nations, and their allies, became known as the Cold War for the next four and a half decades, where both sides saw a military build-up, but neither side would act because they knew it would lead to mutually assured destruction (MAD).
Within 30 years of the end of this war, most of the nations in Africa and Asia that were controlled and governed by European nations had gained their independence. It must be noted that, although there is much independence in Africa today, the boundaries between those nations are still reminiscent of the colonial period when European powers divided Africa among themselves.
After the war, European nations moved towards integration between nations, allowing for more economic and political unity. Eventually this resulted in what became known as the European Community, and later the European Union. The hope is that by being more integrated, the nations of Europe will be less likely to want to go into military conflicts with each other – the integration will be a motivation for peace.
This is all we have time for today. Please take a few moments and ponder the facts presented to you. It might help to make a world of difference, one person at a time.
