World+War+II

=World War II= Will Jahnke

World War II is considered the largest and most fatal war in all of history with a death toll of over 70 million military forces and civilians. The war started on September 1rst, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland trying to establish a superpower of German citizens all across Europe. After the invasion of Poland, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

In 1939, Japan, Germany, and Italy all joined force to establish the Axis Powers. In 1941, Russia joined the Allies when German force invaded the eastern part of Russia along with the United States who was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

On May 8, 1945, the Allied forces conquered the German capital of Berlin after the surrender of the Axis Army. Russia was first to invade Berlin and found that Adolf Hitler had comitted suicide inside his secret bunker in Berlin. Japan also surrendered after the fall of Germany on August 15, 1945 when the American Army took control of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the first nuclear bombing in history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

=Axis Powers= The Axis Powers consisted mainly of Germany led by Adolf Hitler, Japan led by Hirohito, Italy led by Benito Mussolini, and many other countries such as Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Russia was originally part of the Axis Powers in the beginning of the war, but turned sides against Germany when a non-aggression pact was broken and was invaded by German forces.

=Allies= The Allied forces of World War II included France, Great Britain, United States, along with several other countries. France and the United Kingdom were the first to declare war on Germany, while the Russia and the U.S. joined a few years later during the war. Russia led by Joseph Stalin, United States led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Great Britain led by Winston Churchill were among the top three countries to fight and lower the numbers of the German army. These three countries were known as "The Big Three."

=The War Itself= Most of the war was fought along the border of France and Belgium where the German Army tried to invade France and take over Poland. This war was the first war to use "trench-warfare", where trenches were used to protects soldiers from enemy fire. Most of the trenches between enemies were a couple hundred yards away with the middle being what was called "No Man's Land", where mortars and bullets were fired without cover. On the other side of Europe, the Russians were trying to defend their borders from the German forces also. When the Russian army was being greatly depleted by the German army, they would retreat back into their country with the Germans following them. Because the Germans did not know the severity of Russia's winters, many German soldiers died because they were too far away from their homeland to get supplies to stay alive during the long winter months. And along the borders of Japan, American force were trying to take over the beaches of Iwo Jima to help support their Russian Allies by distracting the Japanese forces on their homeland. After the Allies were finished with what they called "The Manhattan Project", which was a large group of people from allied countries who helped build the first nuclear bomb, two cities in Japan were dropped to show what the U.S. and it's allies were capable of. These fights against the Germans and Japanese slowly led to their surrender, which it turn ended the war.

=Aftermath= Much of the deaths of World War II were innocent civilians. Whether is be the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Jews in the Holocaust. With a combined civilian death toll of both sides, the number of people killed was over 49 million people. The Holocaust was probably the most known death cause of World War II and affected the lives of not only Jewish people, but people who were trying to help the Jews also. Millions of soldiers were killed as well, but the number is nowhere near the number of civilians. The total number of soldiers killed from both the Allies and the Axis powers is over 24 million, less than half the number of civilians killed.