study guide terms

Question 1

Battle of Britain

Answer 1

a series of battles between German and British air forces, fought over Britain in 1940-41

Question 2

Battle of the Bulge

Answer 2

a 1944-45 battle in which Allies forces turned back the last major German offensive of WW2

Question 3

D-Day

Answer 3

the day on which the Allies began their invasion of the European mainland during WW2

Question 4

Nuremberg Trials

Answer 4

a series of court proceedings held in Nuremberg, Germany, after WW2, in which Nazi leaders were tried for aggression, violations of the rules of war, and crimes against humanity

Question 5

Blitzkrieg

Answer 5

“lightning war”- a form of warfare in which surprise attacks with fast-moving airplanes are followed by massive attacks with infantry forces

Question 6

Kamikaze

Answer 6

during WW2, Japanese suicide pilots trained to sink Allied ships by crashing bomb-filled planes into them

Question 7

Kristallnacht

Answer 7

“Night of Broken Glass”- the night of November 9, 1938, on which Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues throughout Germany

Question 8

Holocaust

Answer 8

a mass slaughter of Jews and other civilians, carried out by the Nazi government of Germany before and during WW2

Question 9

December 7, 1941

Answer 9

the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Question 10

June 6, 1944

Answer 10

D-Day, the day the Allied forces launched the Normandy landings in France during WW2

Question 11

Operation Torch

Answer 11

an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, against German General Erwin Rommel

Question 12

Operation Husky

Answer 12

otherwise known as the Italian Campaign, it was safer to attack Germany from the bottom, captured Sicily and went on into Italy, Italians found Mussolini and hung him

Question 13

International Military Tribunal for the Far East

Answer 13

a military trial established in 1946 to prosecute the leaders of the Empire of Japan for their crimes in WW2

Question 14

May 8, 1945

Answer 14

marked Victory in Europe Day, the official end of WW2 in Europe

Question 15

Manhattan Project

Answer 15

an American program, designated to develop and atomic bomb

Question 16

Dunkirk

Answer 16

British and Allied troops were evacuated from the French port of Dunkrik between May 26 and June 4, 1940

Question 17

Charles de Gaulle

Answer 17

led the Free French forces in resisting capitulation to Germany during WW2 and became provisional president of France

Question 18

Hitler

Answer 18

German politician, the dictator of Nazi Germany who was the central figure in the Holocaust

Question 19

Battle of the Coral Sea

Answer 19

Japanese and US naval fleets fought to a draw, introduced new type of warfare and stopped Japan’s southward expansion

Question 20

Battle of Midway

Answer 20

US defeats Japanese fleet poised to attack Midway Island, reversed the tide of war in the Pacific

Question 21

Wannsee Conference

Answer 21

a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel leaders

Question 22

Nagasaki

Answer 22

the second atomic bomb of the war was dropped here, killed an estimate of 40,000 people

Question 23

Operation Iceberg

Answer 23

Battle of Okinawa, becomes bloodiest battle of the Pacific

Question 23

August 6, 1945

Answer 23

the date that the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima

Question 24

Battle of Okinawa

Answer 24

Allies needed Okinawa as base for attacking and invading Japanese mainland, successful for the Allies

Question 25

Einsatzgruppen

Answer 25

Schutzstaffel (SS), mobile death squads of Nazi Germany, responsible for mass murder

Question 26

Doolittle Raids

Answer 26

a 1942 attack on Japan, 16 B-25 bombers launching from the USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities

Question 27

Mussolini

Answer 27

Italian dictator, led Italy into the war in 1940 as an ally of Nazi Germany, was hung during Operation Husky

Question 28

Truman

Answer 28

led the US in the final months of WW2, made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Question 29

Sitzkrieg

Answer 29

"phony war", an eight-moth period at the beginning of WW2 which there was virtually no Allied military operations on the Western Front

Question 30

September 2, 1945

Answer 30

Japanese signed the official surrender, aboard the U.S.S. Missouri

Question 31

Operation Overlord

Answer 31

Battle of Normandy, Allied forces landed troops on Normandy beaches for the largest amphibious assault in history

Question 32

Eisenhower

Answer 32

led the North Africa campaign, served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, planned and executed the invasion of D-Day

Question 32

Roosevelt

Answer 32

led the US as it entered and fought in the war, led the Allied powers against the Axis powers

Question 32

Dresden

Answer 32

Allied bombing raids on the Germans city of Dresden, primary goal was to disrupt German transportation and manufacturing

Question 33

Free French

Answer 33

the French government-in-exile and military forces led by Charles de Gaulle, who opposed the Vichy Regime in France

Question 34

Maquis

Answer 34

French Resistance movement, an underground group that actively resisted the Nazi occupation of France and the Vichy regime

Question 35

Nuremberg Laws

Answer 35

the Nazi regime's laws that made Jews legally different from their non-Jewish neighbors

Question 36

Pearl Harbor

Answer 36

surprise military strike by the Japanese Navy against the U.S. Pacific Fleet on December 7, 1941 this ultimately caused the U.S. to enter WW2 on the side of the Allies

Question 37

Hirohito

Answer 37

presided over the invasion of China, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Japan's ultimate surrender

Question 37

MacArthur

Answer 37

led Allied forces in the Pacific theater, accepted the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, served as the military governor of Japan, overseeing its demilitarization and reconstruction

Question 38

Churchill

Answer 38

British prime minister, had a powerful determination to beat the Axis powers, primarily Nazi Germany

Question 39

Stalingrad

Answer 39

a crucial turning point in the war, making a significant defeat for the German army, high casualties on both sides

Question 40

Hiroshima

Answer 40

a Japanese city on which the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945

Question 41

Axis powers

Answer 41

Germany, Italy and Japan, eventually joined by Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia

Question 42

Allied powers

Answer 42

UK, Soviet Union, US and China, eventually joined by France, Australia and Canada

Question 43

Stalin

Answer 43

leader of the Allied force that defeated the Axis powers in Europe, leader of the Soviet Union