World War 2 / 1939-1945

Germany and Italy exploit economic hardship to expand and annex territories, driving democracies toward war as Poland is invaded in 1939 and Japan pushes into China.

Hitler invades Poland in 1939, with the USSR seizing territory under the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty. From Norway to Dunkirk, Belgium, France, and North Africa, Axis campaigns redefine early war.

Explains blitzkrieg tactics with tank divisions in rapid, surprise offensives across Poland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, and France, achieving fast breakthroughs before supply and distance hindered Moscow and Leningrad aims.

Hitler orders Operation Sea Lion and launches Luftwaffe raids on Channel ports and airdromes, while Britain relies on coastal radar and RAF defense during the Blitz, July to November 1940.

Hitler's eastern campaign widens the war in 1941–42 as Germany attacks the Soviet Union and Caucasus, while Japan expands its reach and Pearl Harbor brings the US into conflict.

Examine how in 1942 Germany dominated Europe by occupying territories, exploiting resources for the war industry, and importing workers while enforcing mass repression, massacres, and the extermination of European Jews.

Japan dominated vast Southeast Asia and the Pacific in 1942, turning colonies into satellites and enforcing imperial rule to fund its war under a proposed sphere of co-prosperity.

Mobilizing economic and industrial resources, nations drive the turning point from autumn 1942 to end 1943 across Africa, Italy, and the Pacific.

Protect convoys and Britain's fuel imports by winning the battle of the Atlantic against German U-boats through air bases near sea lanes, decoded submarine traffic, and improved detection.

Allies breach German lines, liberate Paris and Rome, and advance to the Rhine and Elbe; in the Pacific they island-hop toward Japan, ending with Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and surrender.

Trace the Nazi transition from anti-Semitism to the final solution, detailing ghettos, mass killings by Einsatzgruppen, and the rise of extermination camps like Auschwitz.

Allied forces land on Omaha and Utah beaches with British on Gold and Sword and Canadians on Juno during Operation Overlord, establishing bridgeheads amid German resistance.

Explore World War II operations in Asia 1944–1945, from Japanese offensives and the capture of the Mariana Islands to battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the atomic bomb decision.

Shaped by allied leaders, major international conferences defined war strategies and postwar goals, from the atlantic charter through tehran, yalta, and potsdam, with debates over eastern europe and japan's surrender.

Explore postwar allied decisions shaping a new world order, from unconditional surrenders, UN Charter, and Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, to Yalta and Potsdam, and the redrawing of Europe and Asia.