Chapter 15

World War II

1. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II

2. Battle of Midway

• Turning point of the war in the Pacific between Japan and US.

• Japan was now on the defensive

3. D-Day Invasion

• June 6, 1941, the day Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, France beginning the liberation of France.

4. Battle of the Bulge

• In December 1944, Hitler ordered a counterattack on Allied troops in Belgium, but it crippled Germany by using up reserves and demoralizing its troops and would led to the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.

5. Island-hopping

• World War II strategy that involved seizing selected Japanese-held islands in the Pacific while bypassing others.

6. Tuskegee Airman

• African-American squadron that escorted bombers in the air war over Europe during World War II

7. Internment Camps

• Camps in the US that held people of Japanese descent under armed guard in isolated areas.

8. Korematsu v. United States

• Supreme Court ruled that the internment of Japanese Americans during WW II did not violate the Constitution.

9. Executive Order 8802

• World War II measure that assured fair hiring practices in any job funded by the government

• It was a victory in the fight for Civil Rights.

10. Double V Campaign

• Civil rights call for victory against both fascism overseas and racial prejudice at home that was led by A. Philip Randolph.

11. Manhattan Project

• The code-named secret government research program established to produce the atomic bomb.

12. Robert Oppenheimer

• Scientist largely responsible for the Manhattan Project that produce the first atomic bomb.

13. Harry S. Truman

• Vice-President who assumed the presidency after the death of FDR

• President responsible for the dropping of the 1st Atomic bomb.

14. Allied Conferences

• Yalta Conference- meeting of the Big Three in which all agreed to hold free elections in Poland.

• Potsdam Conference-meeting of the Big Three in which all agreed to divide Germany, hold free elections in Poland, and USSR agreed to help defeat Japan.

15. United Nations

• Organization founded in 1945 to promote peace.

16. GI Bill of Rights

• Eased the return of World War II veterans by providing education and employment aid

17. Nuremberg Laws

• Laws enacted by Hitler that denied German citizenship to Jews

18. Genocide

• Willful annihilation of a racial, political, or cultural group.

19. Holocaust

• German-engineered wartime extermination of Jews and other peoples that Germans considered inferior.

20. Concentration Camps

• Camps used by the Nazi to imprison “undesirable” members of society