World War II, or the Second World War, was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history, and placed the participants in a state of "total war", erasing the distinction between civil and military resources. This resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. The financial cost of the war is estimated at about a trillion 1944 U.S. dollars worldwide, making it the most expensive war as well. The starting date of the war is generally held to be September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by the United Kingdom, France and the British Dominions; some sources use other starting points, including the Mukden Incident, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, and the Attack on Pearl Harbor. The Allies were victorious, and, as a result, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the world's leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The self determination spawned by the war accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration. (more)
Genres: politics, science, technology, business
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Attack on Pearl Harbor:
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack against the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Japanese navy, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, resulting in the United States becoming involved in World War II. It was
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Invasion of Poland (1939):
The Invasion of Poland, 1939 (in Poland also "the September Campaign," "Kampania wrześniowa," and "the 1939 Defensive War," "Wojna obronna 1939 roku"; in Germany, "the Poland Campaign," "Polenfeldzug," codenamed "Fall Weiss," "Case White," by the Ger
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World War II casualties:
World War II was humanity's deadliest war, causing tens of millions of deaths. The tables below provide a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.
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Soviet Union:
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (abbreviated USSR, ; tr.: Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, SSSR), also called the Soviet Union (Советский Союз; tr.: Sovetsky Soyuz), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasi
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Cold War:
The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout this period, the rivalry between the two superpowers unfo
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Nazi Germany:
Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party (aka NSDAP or the Nazi Party), which established a totalitarian dictatorship that existed from
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Dominion:
A dominion, often Dominion, and referred to in the monarchs style as the British Dominions beyond the Seas, is a term that particularly referred to an autonomous polity under sovereign authority within the British Empire and British Commonwealth from
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Resistance during World War II:
Resistance during World War II occurred in every occupied country, including Denmark, by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of town
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List of World War II military operations:
This is a list of known World War II (WW2) era military operations, and missions commonly associated with WW2. As of 2007 this is not a comprehensive list but most major operations which Axis and Allied combatants engaged in are included alongside op
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Collaboration during World War II:
During World War II Nazi Germany occupied all or parts of the following countries: Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Egypt and Italy. The term of "
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Home front during World War II:
The home front is the name given to the activities of the civilians during a state of total war. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war
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Timeline of World War II:
This is a timeline of events that stretched over the period of World War II. Because of length it is subdivided into pages by year: *Timeline of events preceding World War II **Events preceding World War II in Asia **Events preceding World War II in
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Effects of World War II:
The effects of World War II had far-reaching implications for the international community. Many millions of lives had been lost as a result of the war. Germany was divided into four quadrants, which were controlled by the Allied Powers — the United S
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Causes of World War II:
The immediate causes of World War II were the German invasion of Poland and the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and British and Dutch colonies.
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Consequences of German Nazism:
German Nazism and the acts of the Nazi German state profoundly affected many countries, communities and peoples before, during and after World War II. While the attempt of Germany to exterminate several nations viewed as subhuman by Nazi ideology was
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Technology during World War II:
Technology during World War II played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war. Much of it had begun development during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, some was developed in response to lessons learned during the war, and yet m
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Atlas of the World Battle Fronts:
The public domain document Atlas of the World Battle Fronts in Semimonthly Phases to August 15th 1945 was produced for the Chief of Staff of the United States Army in 1945. The atlas shows the front lines of World War II in 2 week steps between 1st J
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Commanders of World War II:
The Commanders of World War II were for the most part career officers. They were forced to adapt to new technologies and shaped the direction of modern warfare. Some political leaders, particularly those of the principal dictatorships involved in the
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Total war:
Total war is a conflict of unlimited scope in which a belligerent engages in a total mobilization of all available resources at their disposal, whether human, industrial, agricultural, military, natural, technological, or otherwise, in order to entir
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History of the world:
The history of the world begins human history with the first appearance of Homo sapiens and continues into the present. Human history, as opposed to prehistory, has in the past been said to begin with the invention, independently at several sites on
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Winston Churchill:
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 - 24 January 1965) was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister of the Unit
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Axis powers:
The Axis powers, also interpreted as Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries or sometimes just the Axis were those countries opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan we
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Empire of Japan:
The Empire of Japan (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國; Shinjitai: 大日本帝国; pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku; literally Great Imperial Japan, officially Great Japan, Empire of Greater Japan or Greater Japanese Empire; more widely known as Imperial Japan or the Japanese Emp
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U-boat:
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot (undersea boat), and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II. Although in theory U-boats could have b
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Second Sino-Japanese War:
The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 to September 9, 1945) was a major war fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan before and during World War II. It was the largest Asian war in the twentieth century. Although the two coun
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Winter War:
The Winter War (Talvisota, Зимняя война , Vinterkriget) began when the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, three months after the invasion of Poland by Germany that started World War II. Because the attack was jud
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Manhattan Project:
The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon (atomic bomb) during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Formally designated as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), it refers specifically to
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Hedgehog (weapon):
The Hedgehog was an anti-submarine weapon developed by the Royal Navy during World War II, that was deployed on convoy escort warships such as destroyers to supplement the depth charge. The weapon worked by firing a number of small spigot mortar bomb
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Battle of Stalingrad:
The Battle of Stalingrad is a commonly used name in English sources for several large operations by Germany and its allies and Soviet forces conducted with the purpose of possession of the city of Stalingrad, which took place between 17 July 1942 and
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Eastern Front (World War II):
The Eastern Front of World War II (die Ostfront 1941-1945 , der Rußlandfeldzug 1941-1945 (Russian campaign) or der Ostfeldzug 1941-1945 (Eastern Campaign) ) was a theatre of war between the German Reich and the Soviet Union which encompassed central
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Invasion of Normandy:
The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France during Operation Overlord in World War II. It covers from the initial landings on June 6, 1944 until the Allied breakout in mid-July. It was the largest
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Operation Barbarossa:
Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that commenced on June 22, 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along an 1,800 mile front.
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Battle of France:
In World War II, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, executed from 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall G
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Warsaw Uprising:
The Warsaw Uprising (Powstanie Warszawskie) was a World War II struggle by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. The Uprising began on August 1, 1944, as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest. It
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Guadalcanal Campaign:
The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal, was fought between August 7, 1942, and February 7, 1943, in the Pacific theatre of World War II. This campaign, which was a decisive and strategically significant campaign of World Wa
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Battle of the Bulge:
The Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive on the Western Front and was launched towards the end of World War II. The offensive was called Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation The Guard on the Rhine) by
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Battle of Midway:
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It took place from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, five months after the Japanese capture of Wake Island, a
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Free French Forces:
The Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres, FFL) were French fighters in World War II, who decided to continue fighting against Axis forces after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation.
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Operation Torch:
Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started November 8, 1942. The Soviet Union had pressed the United States and Britain to s
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Anthony Eden:
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12 June 1897 - 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative politician, who was Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including during World War II. He was Prime Minister from 195
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Liberation of Paris:
The Liberation of Paris (also known as Battle for Paris) took place during World War II from 19 August1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on the 25th. The capital of France had been administered by Nazi Germany since the Second
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Ultra:
Ultra (sometimes capitalised ULTRA) was the name used by the British for intelligence resulting from decryption of encrypted German radio communications in World War II. The term eventually became the standard designation in both Britain and the Unit
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Escort carrier:
The escort aircraft carrier or escort carrier (popularly known as the jeep carrier), was a small aircraft carrier utilized by the Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States Navy in World War II. In the Atlantic the escort carriers w
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Battle of Okinawa:
The Battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The 82 day battle lasted from late March through June 1945. The battle
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Gothic Line:
The Gothic Line, also known as Linea Gotica, formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last major line of defence in the final stages of World War II along the summits of the Apennines during the fighting retreat of Nazi Germany's forces in Italy agai
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Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945):
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, (though some see it was a series of naval military campaigns and offensives ) running from 1939 through the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, and was at its height
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Iron Curtain:
The "Iron Curtain" was the symbolic, ideological, and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, roughly 1945 to 1991. At both sides of the Iron Curtain, the states developed
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Battle of Iwo Jima:
The Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19-March 26, 1945) was the American capture of the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese, producing some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The Japanese positions on the island were heavi
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Battle of Leyte Gulf:
The Battle of Leyte Gulf, also called the "Battle for Leyte Gulf", the "Battles for Leyte Gulf", and formerly as the "Second Battle of the Philippine Sea", is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and also, by some crite
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Surrender of Japan:
The surrender of Japan in August 1945 brought World War II to a close. On August 10, 1945, after the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's leaders at the Imperial conference (gozenkaigi)
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Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks at the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman on August 6 and 9, 1945. After six months of intense firebom
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Operation Sealion:
Operation Sealion (Unternehmen Seelöwe) was Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during World War II, beginning in 1940. The operation was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940.
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Colossus computer:
The Colossus machines were electronic computing devices used by British codebreakers to read encrypted German messages during World War II. These were the world's first programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices. They used vacuum tubes (the
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Operation Pluto:
Operation Pluto (Pipe-Lines Under The Ocean) was a World War II operation by British scientists, oil companies and armed forces to construct undersea oil pipelines under the English Channel between England and France. The scheme was developed by Arth
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Allied invasion of Sicily:
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis (Italy and Nazi Germany). It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land
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Squid (weapon):
The Squid was a World War II ship-mounted anti-submarine weapon. It consisted of a three-barrelled mortar which launched depth charges. It replaced the Hedgehog system, and was in turn replaced by the Limbo system. Literally ordered directly from the
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Operation Weserübung:
Operation Weserübung was the codename for Nazi Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during World War II and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for Operation Weser-Exercise (Unternehmen Weserübung), the
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Operation Dragoon:
Operation Dragoon was the Allied invasion of southern France, on 15 August, 1944, as part of World War II. The invasion took place between Toulon and Cannes.
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German Type VII submarine:
Type VII U-boats were the workhorses of the German World War II U-boot-waffe. Type VII was based on earlier German submarine designs going back to the World War I Type UB III, designed through the Dutch dummy company Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbou
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Battle of Kursk:
The Battle of Kursk (Курская битва) refers to a series of German and Soviet operations on the Eastern Front of World War II in July and August of 1943. It was the last German blitzkrieg offensive in the east executed by the German forces on a strateg
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Norwegian Campaign:
The Norwegian Campaign, lasting from 9 April to 10 June 1940, led to the first direct land confrontation between the military forces of the Allies — United Kingdom and France — against Nazi Germany in World War II. The primary reason for
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Siege of Leningrad:
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade (Russian: блокада Ленинграда (transliteration: blokada Leningrada)) was a military operation by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The siege la
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Dieppe Raid:
The Dieppe Raid, also known as The Battle of Dieppe or Operation Jubilee, during the Second World War, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, Seine-Inférieure on the Northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. Over 6,000 infantry
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Battlefield (documentary series):
Battlefield is a documentary series initially issued in 1994-5 that explores the most important battles fought during the Second World War. The series employs a novel approach where the history of World War II is described by detailed accounts of 12
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Decolonization:
Decolonization refers to the undoing of colonialism, the establishment of governance or authority through the creation of settlements by another country or jurisdiction. The term generally refers to the achievement of independence by the various West
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Occupation of Japan:
At the end of the Second World War, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with contributions also from Australia, British India, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. This foreign presence marked the first time since the uni
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Battle of Crete:
The Battle of Crete (German Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta; Greek Μάχη της Κρήτης) was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. The battle began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete und
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Second Battle of El Alamein:
The Second Battle of El Alamein marked a major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The battle lasted from October 23 to November 5 1942. Following the First Battle of El Alamein, which had stalled the Axis advance, Lieutenan
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Battle of the Coral Sea:
The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from May 4 – May 8, 1942, with most of the action occurring on May 7 and May 8, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States and Australia
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Doolittle Raid:
The Doolittle Raid, 18 April 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese home island of Honshū during World War II. It demonstrated that the Japanese home islands were vulnerable to Allied air attack, and provided an exp
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Victory in Europe Day:
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day or VE Day) was May 7 and May 8, 1945, the dates when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. On April 30, Hitl
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German occupation of France during World War II:
The German occupation of France in World War II occurred during the period between May 1940 to December 1944. As a result of the disastrous defeat of the Allied armies in the Battle of France, the French cabinet sought a cessation of hostilities. An
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Battle of the Philippine Sea:
The Battle of the Philippine Sea (aka "The Marianas Turkey Shoot") was a decisive naval battle of World War II, and the largest aircraft carrier battle in history. It was fought between the navies of the United States and the Empire of Japan. Part of
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Syria-Lebanon Campaign:
The Syria-Lebanon campaign, also known as Operation Exporter, was the Allied invasion of Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon, in June-July 1941, during World War II. Time magazine referred to the fighting as a "mixed show", while it was taking
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Wolf pack:
The term wolf pack refers to the mass-attack tactics against convoys used by German U-boats of the Kriegsmarine during the Battle of the Atlantic and submarines of the United States Navy against Japanese shipping in the Pacific Ocean in World War II.
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Operation Bagration:
Operation Bagration (Oперация Багратион, Operatsiya Bagration) was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation during World War II, which cleared German forces from the Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland between 22 June
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Dunkirk evacuation:
The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, France, between May 26 and June 4, 1940, when British and French troops were cut off by the German army during the B
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Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine:
The Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine was one of the final Allied phases in World War II of the Western European Campaign. This phase spans from the end of the Operation Overlord (August 25, 1944) incorporating the German's winter counter offens
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Battle of Singapore:
The Battle of Singapore was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II when the Empire of Japan invaded the Allied stronghold of Singapore. The fighting in Singapore lasted from February 7, 1942 to February 15, 1942. It resulted in the fa
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Allied Occupation Zones in Germany:
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during the period 1945–1949. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, American forc
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Battle of Moscow:
The Battle of Moscow (Битва за Москву, Romanized: Bitva za Moskvu, Schlacht um Moskau) is the name given to the Nazi strategic offensive named Operation Typhoon, and a series of Soviet strategic and smaller-scale operations executed during the defens
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Karl Dönitz:
Karl Dönitz ( ) (16 September 1891 - 24 December 1980) was a German naval Commander who served in the Imperial German Navy during World War I and commanded the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during the second half of World War II. In the final days of th
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Soviet invasion of Poland (1939):
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German attack on Poland. It ended
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Battle of Monte Cassino:
The Battle of Monte Cassino (also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino) was a costly series of four battles during World War II, fought by the Allies with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome. In the b
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Battle of Malaya:
The Battle of Malaya was a campaign fought by Allied and Japanese forces in Malaya, from December 8 1941 to January 31 1942 during the Second World War. The campaign was dominated by land battles between British Commonwealth army units, and the Imper
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Operation Shingle:
Operation Shingle (January 22, 1944), during the Italian Campaign of World War II, was an Allied amphibious landing against Axis forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. The operation was commanded by Major General John P. Lucas and was intend
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The World at War:
The World at War is a 26-episode television documentary series on World War II, including the events leading up to it and following in its wake. The series was produced by Jeremy Isaacs for Thames Television (UK). Commissioned in 1969, it took four y
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International Military Tribunal for the Far East:
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal or simply as the Tribunal, was convened to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of crimes: "Class A" (crimes
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Operation Pedestal:
Operation Pedestal was a British operation to get desperately needed supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. Malta was the base from which surface ships, submarines and aircraft attacked Axis convoys carrying esse
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Invasion of Manchuria:
The invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan, beginning on September 19, 1931, immediately followed the Mukden Incident. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria would last until the end of World War II.
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Battle of Leyte:
The Battle of Leyte in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the invasion and conquest of Leyte in the Philippines by American and Filipino guerrilla forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, who fought against the Imperial Japanese A
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Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces:
The Armistice with Italy was an armistice signed on September 3 and publicly declared on September 8, 1943, during World War II, between Italy and the Allied armed forces, who were then occupying the southern half of the country. It is also referred
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Invasion of Yugoslavia:
The Invasion of Yugoslavia (code-name Directive n. 25), also known as the April War (Croatian: Travanjski rat, Serbian/Bosnian: Aprilski rat),Slovenian: Aprilska vojna), was the Axis Powers' attack on Kingdom of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941 during Wor
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Battle of Greece:
The Battle of Greece (also known as Operation Marita, Unternehmen Marita) Blau (1953), 82 was a World War II battle that occurred on the Greek mainland and in southern Albania. The battle was fought between the Allied (Greece and the British Commonwe
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Allied invasion of Italy:
The process Allied invasion of Italy, was the Allied landing on mainland Italy in September 1943, by General Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group (comprising Mark Clark's U.S. Fifth Army and Bernard Montgomery's British Eighth Army) during World War II
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Tunisia Campaign:
The Tunisia Campaign (also known as the Battle of Tunisia) was a series of World War II battles that took place in Tunisia in the North African Campaign of World War II, between Axis and Allied forces. The Allies consisted primarily of American, Brit
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Operation Compass:
Operation Compass was the first major World War II Allied military operation in the Western Desert Campaign. It resulted in British Empire and British Commonwealth forces pushing across a great stretch of Libya and capturing over 113,000 Italian sold
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Unit 731:
Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for som
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Phoney War:
The Phoney War, also called the Twilight War by Winston Churchill and Sitzkrieg by Germany (German for "sitting war"), was a phase in early World War II from September 1939 until May 1940 marked by few military operations in Continental Europe, in th
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Mulberry harbour:
A Mulberry harbour was a type of temporary harbour developed in World War II to offload cargo on the beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy. Two prefabricated or artificial military harbours were taken across the English Channel from Britain
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Division of Korea:
The division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea stems from the 1945 Allied victory in World War II, ending Japan's 35-year occupation of Korea. In a proposal opposed by nearly all Koreans, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to tempo
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Bombing of Dresden in World War II:
Image:The Goodness overlooking Dresden.jpg|August Schreitmüller's sculpture "Güte" ("Goodness") overlooks the destroyed city. The Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between February 13 and
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Battle of the Java Sea:
The Battle of the Java Sea was a major naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat at the hand of the Imperial Japanese Navy, on February 27, 1942, and in secondary actions over successive days. Th
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Battle of Cape Matapan:
The Battle of Cape Matapan was a World War II naval battle fought off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece from March 27 to March 29, 1941. A force consisting primarily of British Royal Navy ships accompanied by several Royal Australian Navy ships under
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Winter Line:
The Winter Line was a series of German military fortifications in Italy, constructed during World War II by Organisation Todt. The main line of fortification, called the Gustav Line, ran across Italy from just north of where the Garigliano River flow
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Tripartite Pact:
The Tripartite Treaty (1906) also refers to a 1906 treaty concerning the Nile river (see Hydropolitics in the Nile Basin.) The Tripartite Pact, also called the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berl
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88 mm gun:
The German eighty-eight is an anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun from World War II. They were widely used throughout the war, and could be found on almost every battlefield. Developments of the original models led to a wide variety of guns tha
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List of Axis war crime trials:
The following is a list of war crime trials and tribunals brought against the Axis powers following the conclusion of World War II. * Nazi Germany ** Nuremberg Trials *** Subsequent Nuremberg Trials ** Dachau Trials ** Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials * Em
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Operation Tempest:
Operation Tempest (Polish: Plan Burza; sometimes also rendered into English as Operation Storm) was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa — the Home Army, abbreviated "AK"). The chief goal of Opera
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MG42:
The MG42 (shortened from German: Maschinengewehr 42, or "Machine Gun 42") is a machine gun that was developed for and entered service with Nazi Germany in 1942, during World War II. The 7.92 mm rifle caliber weapon was developed from, and was intende
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Wirtschaftswunder:
The term (German for "economic miracle") describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II. The expression was used by The Times in 1950 but originally to describe rapid economic growth
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First Battle of El Alamein:
The First Battle of El Alamein 1-27 July 1942 was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of World War II, fought between Axis forces commanded by Erwin Rommel, and Allied forces commanded by Claude Auchinleck. The battle halted the furthest (and fin
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Strategic bombing during World War II:
Strategic bombing during World War II was greater in scale than any wartime attack the world had previously witnessed. The strategic bombing campaigns conducted by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Empire of Japan used conve
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Siege of Tobruk:
The Siege of Tobruk was a lengthy confrontation between Axis and Allied forces in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The siege started on 10 April 1941, when Tobruk was attacked by an Italian-German force under Lieutenan
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Anglo-Iraqi War:
The Anglo-Iraqi War was a conflict between the United Kingdom and the nationalist government of Iraq during World War II. The conflict lasted from 18 April to 30 May 1941. The British campaign to subdue Iraq was codenamed Operation Sabine. The confli
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Kokoda Track campaign:
The Kokoda Track campaign or Kokoda Trail campaign was part of the Pacific War of World War II. The campaign consisted of a series of battles fought from July 1942 to January 1943 between Japanese and Allied — primarily Australian — force
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Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942):
The Siege of Sevastopol took place from October 30, 1941 to July 4, 1942 between German forces and those of the Red Army, the Black Sea Fleet and elements of the Red Air Force over the control for the main Soviet Black Sea Fleet naval base during the
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Battle of Gazala:
The Battle of Gazala was an important battle of the World War II Western Desert Campaign, fought around the port of Tobruk in Libya from May 26 to June 21 1942. The combatants on the Axis side were the Panzer Army Afrika, consisting of German and Ita
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Battle of the Netherlands:
The Battle of the Netherlands (Slag om Nederland in Dutch) was part of Case Yellow (Fall Gelb), the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) and France during World War II. The battle lasted from 10 May 1940 unt
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Operation Uranus:
Operation Uranus was the Soviet encirclement of German forces in the Battle of Stalingrad during World War 2 . The double envelopment was launched on November 17, 1942, with twin attacks that met at Kalach four days later.
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Battle of Madagascar:
The Battle of Madagascar was the Allied campaign to capture Vichy French-controlled Madagascar during World War II. It began on 5 May, 1942. Fighting did not cease until 6 November.
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Battle of Taranto:
The naval Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11 November — 12 November 1940 during World War II. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft naval attack in history, flying a small number of aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Medit
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Operation Cartwheel:
Operation Cartwheel (1943–1944) was the major military strategy for the Allies in the Pacific theater of World War II. Cartwheel was a twin-axis of advance operation, aimed at militarily neutralizing the major Japanese base at Rabaul. The operation w
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Generalplan Ost:
Generalplan Ost (GPO) was a secret Nazi plan of genocide and ethnic cleansing to be realised in the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II. The plan, prepared in the years 1939-1940, was part of Adolf Hitler's own Leben
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Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse:
The Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a World War II naval engagement which illustrated the effectiveness of aerial attacks against naval forces that were not protected by air cover and the resulting importance of including an aircraft carri
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Philippines campaign (1944–45):
The Philippines campaign of 1944–45 was the Allied campaign to defeat Japanese forces occupying The Philippines, during World War II. The invasion commenced on 20 October 1944 and hostilities continued until the war's end.
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Executive Order 9066:
United States Executive Order 9066 was a presidential executive order issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, using his authority as Commander-in-Chief to exercise war powers to send ethnic groups to i
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Operation Plunder:
Commencing on the night of 23 March, 1945 during World War II, Operation Plunder was the crossing of the Rhine river at Rees, Wesel, and south of the Lippe Canal by the British Second Army, under Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey (Operations Turns
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Neutrality Acts:
The Neutrality Acts were a series of laws that were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-
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Cash and carry (World War II):
The policy of cash and carry during the onset of World War II in 1939 revised the Neutrality Acts that were established by US President Roosevelt. The revision allowed the sale of material to belligerents, as long as the recipients arranged for the t
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Vistula-Oder Offensive:
The Vistula-Oder Strategic Offensive Operation was a successful Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European Theatre of World War II; it took place between 12 January, 1945 and 2 February, 1945. The offensive took Soviet forces from their
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Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union:
After the Soviet invasion of Poland following the corresponding German invasion that marked the start of World War II in 1939, the Soviet Union annexed eastern parts (so-called "Kresy") of the Second Polish Republic, totaling 201,015 km² and a popula
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Ruhr Pocket:
The Ruhr Pocket was a battle of encirclement that took place in late March and early April 1945, near the end of World War II, in the Ruhr Area of Germany. It was, for all intents and purposes, the final dagger in Nazi Germany's war effort, as more t
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Siege of Malta (World War II):
The Siege of Malta was a significant military event in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II that occurred between 1940 and 1943 on the island of Malta. The siege was conducted by military aircraft and ships of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (the
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Battle of Kohima:
The Battle of Kohima (the "Stalingrad of the East") was the turning point of the Japanese U Go offensive into India in 1944 in World War II. It was fought from April 4 to June 22 1944 around the town of Kohima in northeast India. The battle took plac
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Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign:
In the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaigns, from November 1943 through February 1944, were the first offensive operations of the United States Navy and Marine Corps in the Central Pacific. The campaign was prec
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Case Anton:
During World War II the German authorities codenamed the occupation of Vichy France Case (or Operation) Anton. Following the Allied landings in French North Africa (8 November 1942, Operation Torch), Hitler invoked Anton. The plan updated the origina
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Persian Corridor:
The Persian Corridor is the name for a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II.
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Cairo Conference:
The Cairo Conference (codenamed "SEXTANT") of November 22-November 26, 1943, held in Cairo, Egypt, addressed the Allied position against Japan during World War II and made decisions about postwar Asia. The meeting was attended by President Franklin R
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Third Battle of Kharkov:
The Third Battle of Kharkov or "Manstein's Riposte" is the name given by Wilhelm Keitel to the fighting for the Ukrainian city of Kharkov and the area to the north as far as Belgorod as part of the Wehrmacht's counter-offensive which was part of Germ
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Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany:
At the beginning of World War II, significant Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany in contrary to Hague Convention IV 1907 and put under German civil administration. Invading Poland in 1939, the Third Reich annexed the lands the German Empire ha
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Operation Mars:
Operation Mars was the operation codename for the Rzhev offensive operation part of the Rzhev-Vyazma strategic offensive operation (08.01-20.04.42) launched by Soviet forces against German forces during World War II. It took place between 25 November
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Leigh light:
The Leigh Light (abbreviated L/L) was a British World War II era anti-submarine device used in the Second Battle of the Atlantic. It was a powerful (22 million candela) searchlight of 24 inches (610 mm) diameter fitted to a number of the British Roya
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Yasuji Okamura:
Yasuji Okamura was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, and commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II.
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The War (documentary):
The War is a 2007 World War II documentary produced by American filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, narrated primarily by Keith David. (Although the Internet Movie Database credits Mr. David with narrating only three of the episodes the War compris
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Richard Overy:
Richard Overy (born 1947) is British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich. Educated at Caius College, Cambridge Overy went on to teach at Queen's College from 1972 to 1979, before moving to King's
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Second Battle of Kharkov:
The Second Battle of Kharkov, so named by Wilhelm Keitel was a battle fought from May 12 to May 28, 1942, on the Eastern Front during World War II. After a successful winter counteroffensive that repulsed German troops from Moscow but also depleted t
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Operation Mincemeat:
Operation Mincemeat was a highly successful British deception plan during World War II which convinced the German High Command (OKW) that the Allies would invade the Balkans and Sardinia instead of the island of Sicily, the actual objective. The oper
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Dutch East Indies campaign:
The Netherlands East Indies campaign of 1941-42 was the short-lived defence of the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) by Allied forces, against invasion by the Empire of Japan in World War II. The rich oil resources of Indonesia were a major Japanes
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Japanese post-war economic miracle:
Japanese post-war economic miracle is the name given to the historical phenomenon of Japan's record period of economic growth following World War II, spurred partly by United States investment but mainly by Japanese government economic interventionis
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Battle of Alam el Halfa:
The Battle of Alam el Halfa took place between August 30 and September 6, 1942 during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The combatants were Panzer Army Africa, commanded by Erwin Rommel ("the Desert Fox") and the British Eighth Army, comma
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Operation Battleaxe:
Operation Battleaxe was a British Army operation during the Second World War in June 1941 with the goal of clearing Eastern Cyrenaica of German and Italian forces; one of the main benefits of this would be the lifting of the siege of Tobruk. It was t
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Gran Sasso raid:
The Gran Sasso raid refers to Operation Eiche (German for 'Oak'), the daring rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini by German paratroopers in September 1943, during World War II. It was planned by Major Harald Mors and approved by General Kurt S
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Operation Brevity:
Operation Brevity was a limited attack launched in May 1941 by elements of the British XIII Corps against Axis forces during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. Chant, p. 21 Operation Compass had concluded in February 1941 with the destructi
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Operation Mo:
Operation Mo (Mo Sakusen) or the Port Moresby Operation was the name of the Japanese plan to take control of the Australian Territory of New Guinea during World War II as well as other locations in the South Pacific with the goal of isolating Austral
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Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Strategic Offensive Operation:
During World War II, in the Continuation War, the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Strategic Offensive Operation was a strategic offensive by the Leningrad and Karelian Fronts against Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and East Karelia fronts. The result was a stale
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Declaration by United Nations:
The Declaration by United Nations was a World War II document agreed to on January 1 1942 during the Arcadia Conference by 26 governments, several of them governments-in-exile. During December 1941, Roosevelt devised the name "United Nations" for the
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Second United Front:
The Second United Front was the alliance between the Kuomintang (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Second Sino-Japanese WarorWorld War II, which suspended the Chinese Civil War from 1937 to 1946. During the Japanese invasion and occup
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War crimes of the Wehrmacht:
War crimes of the Wehrmacht are those carried out by traditional German armed forces during World War II. While the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust amongst German armed forces were the Nazi German political armies (the SS-Totenkopfverbände an
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Black May (1943):
‘Black May’ refers to a period (May 1943) in the Battle of the Atlantic campaign during World War II, when the German U-boat arm (U-Bootwaffe) (UBW) suffered high casualties with fewer Allied ships sunk; it is considered a turning point in the Battle
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Three Alls Policy:
The Three Alls Policy (三光作戦, Sankō Sakusen; ) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three alls being: "Kill All", "Burn All" and "Loot All". In Japanese documents, the policy was originally referred to as "The
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Forced labor in Germany during World War II:
Use of forced labor in Nazi Germany during World War II occurred on a large scale. It was an important part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories; it also contributed to the extermination of populations of German–occupied Europ
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Operation Bodyguard:
During World War II, Operation Bodyguard was the overall Allied strategic deception plan in Europe for 1944, carried out as part of the build-up to the invasion of Normandy. The major objective of this plan was to lead the Germans to believe that the
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Swedish iron ore during World War II:
Swedish iron ore was an important economic factor in the European Theater of World War II. Both the Allies and the Third Reich were keen on the control of the mining district in northernmost Sweden, surrounding the mining towns of Gällivare and Kirun
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Battle of Mindanao:
The Battle of Mindanao was fought by United States forces and allied Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese from 10 March to 15 August 1945 at Mindanao island in the Philippine Archipelago, in a series of actions officially designated as Operation
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Elbe Day:
Elbe Day, April 25, 1945, was the date Soviet and American troops met at the River Elbe, near Torgau in Germany, marking an important step toward the end of the World War II in Europe. The first contact was made between patrols near Strehla, when Fir
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Western New Guinea campaign:
The Western New Guinea campaign was a series of actions in the New Guinea campaign of World War II. United States and Australian forces assaulted Japanese bases and positions in the north-west coastal areas of Netherlands New Guinea and adjoining par
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Saar Offensive:
The Saar Offensive was a French operation into the Saarland on the German 1.Armee defence sector in the early stages of World War II. The purpose of the attack was to assist Poland, which was then under attack. However, the assault was stopped and th
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Operation Sonnenblume:
During World War II, Operation Sonnenblume (German for sunflower) was the deployment of German troops (the “Afrika Korps”) to North Africa in February, 1941. These troops reinforced the Italian army which was close to collapse following the British O
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Mark 24 FIDO Torpedo:
The Mark 24 FIDO Torpedo was a US air-dropped passive acoustic homing anti-submarine torpedo used during the Second World War against German and Japanese submarines. It entered service in March of 1943 and continued in service with the US Navy until
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Romusha:
Romusha were forced laborers during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between four and 10 million romusha were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Ja
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Japanese capture of Burma:
The Burma Campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign, the Japanese Army (with aid from Thai forces and Burmese insurgents) drove British Commonwealth an
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Italian-occupied France:
Fascist Italy occupied a small section of south-east France during World War II, during the time of the Vichy Government under Nazi German control. It held the territory, which included Grenoble and Nice, from 1940 to 1943. The Italian zone of occupa
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Battle of the Kerch Peninsula:
Battle of the Kerch Peninsula (Unternehmen Trappenjagd) was a World War II offensive by German and Romanian armies against the Soviet Crimean Front forces defending the Kerch Peninsula, in the eastern part of the Crimea. It was launched on May 8, 194
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Operation Lustre:
During World War II, Operation Lustre was the dispatch of British, Australian, New Zealand and Polish troops from Egypt to Greece in March and April 1941, in response to the failed Italian invasion and the looming threat of German intervention, revea
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Romania:
Romania (dated: Rumania, Roumania ; România, ro.mɨˈni.a) is a country located in South-East Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danu
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Norway:
Norway (Norwegian: Norge (bokmål) or Noreg (nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is bordered by Sweden, Finland, and Russia, w
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Rome:
Rome (Roma, Roma) is the capital city of Italy and of the Lazio region, as well as the country's largest and most populous city, with more than 2.7 million residents. The metropolitan area has a population of about 4 million. It is located in the cen
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Royal Navy:
The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service). From the early 18th century to the middle of the 20th century, it was the largest and most powerful navy in the world, pl
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Estonia:
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia (Eesti or Eesti Vabariik) is a country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and
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Lithuania:
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika) is a country defined as being part of Northern Europe. Situated along the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, sharing borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast,
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Royal Air Force:
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air arm of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918 the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts. The RAF opera
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North Korea:
North Korea is the commonly used short form name for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (or DPRK), a state located in East Asia, in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, with its capital in the city of Pyongyang. To the south, separated b
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Tank:
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat and combines strong strategic and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities. Firepower is normally provided by a large-calibre main gun in a rotating turret and seconda
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Pearl Harbor:
Pearl Harbor is a harbor on the island of O ahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The attack on Pearl Harbor by th
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Hiroshima:
The Japanese city of Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshū, the largest of Japan's islands. It is known throughout the world as the first city in history subjected to nuclear wa
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The Holocaust:
, May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers. This image shows the arrival of Hungarian Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia, many of them from the Berehov ghetto. It was taken by Ernst Hofmann or Bernhard Walter o
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Joseph Stalin:
Joseph Stalin (Иосиф Сталин; იოსებ სტალინი, born as Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, December 18, 1878 – March 5, 1953) was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. During t
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West Germany:
West Germany (Inf. German: Westdeutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland), from its formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when East Germany was dissolved
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Solomon Islands:
The Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. Together they cover a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (10,965 sq mi). The capital is Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcan
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Fascism:
Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by exalting the nation or race, an
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Imperial Japanese Navy:
::For Carrier Striking Task Force, please see that article. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國海軍 Shinjitai: 大日本帝国海軍 or 日本海軍 Nippon Kaigun), officially Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire, also known as the Japanese Navy was the navy
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Benito Mussolini:
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 - April 28, 1945) was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922
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Spanish Civil War:
The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of the Second Spanish Republic. The Civil War devastated Spain from July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939,
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League of Nations:
The League of Nations was an international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to the 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's goals included disarmament, p
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Guadalcanal:
Guadalcanal (local name: Isatabu) is a 2,510 square mile (6,500 km²) island in the Pacific Ocean and a province of the Solomon Islands. The World War II Guadalcanal Campaign happened on and round the island. It is mainly jungle, contains the national
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Nuclear weapon:
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from the nuclear reaction of fission or from a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter; a m
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Harry S. Truman:
Harry S. Truman (May 8 1884 – December 26 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953). As vice president, he succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died less than three months after he began his fourth term. During World War I
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Vichy France:
Vichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State (L'État Français), in contr
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D-Day:
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Mil
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Enigma machine:
The Enigma machine was a cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. More precisely, Enigma was a family of related electro-mechanical rotor machines, comprising a variety of different models. The Enigma was used commercially from the
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Manchukuo:
Manchukuo (満州国, lit. "State of Manchuria") was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, the place was Qing Dynasty's historical homeland, created by former Qing Dynasty officials with help from Imperial Japan in 1932. The state was fou
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Rhineland:
The Rhineland (Rheinland in German) is the general name for the land on both sides of the river Rhine in the west of Germany. After the collapse of the French Empire in the early 19th century, the German-speaking regions at the middle and lower cours
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Chinese Civil War:
The Chinese Civil War ( ) or ( ), which lasted from April 1927 to May 1950, was a civil war in China between the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). Gay, Kathlyn. [2008] (2008). 21st Century Books. Mao
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Nagasaki, Nagasaki:
Nagasaki ( ) is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan. It was formerly part of Nishisonogi District. It was a center of European influence in the sixteenth century. Nagasaki became a major Imperial Japanese Navy base during
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Assault rifle:
An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle or carbine (not to be confused with a semi-automatic only replica) firing ammunition with muzzle energies intermediate between those typical of pistol and high-powered rifle ammunition. Assault rifles are ca
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Hirohito:
Hirohito (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order reigning from December 25 1926, until his death in 1989. Among Japan specialists, Hirohito is best known by his personal name Shōwa Emperor.
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Rabaul:
Rabaul is a township in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption. After the eruption the capita
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Anschluss:
The ( ; German: "attachment, junction"), also known as the , was the 1938 annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime. The events of March 12, 1938, marked the culmination of historical cross-national pressures to unify the Germa
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Kursk:
Kursk (Курск; ) is a city in the western part of Central Russia, at the confluence of Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. It is the administrative center of Kursk Oblast. The population of the city was 412,442 in 2002 (according to the 2002 population cens
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Airlift:
An airlift is the organized delivery of supplies primarily via aircraft. Airlifting consists of two distinct types, strategic airlifting and tactical airlifting. Typically, strategic airlifting involves moving materiel long distances (such as across
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Blitzkrieg:
Blitzkrieg ("lightning war" in German; ) is a popular name for an offensive operational-level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of motorized mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent a
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Korea under Japanese rule:
Korea under Japanese rule refers to the period between 1910 and 1945 when Korea was forcibly occupied by the Japanese Empire. Japan's involvement began with the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa during the Joseon Dynasty of Korea and increased with the subseque
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Clement Attlee:
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC (3 January 1883 - 8 October 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951. The Labour Party under Attlee won a landslide election victory over Winston Churchill immediately af
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Midway Atoll:
Midway Atoll (or Midway Island or Islands; Hawaiian: Pihemanu) is a 2.4 square mile (6.2 km²) atoll located in the North Pacific Ocean (near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago), about one-third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo. The
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First Indochina War:
The First Indochina War (also known as the French Indochina War, the The Anti-French War, the Franco-Vietnamese War, the Franco-Vietminh War, the Indochina War and the Dirty War in France and in contemporary Vietnam, as the French War) was fought in
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V-2 rocket:
The V-2 rocket (Vergeltungswaffe 2) was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight, the progenitor of all modern rockets including the Saturn V moon rocket. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rocke
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Kingdom of Romania:
From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a personal union of two vassal principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) under a single prince to a full-fledged independent kingdom with a Hohenzollern monarchy. In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania,
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Greek Civil War:
The Greek Civil War (Eμφύλιος πόλεμος Emfilios polemos), fought from 1946 to 1949 by the Governmental forces, receiving logistical support by the United Kingdom at first and later by the USA, and the Democratic Army of Greece, military branch of the
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V-1 flying bomb:
The Fieseler Fi 103, better known as V-1 (German: Vergeltungswaffe 1) was the first guided missile used in war and the forerunner of today's cruise missile. The V-1 was developed at Peenemünde by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Betw
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Myitkyina:
Myitkyina ( , in English, pronounced mitʃ ə nə ) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (formerly Burma), located 919 miles from Yangon, or 487 miles from Mandalay. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and in fact "Myitkyina" lies on the
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Appeasement:
Appeasement (also called pacification) is the calming, reconciling, and acquiring of peace by way of concessions or gifts (the verb 'to pay' also goes back to the Latin 'pax' = peace). Most commonly, appeasement is used for the policy of accepting th
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Strategic bombing:
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating the enemy nation state by destroying its economic ability to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces. It is a systematically organized and execut
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Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation:
The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, or the Battle of Manchuria began on August 9, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo; the greater invasion would eventually include neighboring Mengjiang, as well as nort
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Battle of Khalkhin Gol:
The Battle of Khalkhyn Gol (бои на реке Халхин-Гол; Халхын голын байлдаан; Japanese: ノモンハン事件 Nomonhan jiken--i.e. Nomonhan Incident) was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet-Japanese Border War, or Japanese-Soviet War, fought between the
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Greco-Italian War:
The Greco-Italian War (Ελληνοϊταλικός Πόλεμος Ellēnoїtalikós Pólemos or Πόλεμος του Σαράντα Pólemos tou Saránda, "War of '40", Guerra di Grecia, "War of Greece") was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from October 28, 1940 to April 23,
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Occupation of the Baltic states:
The occupation of the Baltic states refers to the occupation of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) first by the Soviet Union under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, then by Nazi Germany from 1941-19
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Treaty of San Francisco:
The Treaty of San Francisco or San Francisco Peace Treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan, was officially signed by 49 nations on September 8, 1951 in San Francisco, California. It came into force on April 28, 1952. Although commonly known as the
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Aleutian Islands Campaign:
{{Infobox Military Conflict |conflict=Aleutian Islands Campaign | image= | caption=American troops hauling supplies on Attu in May 1943. Their vehicles could not move across the island's rugged terrain. | partof=World War II, Pacific War | date=June
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Indian Ocean raid:
The Indian Ocean raid was a naval sortie by the Fast Carrier Strike Force of the Imperial Japanese Navy from 31 March to 10 April 1942 against Allied shipping and bases in the Indian Ocean. It was an early engagement of the Pacific campaign of World
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Second Happy Time:
The Second Happy Time was the informal name for a phase in the Second Battle of the Atlantic during which Axis submarines attacked merchant shipping along the east coast of North America. The first "Happy time" had been in 1940/41. It lasted from Jan
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Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere:
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Kyūjitai: 大東亞共榮圈, Shinjitai: 大東亜共栄圏 Dai-tō-a Kyōeiken) was a concept created and promulgated during the Shōwa era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan which represented the desire to create
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Oro Province:
Oro Province, formerly (and officially still) Northern Province, is a coastal province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Popondetta. The province covers 22,800 km², and has 133,065 inhabitants (2000 census). The northern end of the Kokod
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Bombing of Darwin (February 1942):
The Japanese air raids on Darwin, Australia, on 19 February 1942 were the largest attacks ever mounted by a foreign power against Australia. They were also a significant action in the Pacific campaign of World War II and represented a major psycholog
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Operation Hailstone:
Operation Hailstone (トラック島空襲 Torakku-tō Kūshū, lit. "the airstrike on Truk Island") was a massive naval air and surface attack launched on 17 and 18 February, 1944, during World War II by the United States Navy against the Japanese naval and air base
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Nazi plunder:
Nazi plunder refers to art theft and other items stolen as a result of the organized spoliation of European countries during the time of the Third Reich by agents acting on behalf of the ruling Nazi Party of Germany. Plundering occurred from 1933 unt
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Death of Adolf Hitler:
The generally accepted cause of the death of Adolf Hitler on Monday, 30 April 1945 is suicide by gunshot and cyanide poisoning. The dual method and other circumstances surrounding the event encouraged rumours that Adolf Hitler may have survived the e
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Allied war crimes during World War II:
Allied war crimes were violations of the laws of war committed by the Allies of World War II against civilian populations or military personnel of the Axis Powers. At the end of World War II, several trials of Axis war criminals took place, most famo
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War economy:
War economy is the term used to describe the contingencies undertaken by the modern state to mobilise its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon describes a war economy as a "system of producing, mobilising and allocating resources to sustain
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Operation U-Go:
The U Go offensive, or Operation C (ウ号作戦), was the Japanese offensive in March 1944 launched against Empire forces in the North-East Indian region of Manipur. Aimed at the direction of the Brahmaputra valley, through the two towns of Imphal and Kohim
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