6.5

The second World War the world conflict I probably have heard about the most. This is because my grandfather was in the battle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific and as a Jew I have studied a great deal about the Holocaust. World War II actually began in Asia with the rise of Chinese nationalism. This threatened Japans influence in Manchuria. The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931 and then Japan withdrew from the league of nations. It began to get closer to Germany and Italy and it made a large attack on China in 1937. The western governments such as Britain has tried to control Japan and Japan had become dependent on American sources of goods such as iron, oil and tools. Japan did not like being treated as a second rate power and it began to have military operations in colonies that belonged to the French, British, Dutch and America in Indochina, Malaya, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines to get resources.  Japan was the dissatisfied nation in Asia. In Europe it was Nazi Germany. When Hitler and the Nazis took control Germany prepared for war. In 1938 Germany took over Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia. At the Munich conference the British and the French did not stand up to Hitler. Now Munich has the meaning of appeasement or giving in. Germany went on to attack Poland and the second World War broke out in Europe. The Germans quickly conquered France and then attacked Britain and the Soviet Union. Germany was joined by its ally Italy. The United States entered World War II when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and this began a long struggle against the Japanese all over Southeast Asia and parts of China. This part of the war only ended   when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The British were able to keep the Nazis from invading England. In the Soviet Union the Germans were finally defeated after millions were killed. One of the worst aspects of World War II was the Holocaust. Jews were rounded up in Germany and later in Poland and Hungary and other territories had conquered. The Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews and other people they saw as inferior such as gypsies, the handicapped and homosexuals. Some Jews were able to flee to Palestine where they tried to establish the state of Israel displacing many Arabs and leading to the Arab Israeli conflict that continues today. The United States came out of World War II as the strongest power. With US aid Europe did recover economically very quickly and to the United States the Soviet Union and communism became the enemy that replaced the Nazis.