World War II

World War II collage

### Concurrent

Second Sino-Japanese War, Western Front, North African Campaign, Eastern Front, Pacific War, Italian Campaign

## General information

### Date

September 1, 1939-September 2, 1945 (According to most historians)July 7, 1937-September 2, 1945 (According to some alternative sources)

### Location

Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia, China, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, briefly on North America

## Major Events

### Battles

Second Sino-Japanese War:Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Invasion of Manchuria

Battle of Shanghai

Battle of Nanking

European Theater:

* Invasion of Poland
* Soviet Invasion of Poland
* Slovak invasion of Poland
* Winter War
* Operation Barbarossa
* Battle of Stalingrad

Pacific Theater:

* Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
* Battle of the Coral Sea
* Battle of Midway
* Guadalcanal campaign
* Battle of Iwo Jima
* Battle of Okinawa

African Theater:

* Battle of El Alamein
* Battle of Gazala
* Operation Battleaxe

American Theater:

* Schlange Conspiracy

## Combatants

### Allied Forces

Allied Powers:* Soviet Union (1941-1945)
* United States (Joined December of 1941)
* United Kingdom
* China
* Free France
* Poland
* Yugoslavia
* Greece
* China
* Norway
* Czechoslovakia
* Luxembourg
* India
* Canada
* Australia
* Mongolia
* Mexico
* Brazil
* South Africa
* Philippines

### Enemy Forces

Axis Powers:* Nazi Germany
* Imperial Japanese Empire
* Fascist Italy

## Commanders and leaders

### Allied Commanders

Premier Joseph StalinFranklin D. Roosevelt (1941-1945)

Harry S. Truman (1945)

Neville Chamberlain (1939-1940)

Winston Churchill (1940-1945)

William Lyon Mackenzie King

Albert Lebrun (from 1939-1940)

Charles De Gaulle

Dirk Jan de Geer (until 1940)

Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy (1940-1945)

Hubert Pierlot

Johan Nygaardsvold

Emmanouil Tsouderos

Georgios Papandreou

Mao Zedong

Chiang Kai-Shek

### Opposition Commanders

Adolf Hitler (from 1939-1945)Karl Dönitz (1945)

Benito Mussolini

Emperor Hirohito

## Strength

### Allied Strength

Joint Navy, Army, Air and Marine forces Joint Navy, Army, Air and Marine forces

## Casualties and losses

### Total Deaths

Over 61,000,000 Allied casualtiesOver Over 12,000,000 Axis casualties

**World War II** (also known as the **Second World War**) was a global war between the Allied Powers, and the Axis Powers. Though many historians believe World War II officially began with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi German Third Reich invading Poland on September 1, 1939, others believe it actually started with the Japanese invasion of China on July 7, 1937.

## Background

Following the end of World War I, Germany was in ruins. Within the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler came to power in the country. Back in the 1920s, Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy and in 1937, Japan invaded China. By 1938, Germany annexed the Sudetenland and Austria after Italian forces invaded and conquered Ethiopia in 1935. Ignoring a peace-time conference in Munich, Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia a year later, and in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

In order to take half of the country, he persuaded Joseph Stalin, the Premier of the Soviet Union, to secure a treaty under which the Red Army would take the other half of Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland with a tactic that became known as the Blitzkrieg. Two days later, the British and French governments declared war on the Germans.