Fear of Communism, Joseph Stalin consolidated power into a personal dictatorship. He industrialized the USSR through "Five-Year Plans" and maintained control through state-run terror, secret police, and the Great Purge., Rise of Fascism , Adolf Hitler modeled the Nazi Party after Mussolini’s success, promising to tear up the Treaty of Versailles and restore national honor. He was legally appointed Chancellor in 1933 before dismantling democratic institutions., Totalitarianism, a system of near-complete state control over public and private life, FDR Quarantine Speech, Just as a community quarantines sick patients to prevent an epidemic from spreading, peace-loving nations must work together to quarantine aggressor nations to protect global civilization., FDR Four Freedoms Speech, speech proposed a vision for a post-war world founded on four essential human rights. The freedoms: speech, religion, from fear, and want/economic, FDR Atlantic Charter, a pivotal joint declaration issued on August 14, 1941, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The U.S. was still technically neutral. The Charter signaled to the world—and to isolationists—that the U.S. was morally committed to the Allied cause., FDR Lend-Lease Act, It effectively ended US neutrality by allowing the president to "sell, transfer, exchange, lease, [or] lend" military hardware to any nation deemed vital to the defense of the United States., Holocaust, The state-sponsored, systematic persecution and genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. It resulted in the murder of six million Jews—roughly two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population., Concentration Camps, Part of a massive network of over 44,000 incarceration sites established by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. These sites served diverse functions, ranging from the detention of political opponents to the industrial-scale murder of millions., Pearl Harbor, This "date which will live in infamy" ended American isolationism and directly triggered the U.S. entry into World War II., Winston Churchill, The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in May 1940, just as the Nazi "Blitzkrieg" was crushing Western Europe. He is widely credited with being the primary catalyst for British resistance during the war's darkest hours., Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. He was the chief architect of the military strategy that defeated Nazi Germany. Made the agonizing decision to launch the invasion of Normandy on D-Day and liberated Jewish survivors from concentration camps. , Adolph Hitler, The dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was the primary instigator of World War II in Europe and the chief architect of the Holocaust., Douglas MacArthur, Controversial commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. He became the face of the American war effort in the Pacific against Imperial Japan., George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff from 1939 to 1945.  The "architect of victory" who transformed a small, underequipped force of 190,000 into a global military powerhouse of over 8 million. Winston Churchill famously called him the "organizer of victory" for his mastery of logistics and strategy. , Benito Mussolini, He was the fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943. He was the ideological father of fascism and Adolf Hitler’s senior partner—and eventual subordinate—within the Axis alliance., Franklin D. Roosevelt, Led the US through the transition from isolationism to global leadership during World War II. His presidency during the war was defined by his role as the "Arsenal of Democracy," his strategic partnership with the Allied "Big Three, Joseph Stalin, The dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR) during WWII. While he initially signed a pact with Hitler, the Nazi invasion forced him into an alliance with Britain and the US, where his Red Army did the majority of the heavy lifting in defeating the German military., Hideki Tojo, The leading figure of the Japanese military's control over the government. He was a staunch militarist and the primary architect of Japan’s expansionist policies in Asia and the decision to attack the United States., President Harry Truman, He presided over the final, most decisive months of World War II. His most significant and controversial wartime action was authorizing the use of nuclear weapons against Japan.  .

WW2

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