World War II
It was the biggest and deadliest war in history, spanning six grueling years and involving countries in nearly every part of the world. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, World War II pitted the Allied forces (led by the United States, Great Britain and the U.S.S.R.) against the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy). Explore the battles, key players and atrocities from the war and its impact on geopolitics and humankind today.
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Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. Over the next six years, the conflict took more lives and destroyed more land and property around the globe than any previous war. See a timeline of the war's battles.
By the time the first Japanese bomber appeared over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, tensions between Japan and the United States had been mounting for the better part of a decade, making war seem inevitable.
The Allied invasion of Normandy was among the largest military operations ever staged.
The Holocaust was the persecution and murder of millions of Jews, Roma, political dissidents, homosexuals and others by the Nazi regime.
The Hidden Army of Women That Helped Defeat Hitler
Flashback: The Hidden Army of Women That Helped Defeat Hitler
This 1944 American propaganda film imagine’s Hitler’s surrender and explains the Füher’s greatest mistake – his underestimation of American women. This episode of Flashback shows how female wartime workers were an indispensable part of America’s victory, even before the war was officially won.
3 Key Battles
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On February 25, 1942, an infamous false alarm saw American military units unleash a torrent of anti-aircraft fire in the skies over Los Angeles.
In the Bataan Death March of World War II, 75,000 Filipino and U.S. troops made a hellish 65-mile march to prison camps, but about 17,000 were killed en route.
On the 70th anniversary of his death get the facts on the famed “Desert Fox.”
Estimates suggest that Nazis murdered 85 percent of the people at Auschwitz. Here are the stories of three who survived.
Using fame as a cover, the glamorous entertainer spied for the French Resistance against the Nazis.
Codenamed Operation Overlord, D-Day began on June 6, 1944, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces stormed Normandy.
Elizebeth Friedman’s codebreaking helped save the Queen Mary and capture a Nazi spy ringleader in Latin America.
Learn the backroom politics, courtroom dramas and moral debates.
After Hitler’s forces invaded Denmark in 1940, a Canadian ship sailed through the Northwest Passage to assert sovereignty in the Arctic.
No, it wasn't staged. The photographer says he just got lucky.
Talk about 'death by chocolate.' Drawings reveal Nazi booby traps made from everyday items, including a chocolate bomb meant for the British Prime Minister.
Mussolini, who coined the term fascism, crushed opposition with violence and projected an image of himself as a powerful, indispensable leader.
The punishing three-day Allied bombing attack, intended to force a German surrender, leveled the city and left tens of thousands dead.
