From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note: as per the merge suggestion that has been in both articles for many months now, I have merged the contents of article The 20th century in review into this one. For now, to get the merge accomplished technically, I simply copied the contents of the latter article to the end of this one (see The former article The 20th century in review). I am currently properly merging the content. I archived the talk page of "The 20th century in review" as Talk:20th_century/Archive_2. Teemu Leisti (talk) 06:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

---

This article does not cite any references or sources. (February 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 (the start of World War I) to 1991 (the dissolution of the Soviet Union) to be the Short Twentieth Century.

The 20th century witnessed radical changes in almost every area of human actions. Scientific discoveries such as the theory of relativity and quantum physics radically changed the worldview of scientists, causing them to realize that the universe was much more complex than previously believed, and dashing the hopes at the end of the 19th century that the last few details of scientific knowledge were about to be filled in. Accelerating scientific understanding, better communications, and faster transportation greatly transformed the world in those hundred years more than nearly any time in the past. It was a century that started with steam-powered ships and ended with the space shuttle. Horses and other pack animals, Western society's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years, were replaced by automobiles within the span of a few decades. The century also gave rise to humanity's first footsteps on the Moon and computer technology.

The period saw a remarkable shift in the way that vast numbers of people lived, as a result of technological, medical, social, ideological, and political innovation. Arguably more technological advances occurred in any ten-year period following World War I than the sum total of new technological development in any century before the industrial revolution. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage and became an influence on everyone's lives.

The massive arms race of the 19th century finally culminated in a war which involved every powerful nation in the world - World War I. After more than four years of horrifying trench warfare, and 20 million dead, those powers who had formed the Triple Entente emerged victorious over the Triple Alliance. In addition to annexing much of the colonial possessions of the vanquished states, the Triple Entente exacted punitive restitution payments from their former foes, plunging Germany in particular into economic depression. The Russian Empire was plunged into revolution during the conflict, and the Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires were dismantled at the war's conclusion. War reached an unprecedented scale and sophistication; in World War II (1939-1945) alone, approximately 57-62 million people died, mainly due to massive advances in weaponry. The trends of mechanization of goods and services and networks of global communication, which began in the 19th century, continued at an ever-increasing pace.As the British Empire, its economy ruined by the war, began to shrink, a power vacuum began to develop. Fascism, a movement which grew out of post war angst, gained momentum in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s, finally culminating in World War II, sparked off by a revitalized Germany's aggressive expansion at the expense of her neighbours. The largest and most devastating war ever fought, World War II claimed the lives of 60 million people. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the most powerful nations when the conflict ended in 1945, and subsequently began a new arms race, with new technologies such as nuclear weapons and space age technology, in the Cold War.

Wars prompted nations, such as the United States of America and the Soviet Union, to gain power and also gave them increasing influence over other nations. Armed conflicts caused the beginning of international American involvement which would accelerate as that nation began to find itself in a position of extreme influence.

• After decades of struggle by the women's suffrage movement, all western countries gave women the right to vote.
• Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the many causes of World War I (1914–1918), the first of two wars to involve all the major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and the British Empire. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. Ironically, it was said by many to be the "war to end all wars".

• A violent civil war broke out in Spain in 1936 when General Francisco Franco rebelled against the Second Spanish Republic. Many consider this war as a testing battleground for World War II as the fascist armies bombed some Spanish territories.
• The economic and political aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression in the 1930s led to the rise of fascism and nazism in Europe, and subsequently to World War II (1939–1945). This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. Civilians also suffered greatly in World War II, due to the aerial bombing of cities on both sides, and the German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust. In 1945, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place.
• During World War I, in Russia the Bolshevik putsch took over the Russian Revolution of 1917, precipitating the founding of the Soviet Union and rise of communism. After the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II, communism became a major force in global politics, notably in Eastern Europe, China, Indochina and Cuba, where communist parties gained near-absolute power. This led to the Cold War and proxy wars with the West, including wars in Korea (1950–1953) and Vietnam (1957–1975).
• The Soviet authorities caused the deaths of millions of their own citizens in order to eliminate domestic opposition. More than 18 million people passed through the Gulag, with a further 6 million being exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.^[2][3]
• The civil rights movement in the USA and the movement against apartheid in South Africa successfully challenged racial segregation in those countries.
• The two world wars led to efforts to increase international cooperation, notably through the founding of the League of Nations after World War I, and its successor, the United Nations, after World War II.
• The creation of Israel by the British, a Jewish state in the Middle East fueled many regional conflicts. These were also influenced by the vast oil fields in many of the other countries of the mostly Arab region.
• The end of colonialism led to the independence of many African and Asian countries. During the Cold War, many of these aligned with the USA, the USSR, or China for defense.
• The Great Chinese Famine was a direct cause of the death of tens of millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962. It is thought to be the largest famine in human history.
• The revolutions of 1989 released Eastern and Central Europe from Soviet supremacy. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia dissolved, the latter violently over several years, into successor states, many rife with ethnic nationalism. This left the United States as the world's only superpower.
• After a long period of civil wars and conflicts with European powers, China's last imperial dynasty ended in 1912. The resulting republic was replaced, after yet another civil war, by a communist People's Republic in 1949. At the end of the century, though still ruled by a communist party, China's economic system was well on its way to an almost complete transformation to capitalism.
• European integration began in earnest in the 1950s, and eventually led to the European Union, a political and economic union that comprised 15 countries at the end of the century.

• As the century begins, Paris is the artistic capital of the world, where both French and foreign writers, composers and visual artists gather. By the end of the century, the focal point of culture had moved to the United States, especially New York City and Los Angeles.
• Movies, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many movies and music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world.
• After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new birth control techniques women became more independent throughout the century.
• In classical music, composition branched out into many completely new domains, including dodecaphony, aleatoric and chance music, and minimalism. Electronic musical instruments were developed as well, vastly broadening the scope of sounds available to composers and performers.
• Rock and Roll and Jazz styles of music are developed in the United States, and quickly become the dominant forms of popular music in America, and later, the world. Many other styles of music develop and spread as well, also branching off and influencing each other, including Pop Music, Heavy Metal, Alternative, House or Dance, Soul, Rap and Hip-Hop.
• The art world experienced the development of new styles and explorations such as expressionism, cubism,de stijl, abstract expressionism and surrealism.
• The Modern art movement revolutionized art culture and set the stage for contemporary postmodern art practices.
• Modern architecture evolved within Europe with a radical departure from the excess decoration of the Victorian era — streamlined forms inspired by machines became more commonplace. Developments in building material technologies furthered this shift. European architects moved to the United States prior to World War II, where modern architectural theory continued to blossom.
• The automobile provided vastly increased transportation capabilities for the average member of Western societies in the early to mid-century, spreading even further later on. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. The car became a leading symbol of modern society, with styles of car suited to and symbolic of particular lifestyles.
• Sports became an important part of society, becoming an activity not only for the privileged. Watching sports, later also on television, became a popular activity.

• Placebo-controlled, randomized, blinded clinical trials became a powerful tool for testing new medicines.
• Antibiotics drastically reduced mortality from bacterial diseases and their prevalence.
• A vaccine was developed for polio, ending a worldwide epidemic. Effective vaccines were also developed for a number of other serious infectious diseases, including diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), chickenpox, influenza, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B.
• A successful application of epidemiology and vaccination led to the eradication of the smallpox virus in humans.
• X-rays became powerful diagnostic tool for wide spectrum of diseases, from bone fractures to cancer. In the 1960s, computerized tomography was invented. Other important diagnostics tools developed were sonography and magnetic resonance imaging.
• Development of vitamins virtually eliminated scurvy and other vitamin-deficiency diseases.
• New psychiatric drugs were developed. This includes antipsychotics which are efficient in treating hallucinations and delusions, and antidepressants for treating depression.
• The role of tobacco smoking in the causation of cancer and other diseases was proven during the 1950s (see British Doctors Study).
• New methods for cancer treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy, were developed. As a result, cancer could often be cured or placed in remission.
• The development of blood typing and blood banking made blood transfusion safe and widely available.
• The invention and development of immunosuppressive drugs and tissue typing made organ and tissue transplantation a clinical reality.
• As research on all aspects of sleep and circadian rhythms exploded, dozens of sleep disorders were defined.
• New methods for heart surgery were developed.
• Cocaine and heroin were found to be dangerous addictive drugs, and their wide usage had been outlawed.
• Contraceptive drugs were developed, which reduced population growth rates.
• The development of medical insulin during the 1920s helped raise the life expectancy of diabetics to three times of what it had been earlier.
• The elucidation of the structure and function of DNA initiated the development of genetic engineering and the mapping of the human genome.

• An influenza pandemic, the Spanish Flu, killed 25 million between 1918 and 1919
• A new viral disease, AIDS, arose in Africa and subsequently killed millions of people throughout the world. AIDS treatments remained inaccessible to people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries, but even with the best available treatment, most patients eventually died from complications of the disease.
• Because of increased life spans, the prevalence of cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other diseases of the aged increased.

• The dominant use of fossil sources and nuclear power, considered the conventional energy sources.

• Widespread use of petroleum in industry — both as a chemical precursor to plastics and as a fuel for the automobile and airplane — led to the vital geopolitical importance of petroleum resources. The Middle East, home to many of the world's oil deposits, became a center of geopolitical and military tension throughout the latter half of the century. (For example, oil was a factor in Japan's decision to go to war against the United States in 1941, and the oil cartel, OPEC, used an oil embargo of sorts in the wake of the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s).

• A vast increase in fossil fuel consumption, caused, according to scientists, smog and other forms of air pollution, global warming, local and global climate change, and an accelerating depletion of natural resources.

• Studies showed that pesticides, herbicides and other toxic chemicals were accumulating in the environment and within the bodies of humans and other animals.

• Many believed that overpopulation and world-wide deforestation, which additionally caused a loss of biodiversity, further diminished the quality of the environment.

• The 20th century in review
• Infectious disease in the 20th century
• Death rates in the 20th century
• Technology
• Infant mortality
• Life expectancy
• Maternal death
• List of battles 1901-2000
• 20th century inventions
• Timeline of 20th century Muslim history

v • d • e Modernism
Modernism · Modernity · History · Music · Literature · Poetry · Art · Dance · Architecture
« Romanticism Postmodernism »

---

Above all, the 20th century is distinguished from most of human history in that its most significant changes were directly or indirectly economic and technological in nature. Economic development was the force behind vast changes in everyday life, to a degree which was unprecedented in human history. The great changes of centuries before the 19th were more connected with ideas, religion or military conquest, and technological advance had only made small changes in the material wealth of ordinary people. Over the course of the 20th century, in the United States, the per-worker Gross Domestic Product grew by a factor of 3.8.^[4]

Many economists make the case that this understates the magnitude of growth, as many of the goods and services consumed at the end of the century, such as improved medicine (causing world life expectancy to increase by more than two decades) and communications technologies, were not available at any price at its beginning.

However, the gulf between the world's rich and poor, at first, grew much wider than it had ever been in the past, and the majority of the global population remained in the poor side of the divide. However, by the end of the century, the gap between rich and poor grew much narrower, with millions of people buying luxury items on credit, while kings lost nation colonies to democracy, and Catherine the Great's 1054-room Winter Palace became just part of the people's Hermitage Museum.

Still, advancing technology and medicine has had a great impact even in the Global South. Large-scale industry and more centralized media made brutal dictatorships possible on an unprecedented scale in the middle of the century, leading to wars on unprecedented scales, but the increased communications also contributed to democratization. So, by the end of the 20th century, widespread information scanned by search engines across the Internet revealed secrets about voting machine fraud, secretly-contrived wars, and medical overcharging that few generations could have accessed.

The 20th century was marked by a period of change. After inventions such as the light bulb, the automobile, and the telephone in the late 1800s, followed by mega-ships, airliners, super-highways, radio, television, antibiotics, microcomputers, and frozen food, the quality of life improved for many. Alongside such technological progress, no one could have expected what a change 100 years would have on the political world. The United States made huge gains economically and politically; by 1900, the U.S. was the world's leading industrial power in terms of output.^[5] Africa, Central and South America, and Asia also gradually drifted towards greater autonomy. With the creation of newly independent states in former European possessions, the balance of power throughout the 20th century began to shift away from Europe.

In Europe, changes began as well. The British Empire achieved the height of its power. Germany and Italy, which came into existence as unified nations at the end of the 19th century, worked to grow in power, economy and imperial power challenging the traditional hegemony of Britain and France. With nationalism in full force at this time, the European powers competed with each other for land, military strength and economic power.

Asia and Africa, for the most part, were still under control of their European conquerors. Exceptions existed, however, as in China and Japan. Furthermore, Japan and Russia were at war with one another in 1905. The Russo-Japanese War was one of the first instances of a European power falling victim to a so-called inferior nation. The war itself strengthened Japanese militarism and enhanced Japan's rise to the status of a world power. Tsarist Russia, on the other hand, did not handle the defeat well. The war exposed the country's military weakness and increasing economic backwardness.

The United States was an increasingly influential player in world politics during the 19th century. It had made its presence known on the world stage by challenging the Spanish in the Spanish-American War, gaining the colonies of Cuba and the Philippines as protectorates. Now, with growth in immigration and a resolution of the national unity issue through the bloody American Civil War, America was emerging as an industrial powerhouse as well, rivaling Britain, Germany, and France.

With such a rise in power in Asia, and especially in North America, and with increasing rivalry among the European powers, the stage was set for world politics to undergo a major upheaval.

Main article: World War I

The First World War started in 1914 and ended in 1918. It was ignited by the Assassination in Sarajevo of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's heir to the throne, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, by Gavrilo Princip of the Serbian nationalist organization "Black Hand". Bound by Slavic nationalism to help the small Serbian state, the Russians came to the aid of the Serbs when they were attacked. Interwoven alliances, an increasing arms race, and old hatreds dragged Europe into war. The Allies, known initially as "The Triple Entente", comprised the British Empire, Russia and France, as well as Italy and the United States later in the war. On the other side, Germany, along with Austria-Hungary and later the Ottoman Empire, were known as "The Central Powers".

In 1917 Russia ended hostile actions against the Central Powers after the fall of the Tsar. The Bolsheviks negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany although it was at huge cost to Russia. Although Germany shifted huge forces from the eastern to the western front after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, it couldn't stop the Allied advance, especially with the entrance of American troops in 1918.

The war itself was also a chance for the combating nations to show off their military strength and technological ingenuity. The Germans introduced the machine gun and deadly gases. The British first used the tank. Both sides had a chance to test out their new aircraft to see if it could be used in warfare. It was widely believed that the war would be short. Unfortunately, since trench warfare was the best form of defense, advances on both sides were very slow. Thus the war was drawn out longer and caused more fatalities than expected.

When the war was finally over in 1918, the results would set the stage for the next fifty years. First and foremost, the Germans were forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, forcing them to make exorbitant payments to repair damages caused during the War. Many Germans felt these reparations were unfair because they did not actually "lose" the war nor did they feel they caused the war (q.v. Dolchstoßlegende). Germany was never occupied by Allied troops, yet it had to accept a liberal democratic government imposed on it by the victors after the abdication of Kaiser Willhelm.

Much of the map of Europe was redrawn by the victors based upon the theory that future wars could be prevented if all ethnic groups had their own "homeland". New states like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were created out of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire to accommodate the nationalist aspirations of these groups. An international body called the League of Nations was formed to mediate disputes and prevent future wars, although its effectiveness was severely limited by, among other things, its reluctance and inability to act.

The entire world got a taste of what world-wide industrialized warfare could be like. The idea of war as a noble defense of one country in a good cause vanished as people of all nations reflected upon the deficiencies of their leaders which had caused the decimation of an entire generation of young men. No one had any interest in another war of such magnitude. Pacifism became popular and fashionable.

Main article: Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution of 1917 sparked a wave of communist revolutions across Europe, prompting many to believe that a socialist world revolution could be realized in the near future. However, the European revolutions were defeated, Lenin died in 1924, and within a few years Josef Stalin displaced Leon Trotsky as the de facto leader of the Soviet Union. The idea of worldwide revolution was no longer in the forefront, as Stalin concentrated on "socialism in one country" and embarked on a bold plan of collectivization and industrialization. The majority of socialists and even many communists became disillusioned with Stalin's autocratic rule, his purges and the assassination of his "enemies", as well as the news of famines he imposed on his own people.

Communism was strengthened as a force in Western democracies when the global economy crashed in 1929 in what became known as the Great Depression. Many people saw this as the first stage of the end of the capitalist system and were attracted to Communism as a solution to the economic crisis.

Main article: Interwar period

Main article: Great Depression

The economy after World War I remained strong throughout the 1920s. The war provided a stimulus for industry and for economic activity in general. There were many warning signs foretelling the collapse of the global economic system in 1929 that were generally not understood by the political leadership of the time. The responses to the crisis often made the situation worse, as millions of people watched their savings become next to worthless and the idea of a steady job with a reasonable income fading away.

Many sought answers in alternative ideologies such as communism and fascism. They believed that the economic system was collapsing and new ideas were required to meet the crisis. The early responses to the crisis were based upon the assumption that the free market would correct itself, however, this did very little to correct the crisis or alleviate the suffering of many ordinary people. Thus, the idea that the existing system could be reformed by government intervention in the economy rather than a laissez-faire approach became prominent as a solution to the crisis. Democratic governments assumed the responsibility to provide needed services in society and alleviate poverty—thus the welfare state was born. These two politico-economic principles, the belief in government intervention and the welfare state, as opposed to the belief in the free market and private institutions, would define many political battles for the rest of the century.

Main articles: Fascism, Totalitarianism, and Dictatorship

Fascism first appeared in Italy with the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in 1922. This was supported by a large proportion of the upper classes as a strong challenge to the threat of communism.

When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, a new variant of fascism called Nazism took over Germany and ended the German experiment with democracy. The National Socialist party in Germany was dedicated to the restoration of German honor and prestige, the unification of German-speaking peoples, and the annexation of Central and Eastern Europe as vassal states, with the Slavic population to act as slave labor to serve German economic interests. There was also strong appeal to racial purity (the idea that Germans are the Herrenvolk or master race) and a vicious anti-semitism which promoted the idea of Jews as subhuman (Untermensch) and worthy only of extermination.

Many people in Western Europe and the United States greeted the rise of Hitler with relief or indifference. They could see nothing wrong with a strong Germany ready to take on the communist menace to the east. Anti-semitism during the Great Depression was widespread as many were content to blame the Jews for causing the economic downturn.

Hitler began to put his plan in motion, annexing Austria in the Anschluss, or reunification of Austria to Germany, in 1938. He then negotiated the annexation of the Sudetenland, a German speaking mountainous area of Czechoslovakia, in the Munich Conference. The British were eager to avoid war and believed Hitler's assurance to protect the security of the Czech state. Hitler annexed the rest of the Czech state shortly afterwards. It could no longer be argued that Hitler was solely interested in unifying the German people.

Fascism was not the only form of dictatorship to rise in the post-war period. Almost all of the new democracies in the nations of eastern Europe collapsed and were replaced by authoritarian regimes. Spain also became a dictatorship under the leadership of General Francisco Franco after the Spanish Civil War. Totalitarian states attempted to achieve total control over their subjects as well as their total loyalty. They held the state above the individual, and were often responsible for some of the worst acts in history, such as the Holocaust, or the Great Purge Stalin perpetrated on his own people later in history. In fact, at this time, democracy seemed to be on the decline. It was a period of fear and doubt, exploited by several ruthless men who committed horrific acts with their peoples' support.

Main article: World War II

Main article: European Theater of World War II

This section provides a conversational overview of World War II in Europe. See main article for a fuller discussion.

Soon after the events in Czechoslovakia, Britain and France issued assurances of protection to Poland, which seemed to be next on Hitler's list. World War II officially began on September 1, 1939. On that date, Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, against Poland. Britain and France, much to Hitler's surprise, immediately declared war upon Germany, but the help they could afford Poland was negligible. After only a few weeks, the Polish forces were overwhelmed, and its government fled to exile in London (see Polish government in Exile).

In starting World War II, the Germans had unleashed a new type of warfare, characterized by highly mobile forces and the use of massed aircraft. The German strategy concentrated upon the devotion of the Wehrmacht, or German army, to the use of tank groups, called panzer divisions, and groups of mobile infantry, in concert with relentless attacks from the air. Encirclement was also a major part of the strategy. This change smashed any expectations that the Second World War would be fought in the trenches like the first.

As Hitler's forces conquered Poland, the Soviet Union, under General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was acting out guarantees of territory under a secret part of a nonaggression pact between the USSR and Germany known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This treaty gave Stalin free rein to take the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Eastern Poland, all of which would remain in Soviet possession after the war. Stalin also launched an attack on Finland, which he hoped to reduce to little more than a Soviet puppet state, but the Red Army met staunch Finnish resistance in what became known as the Winter War, and succeeded in gaining only limited territory from the Finns. This action would later cause the Finns to ally with Germany when its attack on the Soviet Union came in 1941.

After the defeat of Poland, a period known as the Phony War ensued during the winter of 1939–1940. All of this changed on May 10, 1940, when the Germans launched a massive attack on the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), most probably to surmount the Maginot Line of defenses on the Franco-German border. This witnessed the incredible fall of Eben Emael, a Belgian fort considered impregnable and guarded by 600 Belgians, to a force of only 88 German paratroopers. The worst of this was that King Léopold III of Belgium surrendered to the Germans on May 28 without warning his allies, exposing the entire flank of the Allied forces to German panzer groups. Following the conquest of the Low Countries, Hitler occupied Denmark and Norway, beginning on April 9, 1940. Norway was strategically important because of its sea routes which supplied crucial Swedish ore to the Nazi war machine. Norway held on for a few crucial weeks, but Denmark surrendered after only four days.

With the disaster in the Low Countries, France, considered at the time to have had the finest army in world, lasted only four weeks, with Paris being occupied on June 14. Three days later, Marshal Philippe Pétain surrendered to the Germans. The debacle in France also led to one of the war's greatest mysteries, and Hitler's first great blunder, Dunkirk, where a third of a million trapped British and French soldiers were evacuated by not only British war boats, but every boat the army could find, including fishing rafts. Hitler refused to "risk" his panzers on action at Dunkirk, listening to the advice of Air Minister Hermann Göring and allowing the Luftwaffe, or German Air Force, to handle the job. The irony of this was that the escaped men would form the core of the army that was to invade the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Hitler did not occupy all of France, but about three-quarters, including all of the Atlantic coast, allowing Marshal Pétain to remain as dictator of an area known as Vichy France. However, members of the escaped French Army formed around General Charles de Gaulle to create the Free French forces, which would continue to battle Hitler in the stead of an independent France. At this moment, Mussolini declared war on the Allies on June 10, thinking that the war was almost over, but he managed only to occupy a few hundred yards of French territory. Throughout the war, the Italians would be more of a burden to the Nazis than a boon, and would later cost them precious time in Greece.

Here is one of history's greatest ironies. Hitler now stood in a unique position. Already, he had conquered an incredible amount of territory in only a short space of time, and had the chance to rule all of Europe. Indeed, from a military viewpoint, it is a wonder that Hitler even lost World War II. Throughout 1940 and 1941, he gained the acquiescence and virtual control of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as Finland as an uncomfortable ally. The key is that Hitler had supported the ideas of generals like Heinz Guderian, often called the prophet of accelerated war, and Erwin Rommel, one military genius who emerged in World War II. Hitler attributed their successes to his own military genius, and his own self-confidence would later be the chief cause of the defeat of Germany. Hitler could now have become ruler of Europe, and possibly dictator of the world, if only he had followed common-sense plans advocated to him by many German generals. However, he did not, saving the world from Nazi domination.

Hitler now turned his eyes on Great Britain, which stood alone against him. He ordered his generals to draw up plans for an invasion, code named Operation Sea Lion, and ordered the Luftwaffe to launch a massive air war against the British isles, which would come to be known as the Battle of Britain. The British at first suffered steady losses, but eventually managed to turn the air war against Germany, taking down 2,698 German planes throughout the summer of 1940 to only 915 Royal Air Force (RAF) losses. The key turning point came when the Germans discontinued successful attacks against British airplane factories and radar command and coordination stations and turned to civilian bombing known as terror bombing using the distinctive "bomb" sound created by the German dive-bomber, the Stuka. The switch came after a small British bombing force had attacked Berlin. Hitler was infuriated. However, his decision to switch the attacks' focus allowed the British to rebuild the RAF and eventually force the Germans to indefinitely postpone Sea Lion.

The importance of the Battle of Britain is that it marked the beginning of Hitler's defeat. Secondly, it marked the advent of radar as a major weapon in modern air war. With radar, squadrons of fighters could be quickly assembled to respond to incoming bombers attempting to bomb civilian targets. It also allowed the identification of the type and a guess at the number of incoming enemy aircraft, as well as tracking of friendly airplanes.

Hitler, taken aback by his defeat over the skies of Britain, now turned his gaze eastward to the Soviet Union. Despite having signed the non-aggression pact with Stalin, Hitler despised communism and wished to destroy it in the land of its birth. He originally planned to launch the attack in early spring of 1941 to avoid the disastrous Russian winter. However, a pro-allied coup in Yugoslavia and Mussolini's almost utter defeat in his invasion of Greece from occupied Albania prompted Hitler to launch a personal campaign of revenge in Yugoslavia and to occupy Greece at the same time. The Greeks would have a bitter revenge of sorts; the attack caused a delay of several crucial weeks of the invasion of Russia.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler hurled at Stalin the largest army the world has ever seen. Over three million men and their weapons were put into service against the Soviets. Stalin had been warned about the attack, both by other countries and by his own intelligence network, but he had refused to believe it. Therefore, the Russian army was largely unprepared and suffered incredible setbacks in the early part of the war, despite Stalin's orders to counterattack the Germans. Throughout 1941, German forces, divided into 3 army groups (Army Group A, Army Group B, and Army Group C), occupied the Eastern Europe states of Ukraine and Belarus, laid siege to Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg), and advanced to within 15 miles of Moscow. At this critical moment, the Russian winter, which began early that year, stalled the German Wehrmacht to a halt at the gates of Moscow. Stalin had planned to evacuate the city, and had already moved important government functions, but decided to stay and rally the city. Recently arrived troops from the east under the command of military genius Marshal Georgi Zhukov counterattacked the Germans and drove them from Moscow. The German army then dug in for the winter.

Here marks the third great blunder of Hitler's. He could have won the war in the USSR except for a few reasons. One, he started the war too late to avoid the Russian winter. Second, he tried to capture too much too fast; he wanted the German army to advance all the way to the Urals, which amounted to one million square miles (2,600,000 km²) of territory, when he probably should have concentrated on taking Moscow and thereby driving a wedge into heart of the Soviet Union. Third, he ignored the similar experiences of Napoleon Bonaparte nearly one hundred and fifty years earlier in his attempt to conquer Russia. Despite this, Stalin was not in a good position. Roughly two-fifths of the USSR's industrial might was in German hands. Also, the Germans were at first seen by many as liberators fighting the communists. Stalin was also not a very able general, and like Hitler, at first tried to fight the war as a military strategist. However, Hitler managed to turn all of his advantages against himself, and lost the only remaining hope for Germany: seizing the Caucasus and taking control of North Africa and the oil-rich Middle East.

Mussolini had launched an offensive in North Africa from Italian-controlled Libya into British-controlled Egypt. However, the British smashed the Italians and were on the verge of taking Libya. Hitler decided to help by sending in a few thousand troops, a Luftwaffe division, and the first-rate general Erwin Rommel. Rommel managed to use his small force to repeatedly smash massively superior British forces and to recapture the port city of Tobruk and advance into Egypt. However, Hitler, embroiled in his invasion of the Soviet Union, refused to send Rommel any more troops. If he had, Rommel might have been able to seize the Middle East, where Axis-friendly regimes had taken root in Iraq and Persia (present-day Iran). Here, Rommel could have cut the major supply route of the Soviets through Persia, and helped take the Caucasus, virtually neutralizing Britain's effectiveness in the war and potentially sealing the fate of the USSR. However, Hitler blundered again, throwing away the last vestiges of the German advantage on his coming offensive in 1942.

After the winter, Hitler launched a fresh offensive in the spring of 1942, with the aim of capturing the oil-rich Caucacus and the city of Stalingrad. However, he repeatedly switched his troops to where they were not needed. The offensive bogged down, and the entire 6th Army, considered the best of German troops, was trapped in Stalingrad. Hitler now refused to let 6th Army break out. He insisted that the German army would force its way in. Hermann Goering also assured Hitler that the Luftwaffe could supply the 6th Army adequately, when it could in reality only supply a minute fraction of the needed ammunition and rations. Eventually, the starved 6th Army surrendered, dealing a severe blow to the Germans. In the end, the defeat at Stalingrad was the turning point for the war in the east.

Meanwhile, the Japanese had attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. This disastrous attack forced the Americans into the war. Hitler need not have declared war on the United States, and kept its continued neutrality in Europe, but he did not. Both he and Mussolini declared war only a few days after the attack. At the time, most German generals, preoccupied with war in Russia, did not even notice America's entrance. It was to be a crucial blunder.

Throughout the rest of 1942 and 1943, the Soviets began to gain ground against the Germans. The tank battle of Kursk is one example. However, by this time, Rommel had been forced to abandon North Africa after a defeat by Montgomery at El Alamein, and the Wehrmacht had encountered serious casualties that it could not replace. Hitler also insisted on a "hold at all costs" policy which forbade relinquishing any ground. He followed a "fight to the last man" policy that was completely ineffective. By the beginning of 1944, Hitler had lost all initiative in Russia, and was struggling even to hold back the tide turning against him.

From 1942 to 1944, the United States and Britain acted in only a limited manner in the European theater, much to the chagrin of Stalin. They drove out the Germans in Africa, invading Morocco and Algeria on November 8, 1942. Then, on July 10, 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily, in preparation for an advance through Italy, the "soft underbelly" of the Axis, as Winston Churchill called it. On September 9, the invasion of Italy began. By the winter of 1943, the southern half of Italy was in Allied hands. The Italians, most of whom did not really support the war, had already turned against Mussolini. In July, he had been stripped of power and taken prisoner, though the Italians feigned continued support of the Axis. On September 8, the Italians formally surrendered, but most of Italy not in Allied hands was controlled by German troops and those loyal to Mussolini's (Mussolini had been freed by German paratroopers) new Italian Social Republic, which in reality consisted of the shrinking zone of German control. The Germans offered staunch resistance, but by June 4, 1944, Rome had fallen.

From 1942-1944, the Second Battle of the Atlantic had been taking place. The Germans hoped to sever the vital supply lines between Britain and America, sinking many tons of shipping with U-boats, German submarines. However, the development of the destroyer and aircraft with a longer patrol range were effective at countering the U-boat threat. By 1944, the Germans had lost the Battle of the Atlantic.

On June 6, 1944, the Western Allies finally launched the long awaited assault on "Fortress Europe" so wanted by Stalin. The offensive, codenamed Operation Overlord, began the early morning hours of June 6. The day, known as D-day, was marked by foul weather. Rommel, who was now in charge of defending France against possible Allied attack, thought the Allies would not attack during the stormy weather, and was on holiday in Germany. Besides this, the Germans were expecting an attack, but at the natural harbor of Calais and not the beaches of Normandy; a blunder that sealed the operation's success. They did not know about the Allies' artificial harbours, and clues planted by the Allies suggested Calais as the landing site.

By this time, the war was looking ever darker for Germany. On July 20, 1944, a group of conspiring German officers attempted to assassinate Hitler. The bomb they used did injure him, but the second was not used, and a table shielded Hitler in a stroke of luck. The plotters still could have launched a coup, but only the head of occupied Paris acted, arresting SS and Gestapo forces in the city. The German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, rallied the Nazis, and saved the day for Hitler.

In France, the Allies took Normandy and finally Paris on August 25. In the east, the Russians had advanced almost to the former Polish-Russian border. At this time, Hitler introduced the V weapons, the V-1 and, later, the V-2, the first rockets used in modern warfare. The V-1 was often intercepted by air pilots, but the V-2 was extremely fast and carried a large payload. However, this advance came too late in the war to have any real effect. The Germans were also on the verge on introducing a number of terrifying new weapons, including advanced jet aircraft, which were too fast for ordinary propeller aircraft, and submarine improvements which would allow the Germans to again fight effectively in the Atlantic. All this came too late to save Hitler. Although a September invasion of The Netherlands failed, the Allies made steady advances. In the winter of 1944, Hitler put everything into one last desperate gamble in the West, known as the Battle of the Bulge, which, despite an initial advance, was a failure, because the introduction of new Allied tanks and low troop numbers among the Germans prevented any real action being taken.

In early February 1945, the three Allied leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, met at newly liberated Yalta in the Crimea in the Soviet Union in the Yalta Conference. Here, they agreed upon a plan to divide post-war Europe. Most of the east went to Stalin, who agreed to allow free elections in Eastern Europe, which he never did. The west went to Britain, France, and the U.S. Post-war Germany would be split between the four, as would Berlin. Here the territory of the Cold War was set. The boundaries of a new Europe, stripped of some of its oldest ruling families, were drawn up by the three men at Yalta.

At the beginning of 1945, Hitler was on his last strings. The Russians launched a devastating attack from Poland, where they had liberated Warsaw, into Germany and Eastern Europe, intending to take Berlin. The Germans collapsed in the West, allowing the Allies to fan out across Germany. However, the Supreme Allied Commander, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, refused to strike for Berlin, and instead became obsessed with reports of possible guerrilla activity in southern Germany, which in reality existed only in the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels. By April 25, the Russians had besieged Berlin. Hitler remained in the city in a bunker under the Chancellery garden. On April 30, he committed suicide, after a ritual wedding with his long time mistress Eva Braun. The Germans held out another 7 days under Admiral Doenitz, their new leader, but the Germans surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945, ending the war in Europe (see V-E Day).

Rivalries that had begun during the war, combined with the sense of strength in the victorious powers, laid the foundations of the Iron Curtain and of the Cold War.

Main article: Pacific Theater of Operations

Main article: Holocaust

The Holocaust (which roughly means "great fire") was the deliberate, systematic, and horrific murder of millions of Jews during World War II by the Nazi regime in Germany. Several differing views exist regarding whether it was intended to occur from the war's beginning, or if the plans for it came about later. Regardless, persecution of Jews extended well before the war even started, such as in the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). The Nazis used propaganda to great effect to stir up anti-Semitic feelings within ordinary Germans.

After the conquest of Poland, the Third Reich, which had previously deported Jews and other "undesirables", suddenly had within its borders the largest concentration of Jews in the world. The solution was to round up Jews and place them in concentration camps or in ghettos, cordoned off sections of cities where Jews were forced to live in deplorable conditions, often with tens of thousands starving to death, and the bodies decaying in the streets. As appalling as this sounds, they were the lucky ones. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, armed killing squads of SS men known as Einsatzgruppen systematically rounded up Jews and murdered an estimated one million Jews within the country. As barbaric and inhuman as this seems, it was too slow and inefficient by Nazi standards.

In 1942, the top leadership met in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, and began to plan a more efficient way to slaughter the Jews. The Nazis created a system of extermination camps throughout Poland, and began rounding up Jews from the Soviet Union, and from the Ghettos. Not only were Jews shot or gassed to death en masse, but they were forced to provide slave labor and they were used in horrific medical experiments (see Human experimentation in Nazi Germany). Out of the widespread condemnation of the Nazis' medical experiments, the Nuremberg Code of medical ethics was devised.

The Nazis took a sadistic pleasure in the death camps; the entrance to the worst camp,