World War II

• The School : Shotë Galica

The
Teacher: Syzana Demaku
Worked:
Adelisa Mulaj, Erza
Xhekaj ,Xhyla Halilaj , Krenare
Ramaj ,Elson Xhekaj ,Haki
Haziraj ,Misin Ibrahimaj
 .
 World War II[b] or the Second World War was a global
conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of
the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought
as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and
the Axis. Many participating countries invested all available
economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities into
this total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and
military resources. Aircraft played a major role, enabling
the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of
the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. It was by far
the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70–85 million
fatalities. Millions died due to genocides, including the
Holocaust, as well as starvation, massacres, and disease. In
the wake of Axis defeat, Germany, Austria, and Japan were
occupied, and war crime tribunals were conducted against
German and Japanese leaders.
 The causes of the war are debated; contributing factors
.
included the rise of fascism in Europe, the Spanish Civil War,
the Second Sino-Japanese War, Soviet–Japanese border
conflicts, and tensions in the aftermath of World War I.
World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1
September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf
Hitler, invaded Poland. The United
Kingdom and France declared war on Germany on 3
September. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August
1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had
partitioned Poland and marked out their "spheres of
influence" across Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
and Romania. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series
of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled
much of continental Europe in a military alliance called the
Axis with Italy, Japan, and other countries.
 Following the onset of campaigns in North and East Africa, and
.

the fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily

between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with
the war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz of the
UK, and the Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, Germany led the
European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening
the Eastern Front, the largest land theatre of war in history
 Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and the Asia-Pacific, and by 1937 was
at war with the Republic of China. In December 1941, Japan attacked
American and British territories with near-simultaneous offensives
against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including an attack on
Pearl Harbor which resulted in the United States and the United
Kingdom declaring war against Japan. The European Axis powers
declared war on the US in solidarity. Japan soon conquered much of the
western Pacific, but its advances were halted in 1942 after losing the
critical Battle of Midway; Germany and Italy were defeated in North
Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943—
including German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of
Sicily and Italian mainland, and Allied offensives in the Pacific—cost the
Axis powers their initiative and forced them into strategic retreat on all
fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France,
while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and pushed
Germany and its allies back. During 1944–1945, Japan suffered reversals
in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and
captured key western Pacific islands.
 The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-
occupied territories; the invasion of Germany by the Western
Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the Fall of
Berlin to Soviet troops; Hitler's suicide; and
the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the refusal of Japan to surrender on the terms of
the Potsdam Declaration, the US dropped the first atomic
bombs on Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki on 9 August.
Faced with imminent invasion of the Japanese
archipelago, the possibility of more atomic bombings, and the
Soviet Union's declared entry into the war against Japan on
the eve of invading Manchuria, Japan announced on 10
August its intention to surrender, signing a surrender
document on 2 September 1945.
 World War II changed the political alignment and social
structure of the world, and set the foundation for the
international order for the rest of the 20th century and
into the 21st century. The United Nations was established
to foster international cooperation and prevent conflicts,
with the victorious great powers—China, France, the
Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming
the permanent members of its Security Council. The Soviet
Union and the US emerged as rival superpowers, setting
the stage for the Cold War. In the wake of European
devastation, the influence of its great powers waned,
triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most
countries whose industries had been damaged moved
towards economic recovery and expansion.
War breaks out in the Pacific (1941)

 Japanese soldiers
entering Hong
Kong ,8 December
1941
 The USS Arizona was a total
loss in the Japanese surprise
air attack on the American
Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor,
Sunday 7 December 1941.
 Red Army troops in a
counter-offensive on
German positions at the
Battle of Kursk, July 1943
 Soviet
partisans hanged by
the German army.
The Russian Academy
of Sciences reported
in 1995 that civilian
victims in the Soviet
Union at German
hands totalled 13.7
million dead, twenty
percent of the 68
million people in the
occupied Soviet Union
 German Panzer III of
the Afrika
Korps advancing
across the North
African desert, April–
May 1941