Transcript End of WWII - Forest Lake Area High School

End of WWII
Mr. Koch
US History B
Forest Lake High School
End of WWII
• 1944
– FDR elected to 4th term as President!!!
Battle of the Bulge
• Dec. 16, 1944
– Germans drive into the
Ardennes region of
eastern Belgium and
northern Luxembourg into
Allied territory – creating
a “bulge”
– Goal: Germans wanted to
trap the Allied forces
– MANY losses in men and
supplies, so in 1 month
the battle ends
Liberation of the Death Camps
• Soviets find 1st death camp – July 1944
• Find 800,000 shoes in a pile
End of WWII
• April 25, 1945
– Soviets in Berlin
• April 29, 1945
– Hitler marries Eva Braun
• April 30, 1945
– Hitler shoots himself and
Eva drinks poison – burn
bodies
V-E Day
• Victory in Europe Day!!!
– May 8, 1945
– War in Europe is over!
Germany surrenders!
But one person in particular never got to
see it…
End of WWII
• April 12, 1945
– FDR dies of a stroke
– Harry S. Truman becomes
33rd President
Atomic Bomb
• Manhattan Project
– Research and creation
of the Atomic Bomb
– 600,000 people
involved, but few
know what it is
– Test July 16, 1945 in
New Mexico
Einstein with
Oppenheimer
Dropping the Bomb
• Hiroshima
– Aug. 6, 1945 (Enola Gay)
– Code-named “Little Boy”
– Took 43 seconds for the
entire city to turn to dust
• Nagasaki
– Aug. 9, 1945
– Code-named “Fat Man”
• Total of about 200,000
people die
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
WARNING!!!
The next visual is particularly disturbing…
please look away if you are sensitive to
disturbing visual imagery
• Japan surrenders Sept. 2, 1945 (V-J Day)
Yalta Conference
• Big 3 met Feb. 1945 (before VE Day)
– FDR, Churchill, Stalin
• Stalin wanted to keep
Germany divided, Churchill
disagreed
• FDR wanted to make
concessions for two reasons:
1.
2.
•
USSR help fight Japan
USSR support United Nations
Results: Germany split,
United Nations, Stalin
helping in Japan
Nuremberg Trials
• 25 of Hitler’s top officials
put on trial for:
1. Crimes against peace
2. War crimes
3. Crimes against humanity
US in Japan
• 7 (including Tojo) put
to death
• 7 year occupation
• Macarthur
Constitution