Chapter 24- The World At War Flashcards
An authoritarian system of government characterized by dictatorial rule, extreme nationalism, disdain for civil society, and a conviction that imperialism and warfare are the principal means by which nations attain greatness. The United States went to war against fascism when it faced Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and Italy under Benito Mussolini during World War II.
Fascism
German political party led by Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933. The party’s ascent was fueled by huge World War I reparation payments, economic depression, fear of communism, labor unrest, and rising unemployment.
National Socialist Party
A political and military alliance formed in 1936 between German dictator Adolf Hitler and the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Rome Berlin Axis
Legislation that sought to avoid entanglement in foreign wars while protecting trade. It imposed an embargo on selling arms to warring countries and declared that Americans travelling on the ships of belligerent nations did so at their own risk.
Neutrality Act of 1935
A small but vocal group of Americans who pushed for greater U.S. involvement in Europe. American Communist Party members, African American civil rights activists, and trade unionists, among other members of the Popular Front coalition, encouraged Roosevelt to take a stronger stand against European fascism.
Popular Front
A conference in Munich held in September 1938 during which Britain and France agreed to allow Germany to annex the Sudetenland- a German-speaking border area of Czechoslovakia- in return for Hitler’s pledge to seek no more territory.
Munich Conference
A group of interventionists who believed in engaging with, rather than withdrawing from, international developments. Interventionists became increasingly vocal in 1940 as war escalated in Europe.
Committee to Defend America By Aiding the Allies
A committee organized by isolationists in 1940 to oppose the entrance of the United States into World War II. The membership of the committee included senators, journalists, and publishers and such well-respected figures as the aviator Charles Lindbergh.
America First Committee
Identified by president Franklin D. Roosevelt as the most basic human rights: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The president used these ideas of freedom to justify support for England during World War II, which in turn pulled the United States into the war.
Four Freedoms
Legislation in 1941 that enabled Britain to obtain arms from the United States without cash but with the promise to reimburse the United States when the war ended. The act reflected Roosevelt’s desire to assist the British in any way possible, short of war.
Lend-Lease Act
A press release by President Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill in August 1941 calling for economic cooperation, national self-determination, and guarantees of political stability after the war.
Atlantic Charter
A naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that was attacked by Japanese bombers on December 7, 1941; more than 2400 Americans were killed. The following day, President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan.
Pearl Harbor
The law that gave president Roosevelt unprecedented control over all aspects of the war effort during World War II.
War Powers Act
An act that expanded the number of people paying income taxes from 3.9 million to 42.6 million. These tatxes on personal incomes and business profits paid half the cost of World War II.
Revenue Act
Native American soldiers trained to use native languages to send messages in battle during World War II. Neither the Japanese nor the Germans could decipher the codes used by these Navajo, Comanche, Choctaw, and Cherokee speakers, and the messages they sent gave the Allies great advantage in the battle of Iwo Jima, among many others.
code talkers
