World War 2
This picture embodies the horrors that millions faced during WWII. Nazi soldiers and supporters killed millions of Jews through the use of death camps such as Auschwitz. Although this is mostly world history, I feel as though WWII is truly about the horrors and the cruelty of our world. WWII was a dark moment in U.S. and world history.
Political
1.)Japanese internment camps were created at this time. These camps were a place where Japanese Americans were kept, because the government and everyone else thought these people were a threat to our country. These camps withheld them and kept them away from everyone and everything, even if they were completely innocent.
2.)The Yalta Conference was in February of 1945, and at this time, Germany was not defeated yet. Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill agreed to split Germany into four zones of occupation and to allow free elections in countries in Eastern Europe. The agreement that was made was the USSR (Russia) will join the united Nations and then help the united States fight Japanese forces.
3.)The Potsdam Conference was the conference that took place in July of 1945, and Germany has been defeated. The new leaders could not agree on the boundaries or zones of reparations for Germany. America and Britain were worried about communism, and this conference declared that if Japan does not back down and surrender, then they will face their "prompt and utter destruction".
Economic
1.)War bonds were bonds of money created and donated by civilians and everyone to help with the war efforts.
2.) Life in U.S. Home Front, During the war, life for Americans at home was changing in many ways. War Bonds were still around, and a form of recycling started, by families taking aluminum cans and recycling them to help make parts for weapons such as, grenades, and casings for bullets. Also, families would send gifts to the soldiers such as, food, clothes, and even soap to try and keep clean.
Social
1.)Japanese Interment camps arose through the war. In fear of a spy or another Japanese attack like Pearl Harbor, the American government moved all Japanese-Americans into interment camps in the mid west. By moving them, Japanese-Americans would no longer be a threat and in doing so, national security would be safe.
2.)Hideki Tojo was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, and was directly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to the war between Japan and the United States, and changed the eyes of many in terms of national security. After Pearl Harbor, national security became a real issue and a true topic within the government, simply because most believed that the all powerful United States, could not be attacked or crippled in any way shape or form.
Progress?
Just like WWI, in retrospect to foreign affairs, WWII was not progress, but within America, it was mixed. Through foreign affairs we saw the cruelty of our world, the hate within it, and the drive for nationalism. The Holocaust defined WWII, a dark moment in the history of time. But within America, there was a mixture of progress and regress. The progress, being simply that WWII brought America out of the worst economic struggle in history. The regress, being the internment camps, which we've seen back to when America moved west, rounding up Native Americans and tearing them away from their native culture. We did the same with the Japanese and the internment camps, our internment camps and the Nazi's internment camps have been compared and have been even stated as similar to each other, a similarity every American hates to have with the Nazi party, a party filled with hate, discrimination, and overall evil.
How WWII leads to the 1950's & Cold War
When WWII ended, a new generation, much like the 1920's, formed. One with extra money to spend, another enemy in the Communist party, and another generation of boom and bust. At the end of the second Great War, the United States and the Soviet Union were neck and neck on the world's power scale. Both were now nuclear powers, both had economies that showed no signs of slowing down, both had strong willed leaders, and both were willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the further expansion of each other's ideals and political systems. HUAC, an organization that commonly discriminated and stopped at nothing to achieve its goal, was created to prevent Communism from ever spreading to the U.S.