Causes of WWI: Militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism (MAIN)
Militarism: Building up armies and weapons
Alliance system: Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia) versus Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy)
Assassination at Sarajevo: June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed, setting off the war
July Crisis: Weeks of diplomacy and ultimatums that led to war in 1914
Schlieffen Plan: German plan to defeat France quickly before turning to Russia
Western Front: Line of trenches across France and Belgium
Eastern Front: Fighting between Germany/Austria and Russia
Battle of the Marne (1914): Allied victory that stopped the German advance on Paris
Battle of Verdun (1916): Long, costly battle between France and Germany
Battle of the Somme (1916): British offensive with enormous casualties
Gallipoli (1915): Failed Allied attack on the Ottoman Empire's coast
Machine gun: Weapon that made attacks deadly for soldiers crossing open ground
Poison gas: Chemical weapon first widely used in WWI; later banned
Tank: Armored vehicle first used by Britain in 1916
Airplane in WWI: Used first for scouting, then for fighting
U-boat: German submarine
Russian Revolution (1917): Russia's tsar fell, and the Bolsheviks under Lenin took power
Vladimir Lenin: Bolshevik leader who founded the Soviet state
Nicholas II: Last tsar of Russia
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918): Russia left the war and gave up land
Armistice Day: November 11, 1918, when fighting stopped on the Western Front
Treaty of Versailles (1919): Peace treaty that blamed Germany and made it pay reparations
Reparations: Payments for war damages
War guilt clause: Treaty article that made Germany accept blame for the war
League of Nations: Organization to keep peace, set up in 1920
Collapse of empires: The Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, German and Russian empires ended after WWI
Great Depression: Worldwide economic crisis in the 1930s that helped extremists rise
Fascism: Government by a dictator with strong nationalism and no free opposition
Benito Mussolini: Fascist dictator of Italy from 1922
Nazi Party: German party led by Adolf Hitler
Hitler's rise (1933): Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933
Appeasement: Giving in to demands to avoid war, as at Munich in 1938
Munich Agreement (1938): Britain and France let Germany take part of Czechoslovakia
Invasion of Poland (Sept. 1, 1939): Start of World War II in Europe
Blitzkrieg: German 'lightning war' using tanks, planes and fast movement
Fall of France (1940): Germany took France in six weeks
Dunkirk (1940): Evacuation of over 300,000 Allied troops from France
Battle of Britain (1940): Royal Air Force defeated German air attacks
The Blitz: German bombing of British cities in 1940-41
Operation Barbarossa (1941): Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union
Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43): Soviet victory that turned the tide on the Eastern Front
El Alamein (1942): British victory in Egypt against German-Italian forces
Pearl Harbor: Japan's attack on the US on December 7, 1941
Japanese expansion: Japan invaded China in the 1930s and spread across Asia in 1941-42
Nanjing (Nanking) 1937: Japan captured the Chinese capital after a hard battle; many civilians suffered
Battle of Midway (1942): US Navy victory that weakened Japan's carriers
Holocaust: Nazi murder of six million Jews and millions of others
Resistance movements: Secret groups that opposed Nazi occupation
Kindertransport: Rescue program that took thousands of Jewish children from Germany to Britain
Righteous Among the Nations: Honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews
Raoul Wallenberg: Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews
Oskar Schindler: German businessman who saved over a thousand Jewish workers
D-Day (June 6, 1944): Allied invasion of Normandy
Liberation of Paris (Aug. 1944): Allied forces freed the French capital
Yalta Conference: Allied leaders planned the post-war world
Potsdam Conference (1945): Allied leaders met in Germany after Germany's surrender
V-E Day: May 8, 1945, victory in Europe
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Atomic bombs dropped in August 1945, leading to Japan's surrender
V-J Day: Japan's surrender announced August 15, 1945; signed September 2
Total deaths: WWII killed an estimated 70 to 85 million people
Nuremberg Trials: International court trials of Nazi leaders for war crimes
United Nations: Founded in 1945 to maintain peace
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): UN statement of basic rights for all people
Decolonization: After WWII, many colonies in Asia and Africa gained independence
Cold War begins: The US and USSR became rivals after the war
Marshall Plan: US aid to rebuild Western Europe
Allied Powers: Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the US and China
Axis Powers: Germany, Italy and Japan
Division of Germany: After WWII, Germany was divided into East and West
Occupation of Japan: US-led occupation, 1945-1952, helped Japan write a new constitution
Chinese Civil War: Fighting between Nationalists and Communists, resumed after WWII; Communists won in 1949
Indian Army in WWII: Over 2.5 million Indian volunteers served
Navajo Code Talkers: Used their language to send secret Pacific messages
Anne Frank's diary: Diary of a Jewish girl hiding in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944

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