Data
Date	1939 – 1945.
Place	Europe, Africa, Asia, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Belligerents	Axis vs. Allies
Outcome	Victory of the Allies.

The Second World War was a warlike conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945 . He faced two large blocks:

• The Axis : made up of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italyand Japan. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, among others, were later joined. Its main leaders were Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and the Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
• Allies : initially formed by Poland, France and Great Britain. Later, China, the Soviet Union and the United States of America, among others,joined. Its main leaders were the English Winston Churchill, the Soviet Joseph Stalin, the American Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the French Charles De Gaulle.

The war involved 23 countries and unfolded in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is considered the bloodiest in world history. It was won by the Allies after six years of fighting.

Countries that participated in World War II

During World War II the greatest world powers participated together with their allies. The various leading countries are listed below:

Enhance your reading: 4 stages of the French revolution/causes/definition/aftermath

The axis	Allies
Germany (Hitler)	Soviet Union (Stalin)
Japan (Hirohito)	United States (Roosevelt)
Italy (Mussolini)	England (Churchill)
Hungary	France (De Gaulle)
Romania	China (Kai-shek)
Bulgaria	Poland
Iraq
Iran

Development of World War II

It began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. As this country had a defensive alliance with France and Great Britain, these two states declared war on Germany. Around the same time, the Soviet Union invaded Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and eastern Poland.

During 1940, Germany occupied Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. In parallel, Italy invaded Albania and Greece, but suffered several defeats. For that reason, Hitler decided to invade the Balkan Peninsula and occupy Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece.

In 1941, the war took a dramatic turn , as Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Shortly after, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred: Japan launched a surprise airstrike against a US military base in Hawaii. From then on, the United States and the Soviet Union allied with Great Britain, which was resisting the attacks by German aviation alone.

During 1942, the Axis forces continued to conquer territories, but from 1943 they began to retreat. That year, Mussolini was replaced by a new government that broke the alliance with Hitler. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, after stopping the German advance at the Battle of Stalingrad, began to regain territories that it had lost. Japan, for its part, suffered several defeats at the hands of the United States.

During 1944 the Allies carried out the Normandy landings in France. In a short time Paris was liberated and the Allies attacked the German borders. Battles of ww2 in order

The war in Europe came to an end in May 1945 , when the Allied forces occupied Berlin and won the surrender of Germany, after Hitler’s suicide. In the East, the war ended in September , after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

Causes of World War II Battles of ww2 in order

Among the many causes of World War II, the following stand out:

• The dissatisfaction of the Germans with the conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles , after the end of the First World War . Germany then lost a seventh of its territory, was forced to pay war reparations, its army was reduced, and it was prohibited from manufacturing armaments.
• The ambitions of Hitler , who sought to recover the territories lost in 1919 and to conquer a “vital space” that would ensure the development of Germany as the world’s leading power.
• The vacillating attitude of the League of Nations, which failed to react to German rearmament, the annexation of Austria and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, both in 1938.
• The claims of Mussolini , who wanted to create an Italian Empire like the old Roman Empire.
• The Japanese militarism , which resulted in the annexation of Korea (1910), the occupation of Manchuria (1931) and the invasion of China (1937).
• The ambitions of Stalin , who wanted to regain the territories that Russia had lost in 1918. Those ambitions led him to sign a non-aggression pact with Hitler that sealed the fate of the Baltic countries. The invasion of Poland by Germany more than cause, was the trigger, the spark that unleashed the conflict.

Consequences of World War II

The Second World War had political, territorial, economic, demographic and social consequences.

Political consequences

The political consequences of the Second World War were:

Enhance your reading: Major events in ancient history/characteristics/main civilization

• The end of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan and their replacement by more democratic political systems. Battles of ww2 in order
• The emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as world superpowers . The different political, social and economic systems of these countries led to the beginning of a competition for world preponderance known as the Cold War . Due to these ideological differences, the world was divided into two opposing political blocs: the communist and the capitalist .
• The beginning of a decolonization process motivated, among other reasons, by the help provided by the colonies to their metropolises during the war. This process led in a few years to the independence of a large number of countries in Asia and Africa .
• The creation in 1945 of the United Nations (UN), which replaced the League of Nations.

Economic consequences

The economic consequences of the Second World War were:

• A large number of cities, ports, bridges, roads and railways were destroyed due to air and ground bombardments, which seriously affected the economies of the belligerent countries.
• The United States and the Soviet Union created a large arms industry , which still exists today.
• The United States implemented the Marshall Plan to provide financial support to war-torn European countries. The objective of this aid was not only economic; it was also motivated by fear of the spread of communism in Western Europe.
• Institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund , were created to solve the global financial crises.

Demographic and social consequences Battles of ww2 in order

The demographic and social consequences of the Second World War were:

• The death of some 60 million people , between the military and civilians. Among them, the millions of Jews , gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and opponents who were murdered in the concentration and extermination camps of Nazi Germany. The Jewish Holocaust was one of the bloodiest and most cruel genocides in world history.
• After the war, hundreds of thousands more people died of hunger and various diseases . In Japan, thousands of people died after 1945, affected by radiation from the bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• There were intense migratory movements , both of people displaced by the war seeking to return home, and of Europeans who settled in America or returned to Europe when the struggles for decolonization began in Asia and Africa. Battles of ww2 in order

Territorial consequences

The territorial consequences of the Second World War were:

• Germany lost much of its territory , which was divided between Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Czechoslovakia. In addition, it was occupied by troops from the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain.
• Italy lost all its colonies in Africa and small territories that were given to France, Yugoslavia and Greece.
• Japan lost all its colonies and was occupied by troops from the United States.
• The Soviet Union enlarged its territory with the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Poland, Finland, and Romania.
• The United States incorporated several Pacific archipelagos , such as Wake and Guam, among others.

Most important battles of World War II Battles of ww2 in order

The following are the most prominent armed conflicts that occurred throughout the Second World War:

Name	Date	Belligerents	Outcome
Invasion of Poland	1939	Germany vs. Poland	German victory.
London bombing	1940	UK vs. Germany	German defeat.
Attack on Pearl Harbor	1941	United States vs. Japan	Japanese victory.
Battle of El Alamein	1942	Allies vs. the axis	Allied victory.
Battle of Stalingrad	1942	Germany vs. Soviet Union	Soviet victory.
Battle of Kursk	1943	Germany vs. Soviet Union	Soviet victory.
Battle of Normandy	1944	Allies vs. Germany	Allied victory.
Battle of the Ardennes	1944	Allies vs. Germany	Allied victory.
Liberation of paris	1944	Allies vs. Germany	Allied victory.
Battle of berlin	1945	Germany vs. Soviet Union	Soviet victory.

How did the Second World War end? Battles of ww2 in order

In 1945 the war ended thanks to the fact that American troops and Russian troops managed to come into contact with the German regime and divide it into parts, forcing it to return all the territory it had conquered.

It was then that Germany signed an agreement in which it surrendered and abandoned its aims of conquest , with which it put an end to the world war in Europe.

A different situation happened with Japan, since this country did not want to bow before its enemies. In this way, the United States carried out the first nuclear bombardment on the city of Hiroshima , causing the destruction of it completely.

Then, just 3 days after the nuclear event, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing Japan, on September 2, 1945, to surrender and end World War II. Battles of ww2 in order