World War II

(MS. Encarta) - In 1945, World War II ended. It was the most terrible war in history. Much of Europe and Asia lay in ruins. About 55 million people had been killed in only six years. More than half of them were civilians (nonmilitary). But many people in many countries felt that they had met and destroyed a great evil.

World War II began in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France then declared war on Germany. The United States entered the war in 1941, after Japan bombed a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. The United States was on the side of Britain and France.

AN ANGRY PEACE

World War I helped cause World War II. World War I had ended with the defeat of Germany in 1918. Afterward, people in Germany were bitter. They believed that they had been unfairly blamed for the war. They were being made to pay money to victorious Britain and France. They were forbidden to rebuild their army.

Japan was bitter too. The Japanese had helped defeat Germany. They felt it was their right to expand their power in Asia. But Britain and the United States blocked them.

THE RISE OF DICTATORS

In Germany, the Nazis came to power in 1933. Their leader was Adolf Hitler. He blamed Germany’s problems on the Jews. The Nazis admired violence and war. They had no use for democracy.

Japan’s government was dominated by its army and navy. By 1940, it had treaties with Italy and Germany. These three countries came to be called the Axis. All three were run by dictators—rulers with total power.

In the 1930s, Japan seized parts of China and other Asian countries. Seeing that no one stopped Japan, Italy and Germany decided to expand their territory. Hitler, defying Britain and France, rebuilt Germany’s army. Still no one tried to stop him. In the late 1930s, he took over Austria and Czechoslovakia.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. World War II had begun.

LIGHTNING WAR

Germany’s tanks, planes, bombs, and rapid troop movement quickly overwhelmed Poland. This kind of warfare was called blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) because it was so swift. In spring of 1940, Hitler invaded western Europe. Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, and France fell to the blitzkrieg. Hitler was now master of Europe.

Britain remained free. Hitler wanted to destroy Britain’s air force before invading the country. During 1940 and 1941, German planes bombed England. British prime minister Winston Churchill rallied his people to resist. The British were helped by a secret invention, radar, which spotted German aircraft. Germany never invaded England.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler’s armies invaded the Soviet Union. By November, they were within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of Moscow, the Soviet capital.

WAR IN THE PACIFIC

In the United States, most people hated Hitler. But most Americans did not want to fight in any “foreign wars.”

Japan, meanwhile, was expanding its empire in Asia. The United States had stopped selling oil and metal to Japan. Japanese leaders planned to seize oil fields in Southeast Asia. They knew this would mean war with the United States. So they got in the first blow.

On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They sank or seriously damaged 21 ships. The United States now joined the Allies (the countries fighting the Axis).

TURNING POINTS

Japan had attacked the United States. But U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that Germany was the more powerful enemy. Hitler had to be defeated first.

Germany and Italy controlled much of North Africa. In 1942, American troops joined the Allies in North Africa. By May 1943, the Axis armies had fled. In July 1943, American, British, and Canadian troops invaded Italy. American and British planes began bombing Germany from airfields in England.

In November 1942, the Soviet armies stopped the German advance. Then they started to push the Germans back.

D-DAY AND AFTER

In 1944, Hitler was using most of his forces against the Soviet Union. Then on June 6, 1944—known as D-Day—British, American, and other Allied forces landed in northern France. Now Germany had to fight on two battlefronts—in France and the Soviet Union.

By the end of 1944, the Allies were advancing everywhere. The Soviets pushed into Germany from the east. The British and Americans led the drive from the west and south.

In the Pacific, U.S. forces were rolling back the Japanese empire. In fierce fighting, they captured island after island in the Pacific. They moved ever closer to Japan.

By early 1945, Axis cities were being heavily bombed by British and American planes.

THE WAR ENDS

On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies. Hitler had killed himself a week earlier.

Japan still held out. The Americans had captured all the nearby islands. They were preparing to invade Japan itself.

On August 6, 1945, the United States introduced a terrible new weapon. An atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped, on the city of Nagasaki. On August 14, Japan agreed to surrender.

AFTER THE WAR

World War II caused enormous destruction. Much of Germany and Japan had to be rebuilt from rubble. Britain and many other nations suffered terrible damage.

The Axis suffered about 11 million military and civilian deaths. The victorious Allies lost four times as many. In the Soviet Union alone, more than 20 million died.

The world was shocked by Hitler’s death camps. In these camps, the Nazis had murdered about 6 million people. They included two-thirds of Europe’s Jews.

Germany and Japan were no longer military powers after the war. Neither were Britain and France. The United States and the Soviet Union had become the world’s great powers.

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World War I

(MS. Encarta) - Ten million men from 32 countries died fighting in the war of 1914-1918. It was called the Great War. We know it now as World War I.

World War I pitted the Allied Powers against the Central Powers. At the start of the war, the Allied Powers included Britain, France, and Russia. Germany and Austria-Hungary were the Central Powers. Other countries later joined each side. The United States entered the war on the side of the Allied Powers in 1917.

Why War Came

For 100 years, the nations of Europe had tried to avoid war with one another. No country was allowed to get too powerful. If one did, others would form an alliance against it.

William II, the kaiser (emperor) of Germany, built up his country’s army, navy, and industry. Germany began seizing territories in Africa and the Pacific as colonies.

These moves worried other nations, especially France, Britain, and Russia. France and Britain had their own colonial empires. They agreed to support each other if war came.

Austria-Hungary supported Germany. Its empire ruled many countries in eastern and southern Europe. Many of them wanted to break away from Austria-Hungary.

One nation eager for independence was Serbia. On June 28, 1914, a Serb patriot murdered Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary.

August 1914

Nobody expected the murder of Francis Ferdinand to start a war. But it set off a chain reaction. Austria-Hungary moved to crush Serbia. Russia mobilized its army to support Serbia. So Germany sent troops to oppose Russia. Germany also massed troops on its border with France. France prepared to resist Germany.

War broke out on August 4, 1914. Germany invaded Belgium. That brought Britain into the war. The Germans pushed into France. They seemed headed for a quick victory. But French and British forces stopped them.

Deadlock in the Trenches

By the end of 1914, the war had settled into a deadlock. The armies dug protective trenches that ran for hundreds of miles. Soldiers lived in these slits in the ground. They ate and slept in them.

When soldiers came out of their trenches to attack, machine guns cut them down. Sometimes, soldiers met poison gas.

For three years, there were bloody battles between the trench lines. Neither side gained an advantage.

Germany had the strongest army in Europe. But it was fighting on two battlefronts—against France on the western front and against Russia on the eastern front.

A European War Becomes a World War

The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers. Italy entered on the Allied side. German and Allied troops battled in Asia and Africa for control of colonies there.

In the Middle East, the British organized Arab tribesmen to fight against the Ottomans. They were led by British colonel T. E. Lawrence, who is better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Japan was a rising power in Asia. It joined the Allied Powers. Japan seized German-controlled islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Tide Turns

In 1917, a revolution in Russia brought a Communist government to power. It made peace with the Central Powers. The Germans were now fighting on only one front. But they could not take advantage. That was because the United States had entered the war.

Most Americans wanted no part of a European war. But the United States government was shipping supplies to the Allies. German submarines sank the ships. In April 1917, the Congress of the United States declared war against the Central Powers.

American troops did not reach Europe in large numbers until 1918. They soon turned the tide of battle. In July, Americans joined a huge Allied attack. By late summer, the Central Powers were in retreat.

On November 11, 1918, the guns fell silent. The Great War was over.

After the War

The war had caused terrible destruction and death across Europe. American president Woodrow Wilson called it “The war to end all wars.” He tried to work out a peace plan that would be fair. The Allies didn’t want it. Even Americans rejected it.

The map of Europe was redrawn. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were broken up.

Germany lost some of its territory. It was forced to pay huge amounts of money for war damage. France and Britain took over Germany’s colonies.

This was not peace, one French general complained. It turned out to be only a 21-year truce. In 1939, World War II began.

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Universe

(MS.Ancarta) - Look up at the sky on a clear, starry night. What you see is part of the universe. You could never see all of the universe.

No one even knows whether the universe has an edge or if it goes on forever. The universe contains all matter and energy.

The universe holds all space and time. You are a part of the universe. The universe includes everything there is.

What Makes up the Universe?

Earth and all the planets in our solar system make up just a tiny part of the universe. Billions of other stars like our Sun all form a group called the Milky Way Galaxy. With telescopes we can see billions of other galaxies. Galaxies are in turn clumped together in enormous groups called clusters and superclusters. There are at least 100 billion—that’s 100,000,000,000—galaxies in the universe. The universe is a big place!

The universe holds many strange things, such as exploding stars. It holds great clouds of gas and dust where new stars form. It also holds black holes. Black holes have a pulling force called gravity. Gravity is the force that holds you to the ground and makes things fall when you drop them. Black holes suck in all the matter around them. The gravity of black holes is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Astronomers think there is even more matter in the universe than we can see. The matter we see makes up gas, dust, galaxies, stars, and planets. Astronomers think there is a type of invisible matter that they call dark matter. They think there may be a lot more of this mysterious dark matter in the universe than there is regular matter that we can see.

Astronomers also think the universe holds a strange substance that they call dark energy. They don’t know much about dark energy except that it seems to make the universe expand.

When Did the Universe Begin?

Many astronomers think the universe began about 14 billion years ago. They think it suddenly exploded into being. They call this beginning the big bang. All space and time began with the big bang. With a special telescope, astronomers can see radiation left over from the big bang. They call this cosmic background radiation.

The big bang theory says that the universe was hotter than you can even imagine at the moment it began. The universe started to fly outward, or expand. As it expanded, it started to cool. Tiny particles that would make up matter started to form. All of this happened in just a few minutes.

What Happened After the Big Bang?

When the universe was about 1 million years old, it had cooled to about 5900° Fahrenheit (3300° Celsius). This temperature was still scorching, but it was cool enough that tiny bits of matter called atoms started to form. All the objects around you—the computer, the floor, the air—are made of atoms. The hot atoms gave off rays of light. The universe was like a huge, hot fireball.

Over millions of years, the force of gravity pulled gas and dust together. Stars and galaxies formed from clumps of gas and dust. The stars began to shine. Our Sun and our solar system formed about 4.6 billions years ago.

Rays of light travel across the universe. Even though light travels extremely quickly, it takes light millions or billions of years to travel from galaxies far away. When astronomers see light from the most distant galaxies they know the light is “old.” They know they are seeing the galaxies as they were billions of years ago.

Will the Universe End?

Astronomers want to know what will happen to the universe. They think it is still expanding. In fact, the universe seems to be expanding faster and faster as time goes on. Many astronomers think the universe will go on expanding forever. If it keeps on expanding, everything in the universe will eventually grow cold. Billions of years in the future even the stars will stop shining.
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Salem Witch Trials

(MS.Ancarta) - In early 1692, a group of girls in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, started to have mysterious fits. Their bodies twitched and they shrieked with pain. People at that time believed that the Devil used witchcraft as part of his evil work. Worried parents feared their daughters had been bewitched. To cure the girls, the town had to find and punish the witches.

Adults pressured the girls to tell them who the “witches” were, launching a witch hunt in Salem. By October 1692, 20 people had been named, put on trial, and killed for being witches.

Who Was Accused of Witchcraft?

People believed the Devil tempted a woman into evil more easily than a man. Most of the people accused in Salem were women. At first the girls only accused a few women. But the finger-pointing spread until over 100 men and women had been charged with practicing witchcraft.

What Were the Trials Like?

The town put the accused “witches” in jail to wait for trial. Once in court, judges fired questions at the accused, such as: Do you have contact with the Devil? Why do you hurt these children? The girls who made the accusations sat in court, sometimes wailing that they saw the Devil whispering in the ear of the “witches.”

The people who were accused hotly denied that they were witches. They had never spoken with the Devil or hurt any children! They were innocent! But their protests did not help. Nineteen people were hanged. One man was pressed to death with large rocks.

How Did the Trials End?

As the number of arrests rose, many Salem citizens grew alarmed. Because no proof was needed, people could simply accuse a person they didn’t like of being a witch. Many raised their voices against the witch hunts. In October 1692, the governor of Massachusetts ordered the trials stopped. The courts freed people still waiting for trial. Within a few years, some people in Salem expressed regret for the role they’d played in executing innocent people.
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