1. Allies
   Axis
2. Baddies

Germany, Japan and Italy were the primary nations that made up the Axis Powers of WWII. Their dreams of conquest sparked the deadliest war in human history.

1. Heinkel He
   Luftwaffe
2. blitzkrieg

"Blitzkrieg" means "lightning war" — Germany used its armor and air superiority to quickly overwhelm Allied lines in blitzkrieg attacks. At the beginning of the war, few Allied forces could withstand the blitzkrieg.

1. George Rockwell
   Karl Donitz
2. Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the USSR's Communist leader who ruled with an iron fist. He first sided with Hitler ... and later found his people being slaughtered at the hands of the Germans.

1. Winston Churchill’s stubbornness
   Nazi infighting
2. heavy-handed WWI reparations

The treaty that ended the First World War required huge reparations from Germany and its allies. They were so heavy-handed that Germany didn’t make its last payments until 2010.

1. Rabbit Eyes
   Angel of Death
2. Joey

Mengele was an empathy-free monster often called the "Angel of Death," for his role in conducting merciless medical experiments on people in concentration camps. He escaped justice after the war and lived a free life in South America until his death in 1979.

1. It bombed Berlin.
   It threatened to invade Germany.
2. It said, "sure, go ahead and do that, Hitler."

Hitler arbitrarily decided to take the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia ... and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had no objections. He hoped that pacifying Hitler would make him go away. He was wrong.

1. democracy seemed unattainable
   economic troubles
2. people are lemmings

The ruination of WWI and the Great Depression caused immense economic suffering in Europe. It was an atmosphere fertile for the roots of fascism and Communism.

1. D-Day
   Battle of the Bulge
2. Battle of Okinawa

On June 6, 1944 — D-Day — Allied forces landed on five code-named beaches in Normandy. Omaha Beach was one of the bloodiest, a place where thousands of soldiers were hurt or killed.

1. stopped diseases
   halted bleeding quickly
2. deadly chemical weapon

DDT, a potent insecticide, was sprayed liberally all over the South Pacific, killing the bugs that spread disease among Americans. It was nothing short of a miracle — and it wasn’t until later that people realized how harmful it was to the environment.

1. George Marshall
   Dwight Eisenhower
2. George Patton

Dwight Eisenhower, the whip-smart strategist who forged many of the ideas behind D-Day, was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. He insisted on total control of many units so that he could efficiently execute his plans.

1. incredibly brutal
   an all-air battle
2. surprisingly quick

By April 1945, American troops were fed up with the war. At Okinawa, they uncorked their rage — and the Japanese returned the favor. Both sides committed one atrocity after another, and less than three months, 150,000 civilians were dead.

1. Harry Truman
   Franklin Roosevelt
2. Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was president from 1901 to 1909. Franklin Roosevelt was president during most of WWII but died before the war ended; Truman stepped in to take his place.

1. Germany
   United States
2. Egypt

On June 23, 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR. It may have been the dumbest decision of the war, as it left Germany vulnerable on both the Western and Eastern fronts.

1. George Patton
   Erwin Rommel
2. Georgy Zhukov

General George Patton was called "Old Blood and Guts" in media reports, and the nickname stuck. Some soldiers complained that it was their blood and guts that were doing all the work of their egotistical general.

1. a British fighter
   a type of German bomb
2. a U.S. satellite system

The Supermarine Spitfire was a British fighter aircraft of WWII. It shot to fame during the Battle of Britain, when its guns (along with those of the Hurricane) beat back the Luftwaffe, time and again.

1. 1.3 million
   4 million
2. 16 million

America quickly ramped up its military capacity during the war. By the time the conflict ended, more than 16 million men and women had done their time in the military.

1. better intelligence
   bigger guns
2. 12 aircraft carriers

Before the Battle of Midway, American codebreakers cracked Japan’s codes ... so they knew the Empire’s attack plans. The U.S. landed a decisive blow, sending some of Japan’s most important ships to the bottom of the Pacific.

1. 1
   2
2. 12

In early August 1945, America dropped Fat Man and Little Boy on two Japanese cities. The bombs killed around 130,000 people and terrified humans all over the planet with their awesome power.

1. There was rampant cannibalism.
   The city was firebombed.
2. There was a Jewish uprising.

In early 1945, the Allies loaded thousands of tons of incendiary bombs, which then fell on Dresden. The firebombing of Dresden is a lasting symbol of unbridled revenge, one that killed tens of thousands of civilians and destroyed a city full of precious artwork.

1. designed Japanese tanks
   tried to assassinate American leaders
2. Japanese admiral

Isoroku Yamamoto was top admiral in the Japanese Navy. He was also one of the masterminds of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was killed later in the war when American pilots (very intentionally) shot down his plane.

1. 0
   2
2. all 4

America leveraged its superior intelligence regarding Japanese battle preparations for the Battle of Midway, blasting all four of the Empire’s carriers. It was a blow that Japan couldn’t recover from, giving the U.S. Navy the upper hand for much of the rest of the war.

1. a type of bayonet
   suicide pilot
2. a Japanese atomic bomb

As the momentum of the war turned against Japan, its leaders grew desperate, sending kamikaze suicide pilots at American ships. The tactic was intermittently effective — and terrified American sailors.

1. terror
   to destroy Washington D.C.
2. to sink battleships

Germany launched its V-1 flying bombs at British cities primarily as a tool of terror. It fired thousands of the missiles and caused tens of thousands of English casualties.

1. Manhattan Project
   P-51 Mustang
2. B-29 Superfortress

You’d think that the atomic bomb (Manhattan) project would be the most expensive. But the B-29 bomber, due to its insanely advanced capabilities -- including computerized guns -- was actually far more expensive. It cost the U.S. around $3 billion.

1. 11
   15
2. 19

Graham lied and schemed to enlist in the Navy even though he was just 11 years old. Later, still a child, he became a war hero when he saved the lives of wounded sailors while suffering from injuries of his own.

1. incinerated them
   chucked them into the ocean
2. shot them into space

Chemical weapons weren’t used often on the battlefield in WWII, but Germany had large stockpiles of these munitions. After the war, the Allies dumped many of the weapons into the ocean ... where they now threaten the health of the seas.

1. They needed him.
   He was totally innocent.
2. He escaped.

The United States occupied Japan for years after the war, and they used Hirohito as a puppet. Without the emperor, it would have been much harder to bring Japan’s citizenry to heel.

1. maybe 19 million
   perhaps 31 million
2. as many as 80 million

Due to the extent of the devastation, historians will never really know the true number. But some estimates put total troop and civilians deaths at 80 million ... or even more.

1. execute all Nazi guards
   take pictures of everything
2. burn everything to the ground

Dwight Eisenhower knew that in the wake of the war, many people would deny that the Holocaust ever occured. He had his men take countless pictures and films to document the madness for future generations.

1. The USSR invaded Japan’s territory.
   Japan’s leaders were all dead.
2. It ran out of bullets.

In early August 1945, the USSR, fresh off of its victory over Germany, invaded Japan’s lands. It may well have been the threat of the Soviets — and not American atomic bomb attacks — that caused Japan to throw in the towel.