Thirty minutes after Japan declared war against the United States, Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Naval forces were severely diminished by the unexpected attack and more than 2,300 Americans were killed.
Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, or GI Bill, providing “government issue” educational and financial benefits to veterans. The bill offered veterans unemployment compensation, financial aid for college, and low-interest home loans.
Harry S. Truman became president upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Fair Employment Practices Commission was established by an executive order issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1941. The commission was created to put an end to discrimination in war production jobs and the government.
During World War II, Germany, Italy, and, later, Japan made up the Axis powers.
The Manhattan Project was the secret American research program that developed the world’s first atomic bombs. The effort was initiated in 1942. By July 16, 1945, the project had produced the first atomic bomb, which was successfully tested in the desert of New Mexico. In August 1945, two more bombs produced by the Manhattan Project were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, with devastating results.
The Office of War Mobilization was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to coordinate supplies during World War II.
Bolsheviks were the dominant political power in Russia after the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party seized control of that country’s government in 1917. The Bolsheviks (“Bolshevik” meaning “one of the majority”) were anti-feudal revolutionaries who were described in the United States as radical, anti-capitalist socialists. Under the leadership of Vladimir Leninm the Bolsheviks changed their party name to the “Russian Communist Party” in 1918 (and later to the “Communist Party of the Soviet Union”). In the United States, charges...
About 400 Navajo Indians served as code talkers in the US Marine Corps during World War II. Code talkers used their native language, which was indecipherable by enemy forces, to communicate by radio during the war.