Japanese internment camps (1942-1945)

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, forcibly relocated and incarcerated at least 125,284 people of Japanese descent in 75 identified incarceration sites. 

- Most lived on the Pacific Coast, in concentration camps in the western interior of the country. Some sites too place in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

- This was ordered due to the fear for the American people of thinking that Japanese American citizens were spies for the Japanese government. There was NO evidence that this was happening, this order was given out of fear.

- It was believed that it was causing the security of the country

• In 1943, the U.S. and the Allies invaded Italy and forced its surrender.

Allies invade Sicily (Operation Husky) (1943)

Benito Mussolini

executed (1945)

• In 1944, the U.S. and the Allies freed France from Germany’s control, invaded Germany, and forced its surrender by 1945.

Battle of the Bulge (1944–45)

Hitler commits suicide (1945)

• Despite the surrender of Germany and Italy, Japan continued to fight WWII, having already cost the U.S. thousands of American lives.

Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)

What was the aftermath of World War II for the U.S.? Notes #54

The Holocaust

(1941–1945);

over 11 million

total deaths and

over 6 million

Jewish deaths

(2/3rds of

Europe’s Jewish

population)

orchestrated by

Adolf Hitler and

the Nazi Party

MS St. Louis (1939); 937 Jewish refugees aboard,

denied entry into the U.S.,

and sent back to Europe

U.S. aerial shot of

the Auschwitz

extermination camp

during World War II

Bataan Death

March (1942);

over 10,000

American and

Filipino

deaths,

orchestrated

by Japanese

military

officials

• After WWII, war crimes trials involving German and Japanese military officials took place.

Nuremberg and Tokyo

war crimes trials

• These trials established that individuals can be held responsible for wartime actions.

War crimes trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević

• In 1944, the GI Bill was passed to provide economic aid to U.S. war veterans.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the GI Bill or

Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944

• In 1948, President Harry S. Truman advanced the cause of civil rights for African Americans by ordering the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

• The 22^nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 to prevent presidents from running for a third term.

• The U.S. became committed to a policy of global cooperation when it joined the United Nations, which was an international peace organization created after WWII.

United Nations members in 1945

• WWII helped end the Great Depression by stimulating the U.S. economy.

• WWII resulted in the emergence of two superpowers (the U.S. and Soviet Union).