The World War II. The UK and the USA
1)In late 1938, Britain attempted to appease Germany and avoid another world war by signing the Munich Pact. This gave Germany "permission" to invade the contested Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. When Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia a few months later, it was clear that this attempt at appeasement did not work. In March 1939, Britain announced that it would support Poland if Germany invaded it. Germany invaded anyway. (In secret, Hitler and Stalin had signed an agreement dividing up Poland between the two powers.) On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. This marks the beginning of World War II in Europe. In May 1940, Britain got a more aggressive war-time leader -- Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. That same month, on May 26, 1940, in the face of a large-scale German offensive, British troops on the continent were forced into one of the largest evacuations in history -- the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk on the Belgian coast. From July to October 1940, the English people suffered under the Battle of Britain: intense German bombing. But the Royal Air Force valiantly defended its homeland from the German Luftwaffe, and the Nazis were unable to crush British morale. In March 1941, the U.S. began giving direct support to the British in the form of arms and ammunition through the Lend-Lease Act. After Pearl Harbor, in December, America would become directly involved in aiding the British in Europe. In January 1942, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to establish a Combined Chiefs of Staff and to the make defeating Germany their first priority. (Winning the war in Europe would come before winning the war in the Pacific.) After three more long years, the Allies did win the war in Europe. Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945. All told, Great Britain lost over 300,000 fighting men and over 60,000 civilians in World War II. 2)The United States, effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers. Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial capacity. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war. Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war. The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.
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The USA: the Northerners and the Southerners
The period of Reconstruction took place in the southern United States from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until 1877. When the Civil War ended, fundamental issues facing the nation included what role former Confederates might play in the US government, and what role freed slaves would play in American society. And the infrastructure of the South, where most of the war had been fought, also had to be rebuilt. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1868 to guarantee due process and equality before the law for all citizens, including newly-freed slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870, stated that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of race. New Republican controlled governments were instituted in the South, but were almost certainly doomed to fail. Popular sentiment in the region was obviously opposed to the political party which had been led by Abraham Lincoln. Reconstruction was, and remains, a highly controversial subject. Southerners felt that northerners were using the power of the federal government to punish the south. Northerners felt the southerners were still persecuting freed slaves through the imposition of racist laws, called "black codes." The period of Reconstruction ended in 1877 as part of the Compromise of 1877 which followed the disputed presidential election of 1876.
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