Europe & Africa

Colby Wyatt, Jon Emerson and Kurtisch

D-Day
Dubbed "Operation
Overlord," the Allied
invasion of Western
Europe that began on D-
Day (June 6, 1944), was
the largest amphibious
assault in history, with
more than 150,000 troops
and 5,000 vehicles
landing along a 50-mile
stretch of the northern
French coast
The Panzer Tanks
After World War I,
German engineers began
development on a series
of fast-moving, armored
vehicles that would allow
for quick assaults over
varied terrain. It was a
major weapon in the North
Africa campaign led by
Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel from 1941 to
1943.
Nazi Expansion
Beginning in 1936, Nazi
leader Adolf Hitler's desire
for Lebensraum (or "living
space") for the German
race to expand guided a
series of aggressive
foreign policy actions that
would lead to the outbreak
of world war.
Jews Seek Refuge
In 1933, Jews in Germany
numbered some 523,000,
or less than 1 percent of
the total population. Over
the next six years, Nazi
persecution forced nearly
300,000 to flee their
homeland.
Battle of Britain
By the late summer of
1940, Germany seemed
to have the British Royal
Air Force on the ropes in
the Battle of Britain, and
German leader Adolf
Hitler launched an aerial
assault that he hoped
would inflict a crushing
blow to British morale and
force the country to
surrender
Yalta Conference
In February 1945, the leaders
of the three leading Allied
powers--the United States,
Great Britain and the Soviet
Union--met in Yalta, on the
Black Sea in southern
Ukraine. Among the issues
on the agenda were the
future occupation of defeated
Germany, the fate of Poland
and other countries liberated
from Nazi rule and the
continued war in the Pacific.
Maginot Line
After being overrun by
Germany in World War I,
French military strategists
focused on the need for a
secure line of defense along
the French-German border,
designed to stop any
German invasion. In 1930,
work began on the vast
network of fortifications that
would become known as the
Maginot Line.
Leningrad Siege
As the former capital and
birthplace of the Russian
Revolution as well as the home
of the Baltic Fleet, the city of
Leningrad (now St. Petersburg)
was both a symbolic and
strategic target for German
leader Adolf Hitler in his army's
invasion of the Soviet Union
during World War II. Hitler's
attempt to seize Leningrad,
beginning in the fall of 1941,
resulted in one of history's
longest and most brutal sieges,
leaving more than 1 million
civilians dead over the course of
872 days.
Marshall Plan
On June 5, 1947, in an
address at Harvard
University, U.S. Secretary
of State George C.
Marshall proposed the
creation of an economic
assistance program to
rebuild war-torn Europe.
The program was to be
designed and created by
the European nations, and
funded by the United
States.