Chapter 19 Study Guide – United States History
1. During the 1930s, the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany.
2. Italy and Japan were dissatisfied with the peace settlements provided by the Treaty of Versailles because both countries expected more territory in exchange for their sacrifices during World War I.
3. President Roosevelt hoped to stop Japanese expansion when he enacted the embargo on naval and aviation supplies in 1940.
4. The Lend-Lease Act was perceived as being equivalent to declaring economic war against the Axis Powers.
5. Interventionists claimed that the United States could avoid war if it sent aid to Britain.
6. The Neutrality Act of 1939 allowed nations at war to buy arms and other supplies from the United States as long as those nations paid cash and transported the materials themselves.
7. The appeasement policy of the United States, Britain, and France encouraged more German aggression.
8. Japan seized control of resources in other nations in an attempt to recover from the Great Depression.
9. The Great Depression eventually changed Germany politically – the Germans eventually believed that Hitler would solve their economic problems.
10. Adolf Hitler explained the problems facing Germany in his book Mein Kampf when he blamed the problems on the Jewish people and the great threat they caused Germany.
11. After the US declared war, the nation’s economic situation improved.
12. After declaring war, the US government transformed peacetime industries into war industries.
13. The attack on Pearl Harbor ended the political divisions between the isolationists and interventionists.
14. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because they wanted to destroy ships and planes that threatened their expansion efforts.
15. Germany and Italy appeared to be winning the war in Europe at the end of 1940.
16. Roosevelt delivered his “Four Freedoms” speech to Congress in January 1941 to increase economic support for Britain.
17. The US initially followed a policy of appeasement toward Germany because the US wanted to focus on its own economic troubles.
18. The League of Nations did not prevent German and Italian aggression against other nations because it had no standing army and no real power to enforce its decrees.
19. One of the ways that Mussolini maintained his power in Italy was by outlawing political parties.
20. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans accepted the call for service by finding ways to contribute to the war effort, the size of the US navy more than doubled from 1941 to 1942, and the Women’s Army Corps provided clerical workers, truck drivers, instructors, and lab technicians.
21. The first Fascist government was formed in Italy.
22. Britain and France were drawn into war with Germany because they had promised military aid to Poland.
23. The Soviet Union signed a nonagression pact with Germany that led to the invasion and division of Poland.
24. The Battle of Britain forced Germany to put off the invasion of Britain.
25. The German blitzkrieg was a military strategy that depended on surprise and overwhelming force.
26. The US entered World War II as a direct result of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
27. Winston Churchill opposed the Munich Pact.
28. Germany, Japan, and Italy came to be known as the Axis powers after they signed a mutual defense treaty in 1940.
29. The Axis powers’ alliance worried FDR because he saw that the US, if drawn into the war, would have to fight on two oceans.
30. The Atlantic Charter, drafted by Winston Churchill and FDR was a statement of war aims.
31. The Battle of Britain was fought in the skies over Britain.
32. December 7, 1941, is the date of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
33. The decline of Progressivism during World War I and of the New Deal at the start of the World War II shows that domestic programs may be overshadowed by wartime priorities.
34. The invasion of Poland after the Munich Conference caused the allied powers to stop appeasing Adolf Hitler.
35. Appeasement describes the diplomacy followed by some European nations in their relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan between 1931 and 1939.
36. In July 1940, the US banned the sale of scrap metal and petroleum to Japan to reduce Japanese expansion in the Pacific. The Japanese responded to this embargo by purchasing needed supplies from the Soviet Union and continued its Pacific conquest until stopped by the US.
37. The Women’s Army Corps (WACs) changed the role of women in the armed forces.
38. The United States became the “arsenal of democracy” in the early 1940’s because the US possed the economic resources to produce massive amounts of war material.