when was world war 2?
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Answers
Answer:
1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global war that lasted from 1 September 1939 to 2 September 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. In a total war directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war to this day. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history, and resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, a majority being civilians. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of the Axis defeat, Germany and Japan were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
Clockwise from top left:
Chinese forces in the Battle of Changde Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943 US naval force in the Lingayen Gulf Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad
Date
1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945[a]
(6 years and 1 day)
Location
Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, South-East Asia, China, Japan, Middle East, Mediterranean, North Africa, Horn of Africa, Central Africa, Australia, briefly North and South America
Result
Allied victory
Fall of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan
Allied military occupations of Germany, Japan, Austria and foundation of the Italian Republic in place of the Kingdom of Italy
Beginning of the Nuclear Age
Dissolution of the League of Nations and creation of the United Nations
Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers and beginning of the Cold War (See Aftermath of World War II)
Participants
Allies
Axis
Commanders and leaders
Main Allied leaders:
Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
United States Franklin D. Roosevelt
United Kingdom Winston Churchill
Republic of China (1912–1949) Chiang Kai-shek
Main Axis leaders:
Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
Empire of Japan Emperor Hirohito
Fascist Italy (1922–1943) Benito Mussolini
Casualties and losses
Military dead:
Over 16,000,000
Civilian dead:
Over 45,000,000
Total dead:
Over 61,000,000
(1937–1945)
...further details
Military dead:
Over 8,000,000
Civilian dead:
Over 4,000,000
Total dead:
Over 12,000,000
(1937–1945)
...further details
World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France subsequently declared war on Germany on the 3rd. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland and marked out their "spheres of influence" across Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan (along with other countries later on). Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, and the fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz of the UK, and the Battle of the Atlantic. On 22 June 1941, Germany led the European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front, the largest land theatre of war in history and trapping the Axis powers, crucially the German Wehrmacht, in a war of attrition.