The Second World War

Germany conquered most of Europe by 1941, then invaded the Soviet Union. Japan, already at war in China, attacked the United States and overran Southeast Asia.

Behind the lines, Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust. Perhaps 70 million people died in the war, most of them civilians.

Soviet armies broke Germany in the east, the Americans and British landed in the west, and American atomic bombs ended the war with Japan. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers.