A war that touched most of the globe in one way or another, with the conflict involving European nations from 1939 to 1945, and in Asia from earlier in the 1930s (with Japan’s attacks against Korea, China, and Russia), and killed 70 - 85 million people, or around 3% of the world’s population in 1940.
The war is widely seen as a conflict against the human rights abusing evil of the nazi* party in Germany, led by hitler* using scapegoating of minorities that focused on an attempt to destroy the Jewish people (and savagely abused and killed at least six million) and false narratives about the reason Germany lost World War (part) One (although the peace treaty was widely seen as unreasonable), and the imperial ambitions of Japan, strengthened after being slighted by Western nations’ racism after World War (part) One.
(The links between the events at the end of World War One and the start of World War Two is why I refer to them as “parts”. Some people push the start back further, to the newly formed Germany’s invasion of France in 1870-71, and refer to the 75 year period as a “European civil war” - which dragged the rest of the world in largely because of Europe’s colonial Empires.)
The USA’s covert assistance became overt after Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, in later 1941. US resources are widely viewed as crucial to winning the war, but the efforts and massive losses and sacrifices of the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia (USSR) were also essential.
Some human rights abuses were also committed by the Allies, but the scale and savagery of what nazi* Germany had committed against Jewish people (often referred to as the Holocaust, or the Shoah), combined with the work of Raphael Lemkin in response to previous attempts to destroy peoples, led to adoption of Lemkin’s term “genocide” and the Genocide Convention by the fledgling United Nations, which was intended to be a more effective version of League of Nations formed after World War (part) One, with both being intended to ensure world peace.
Some UN organs have been effective, others less so, so it seems to me to be a better outcome than the League of Nations. Less healthy outcomes from World War (part) Two also include the Cold War, but, just as World War (part) One had some positive outcomes (such as advancing the cause of women’s rights as women took on previously male work so men could fight and be injured/killed at “the front”), so too did World War (part) Two - notably, accelerating the break-up of colonial empires.
* Because of the abuses and what I consider evil these are responsible for, I refuse to capitalise them.
For more on this topic (written by experts, rather than me), see:
- https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II;
- https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history;
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II; and
- https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/videos;
and
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Civil_War;
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv_PcL5Ij4iBf-13oAvMNLlL6sjALwQch and https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv_PcL5Ij4iCViFgH-WssNSmVuoCSYFwZ;
- https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/stab-in-the-back_myth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth, and https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/erich-ludendorff;
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Versailles-1919, https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/treaty-of-versailles-1, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles;
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes_committed_during_World_War_II, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/war-crimes-trials, and http://www.unwcc.org/;
- https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust, https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust;
- http://lemkinhouse.org/about-us/life-of-raphael-lemkin/, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/coining-a-word-and-championing-a-cause-the-story-of-raphael-lemkin, http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/14/raphael-lemkin-defines-genocide-2/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lemkin;
- https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml, https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide, http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/14/raphael-lemkin-defines-genocide-2/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide;
- https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml, https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cppcg/cppcg.html, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CrimeOfGenocide.aspx, https://www.history.com/topics/holocaust/what-is-genocide, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml, and https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1949A00027;
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War, https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cold-war, and https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-cold-war; and
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/decolonization, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Western-colonialism/Decolonization-from-1945, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization, https://cssparho.com/2021/02/05/how-did-world-war-ii-lead-to-decolonization/, https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-decolonisation-131455, and https://www.the-map-as-history.com/Decolonization-after-1945.
