blog writing #wwii u.s. involvement: key events 1939-1943

After reading “For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States from 1607 to 2012” written by Millet, Maslowski and Feis, I learned that major events in the United States that occurred from 1939 to 1943 influenced the USA to participate in war. On September 1st 1939, Germany invades Poland resulting at the beginning of World War Two (WWII). The advent of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich in Germany, the Spanish Civil War, the Japanese invasion of China, the German annexation of Austria, and the internment of thousands of Jews in concentration camps had all heightened tensions in Europe and Asia in the years leading up to 1939 (Millet et al., 2012). Germany's occupation of territories of Czechoslovakia not previously agreed to in the Munich Pact, as well as its invasion of Poland, convinced the rest of Europe that it could no longer appease Germany. The Soviet Union invaded Finland as the United States attempted to remain neutral.