1. World War II, also called the Second World War, was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939-1945. The principal parties were the Axis powers(轴心国) - Germany, Italy, and Japan - and the Allies(同盟国) - France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and China. The war was in many respects a continuation of the conflicts left unsettled by World War I. The 40-50 million deaths in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict as well as the largest war in history. Check out the web page http://www.lib.muohio.edu/inet/subj/history/wwii/ and you can find Word War II resources on the Internet. In particular, you may want to check out the World War II multimedia database at http://www.worldwar2database.com and the World War II fact book at http://www.skalman.nu/worldwar2/ where all the events are listed. The web site at http://webpub.alleg.edu/student/p/paynes/war.html also provides an extensive collection of photos, speeches and accounts of events about World War II.
2. Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) http://www.cbs.com made media history beginning in the late 1920s. William Paley put money into the Columbia Broadcasting System, which was then a small, struggling radio network, in 1928. In 1974 it adopted the name CBS, Inc. In 1995 CBS, Inc. was bought by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which changed the name in 1997 to the CBS Corporation. The main offices are in New York City.
3. Home Guard is usually a military organization of citizens with limited military training for emergency service, usually for local defense. During World War II the Home Guard was established in the U.K. Check out the web site at http://www.home-guard.org.uk for more detailed information about Home Guard in the U.K.
4. Marshal Goering was born in Bavaria. Trained for an army career, Goering received his assignment in 1912 and served with distinction during World War I. Later, Goering met Adolf Hitler and joined the small National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party in 1922. Since then, Goering worked tirelessly as Hitler’s most loyal supporter. He was Reich official for air fighters and head of the newly developed Luftwaffe (German air force). He had, at one time, been responsible for the Gestapo and the concentration camps.
Goering was the most popular of the Nazi leaders, not only with the German people but also with the representatives and agents of foreign powers. But he was shamed when the Luftwaffe failed to win the battle of Britain or prevent the Allied bombing of Germany. After Hitler’s suicide, he surrendered himself to the Americans. He was sentenced to be hanged, but instead he drank some poison and died in his prison room at Nurnberg the night he was given his death sentence. To find out more about him, check out his biography at http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blgoering.htm and http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/goering.htm. The web page at http://auschwitz.dk/Goering.htm also provides information about his roles in World War II.
5. Royal Air Force (RAF) is the youngest of the three British armed services, charged with the air defense of the United Kingdom and fulfillment of international defense commitments. At the beginning of World War II in September 1939, the first-line strength of the RAF in the United Kingdom was about 2,000 airplanes. The RAF fighter pilots, however, distinguished themselves during the Battle of Britain in the early stages of the war against the many more German Luftwaffe. Take a look at its official web site at http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafhome.html to find out more about RAF.
6. The Allied Nations — The main countries involved in World War II were the Axis powers - Germany, Italy, and Japan - and the Allies (the Allied Nations) - France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and China. The war ended with the victory being won by the allied nations in 1945. For more information about the Axis and the Allies, check out the web sites listed in Entry 1 of this Section.
