The History of the Twentieth Century

The Japanese execute their attempted ambush at Midway, and it fails catastrophically.

The US Navy sent two of its carriers into the southwest Pacific to thwart the Japanese campaign to take New Caledonia and isolate Australia. The Japanese responded by sending two of their own. The carriers engaged each other in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, President Roosevelt asked the military to find a way to strike back at the Japanese Home Islands. It took an unorthodox approach to make this possible.

For India, like Australia, the entry of Japan into the war meant it was no longer a distant, European struggle. By May 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army was at the Indian border.

In 1942, many Americans feared a Japanese invasion of the West Coast of the US or Canada was imminent. Regrettably, these fears led to the belief--unsupported by facts--that the ethnic Japanese population on the West Coast represented a dangerous fifth column of potential spies and saboteurs.

Sometime in the autumn of 1941, a decision was made among the Nazi elite to murder every Jewish person in Europe--or within reach, anyway. No record exists of how that decision was made, but we have a very detailed record of how it was carried out.

The winter of 1941-42 was not a happy one for the German Army. On the Eastern Front it was battered by a record cold winter and a Soviet counteroffensive. In North Africa, a British offensive pushed Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps all the way back to central Libya, from where he had begun.

After the sinking of Bismarck, the Germans abandoned surface raiding in the Atlantic and turned to their greatest naval strength: submarine warfare.

The Luftwaffe's bombing campaign over England did not force a British capitulation. Can RAF Bomber Command force a German capitulation?

The Japanese Army's greatest victory; the British Army's greatest defeat.

The attack on Pearl Harbor ended the political division in the US between interventionists and isolationists. Now the US was united as never before.

The Japanese attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese give up on peace talks with America and began prepare for war.

The defining features of the nation of Panama are its abundant wildlife and that it is the place where the world's two largest oceans are at their closest.

The upper levels of Japanese government (and, more important, the military) increasingly came to the view that war with the United States was necessary if Japan was to survive.

At the end of the rasputitsa, the mud season, the German Army had one final, narrow opportunity, to win the war against the USSR before winter.

Even before the first German soldier crossed the frontier into the USSR, the Nazi government in Berlin had a plan for administering occupied Russia.

The German invasion of the USSR went brilliantly for the first 2-3 weeks, but instead of collapsing as expected, the Red Army only got stronger.

On June 22, 1941, Germany began an invasion of its erstwhile trade partner, the USSR. 

The Dust Bowl ravages the central United States, Charles Lindbergh's infant son is kidnapped, the America First movement opposes US involvement in the war.

Germany executes its invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece, and the Axis encourages an anti-British coup in Iraq.

As Germany made preparations to assist its ally Italy in the war against Greece, a coup in Yugoslavia prompted Adolf Hitler to order the invasion of that country as well. 

In summer of 1940, even as the Battle of Britain was just getting started, Adolf Hitler was already laying plans for war with the Soviet Union.

After the fall of Poland, British Intelligence's codebreaking operation at Bletchley Park became the center of efforts to decrypt messages from the Germans' supposedly unbreakable Enigma machine.

The British had been hugely successful at breaking German codes in the First World War. The Germans were determined not to let that happen again. This time they had Enigma, a code machine that produced messages that could not be decrypted. Or so the Germans believed.

The navy Germany had at the outbreak of the Second World War was only a small fraction of what the Allies had arrayed against it. But the Fall of France and the entry of Italy into the war changed things dramatically and created opportunities at sea that Germany had never had in the last war.

In 1940, the British government was in the frustrating position of funding research on a number of promising projects that would be valuable to the war effort, but with the Battle of Britain in full swing, British factories had to turn out fighter planes as fast as they could. There was no room for development of experimental new technologies, so the British turned to the United States

Italy's invasion of Greece was disastrous. With the British also advancing in North Africa, and a surprise air attack disabling three Italian battleships, it was no longer possible to pretend that Italy was a equal of Germany.

Benito Mussolini wanted to prove that Italy was an equal partner with Germany in the Axis alliance, so he began a war with Greece.

Germany found that it could not defeat the British on their home island; the UK was unable to fight the Germans in Europe. So what next?

When France collapsed, Roosevelt redoubled his effort to aid Britain. But there was also a Presidential election to think about; Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term.

America was preoccupied with domestic issues during the run-up to the war. When the war came, the Roosevelt Administration looked for ways to aid the Allies despite the limitations of the Neutrality Act.

More on various genres of pulp fiction, and how they led to the development of comic books.

Pulp fiction was an important form of entertainment in the twentieth century, peaking in popularity around 1940. Pulp fiction came in a variety of genres and was the birthplace for a new one: science fiction.

The 1939-40 New York World's Fair.

When the Churchill government showed no willingness to talk peace, Germany attempted the world's first purely aerial military campaign, to weaken Britain in preparation for invasion, or perhaps even to defeat the enemy entirely by air.

Theories of strategic bombing in the 1930s suggested that it alone might be enough to win a war. But the development of radar meant that the bomber might not always get through after all.

We examine the advances in aviation technology between the World Wars.

The world reacts to the Fall of France.

After the Dunkirk evacuation, the next stage of the Western offensive began, aimed at capturing Paris and defeating France.

After German armor cut off the Allied First Army Group in Belgium, the Royal Navy attempts an evacuation of the trapped forces from the port of Dunkirk.

After months of delays and a diversion into Denmark and Norway, Hitler finally gets his Western offensive.

The Allied debacle in Norway sparked a revolt in the British Parliament against the Chamberlain government's conduct of the war.

Improbably, the nation of Norway finds itself the front line of the Second World War.

In the final year before the war began, Winston Churchill's denunciations of Nazi Germany began to seem prescient, but Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain fiercely resisted calls to invite Churchill into the Cabinet until war came. Then Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, for the second time in his career.

Adolf Hitler wanted to attack in the west immediately after the fall of Poland, but unfavorable weather kept postponing the offensive. Then a copy of the plan fell into Allied hands.

With the other Great Powers involved in their own wars, Stalin and the USSR are now free to claim the territories Germany granted to their "sphere of influence."

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it freed the Nazis from having to worry about international opinion. Hitler and his followers could now do as they pleased.

With the narrative at the beginning of the Second World War, we pause to consider what lessons can be learned from the past twenty years.

Adolf Hitler believed that the leaders of France and Britain would be too cowardly to go to war to defend Poland, but even if they did, he was willing to take them on. Here we go again...

As Germany was ratcheting up the pressure against Poland, it and the USSR signed a non-aggression agreement. No one knew it at the time, but this agreement contained secret protocols that, among other things, divided Poland between them.

Electronic amplification allowed singers and musicians to perform in a softer, more intimate way. The new styles became very popular, especially in the USA.

By 1938, it was clear the Spanish Republic was in trouble. British and French efforts to maintain peace with Germany and Italy had the side effect eliminating whatever hope remained.

Roosevelt was re-elected in 1936 by an historic margin, but the years 1937-38 saw him stumble.

Over the course of the 1930s, entertainment on radio evolved into a mix of drama, situation comedy, soap opera, and kids' programming that would serve as the model for broadcast entertainment for the rest of the century.

Advertising agencies as we know them today came into existence at the dawn of the twentieth century. These agencies were reluctant to move into radio advertising, but in the US, the medium was soon dominated by them.

In Germany in the 1930s, modern science was exploring the limits of what can be known, at the same time the Nazi political movement was claiming absolute knowledge.

Just weeks after the Munich Agreement avoided a war, Germany was wracked by a spasm of internal anti-Semitic violence.

Adolf Hitler was gearing up for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. Then Neville Chamberlain intervened.

Hitler's first step on his plan to expand Germany to the east was to annex Austria.

Hitler wanted closer relations with both Britain and Italy. He got half his wish.

Fairy tales date back at least to medieval Europe, and probably further back than that. The 19th century demoted them to children's entertainment, but the twentieth century will find new uses for them.

Chiang Kai-shek has had enough. When the Japanese provoke a confrontation, Chiang and his new Communist allies do not back down, and the result is war.

Dissenting generals kidnap Chiang Kai-shek and force him to negotiate with the Chinese, while in Japan, right-wing radicals in the military consolidate their power.

The generals tried to end the war in a matter of months by moving on the capital. Madrid held, but the Republic couldn't hold its crucial northern enclave.

English language literature of the Jazz Age disdained the old conventions and went off in a new direction, emphasizing the subjectivity of experience and rejecting established authority.

Franklin Roosevelt was very popular in 1936, but he and his campaign had concerns, not only about the Republicans, but about potential challenges from the left.

The Spanish government was aware that a coup was coming and had taken steps against it, though these precautions would prove inadequate. Still, the coup would likely have failed without intervention from Germany and Italy.

King Alfonso XIII fled Spain in 1931 following the declaration of the Second Spanish Republic. But monarchists, the Catholic Church, and other right-wing forces in Spain were not ready to submit.

King George V died in January 1936, leaving the crown to his eldest son, who became Edward VIII. But Edward just didn't seem to take his responsibilities seriously.

By all appearances, Adolf Hitler was enormously popular in the early years of his rule over Germany. The Germans named streets, squares, even their own children, after him. They sold beer steins with his face on them.

The Nazis created the "Strength through Joy" program to create leisure activities for working people. The 1936 Olympics was staged to celebrate Nazi accomplishments.

Whatever its domestic policies, in international relations, Fascist Italy remained reasonable in its international relations. Then it invaded Ethiopia.

Under Nazi rule, German officials had to create a legal system that would define who was and wasn't "Aryan," because you can't oppress the "non-Aryans" until you know who they are.

After the vindication of the 1934 mid-terms, Franklin Roosevelt further enlarges his agenda.

In the early twentieth century, sovereignty over the Chaco Boreal in central South America was still unsettled. Bolivia and Peru went to war over their conflicting claims.

Animated short films were already popular during the 1920s, but the rise of sound and color in motion pictures, pioneered by Walt Disney, revolutionized the form.

Animated drawings, in the form of flip books and zoetropes, already existed at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the rise of motion pictures also made possible the beginning of animated motion pictures.

After the Night of the Long Knives, and with his domestic position secure, Hitler turned to foreign policy. German violations of the Treaty of Versailles were publicly acknowledged by 1935, and in spring of 1936, German soldiers entered the Rhineland.

Adolf Hitler was already effectively dictator of Germany, but in the first 18 months, he moved to tighten his grip, even going so far as to murder his own supporters in the SA and elsewhere.

Even before Hitler and the Nazis took power, it was an open secret that Germany was enlarging its military beyond what the Treaty of Versailles allowed, leading to jittery nerves in France and Britain.

In this episode, we finish up a couple of New Deal programs we didn't get to talk about last time, and examine the Roosevelt Administration's efforts to restore confidence in Wall Street and in a dollar no longer backed by gold.

Franklin Roosevelt's administration began with a bang.

In the four-month period between Roosevelt's election and his inauguration, the American economy went from bad to worse.

New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt was the wide favorite for the 1932 Democratic Presidential nomination, while Herbert Hoover's popularity, like the US economy, was declining every month.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, scion of two old and wealthy New York families, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and candidate for Vice President of the United States, had a bright future ahead of him. Then he came down with polio.

Rutherford's hypothetical neutron was proved to exist in 1932. Atomic physics in the 1930s was regularly producing dramatic--and disturbing--new results.

The British economy hadn't fully bounced back from the war when the Depression hit, eventually forcing Britain off the gold standard once again.

The Indian National Congress had declared independence, but waited for Gandhi to propose a strategy for resisting British rule. Gandhi came up with a characteristically unusual suggestion.

Stalin claimed the mantle of successor to Lenin and made the claim stick. He would go on to gain a degree of power in the USSR far greater than anything Lenin ever held, or even dreamed of.

Strangely, although motion pictures and sound recording were invented around the same time, it took thirty years before the technology to link them came together. Sound changed motion pictures, not always for the better.

Fascist governments are run on the views of the fascist leader, more than a written ideology. And what does the leader want? At home, to celebrate "our" superior culture; abroad, war.

In this second of a three-part series on fascism, we examine the beliefs that form the foundation of fascism.

Fascism is the twentieth century's unique contribution to political ideology. In this first of a three-part series, we examine its roots.

Hitler became chancellor of a mostly-not-Nazi cabinet. But he also demanded yet another election and worked hard to create a sense of crisis that would encourage more votes for Nazis.

Just when it seemed the National Socialist movement was beginning to lose steam, other right-wing parties join the Nazis in a coalition, thinking to use the movement for their own purposes.

Germany held four national elections in 1932, and a number of state elections besides. The NSDAP, the Nazi Party did quite well, but fell short every time. By the end of the year, there were signs the Party was losing steam.

With the 1930 German federal election, the Nazi party went from the fringes to status as one of Germany's major political parties. But that's not the same as participating in government.

In the late Twenties, Germany saw its Communist and National Socialist parties grow in popularity, especially the latter. Adolf Hitler became the unlikely leader of the right wing in Germany, while the Communists dismissed the Nazis as a temporary obstacle.

The Japanese occupation of Manchuria was the first real test of the League of Nations, as this was exactly the kind of aggressive act the League was created to prevent. Unfortunately, the League failed the test.