(omitted embedded links) (CNN) - Here's a look at World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. Causes of World War II:
The Peace of Paris - The treaties worked out in Paris at the end of World War I satisfied few. Germany, Austria, and the other countries on the losing side of the war were especially unhappy with the Paris Agreement, which required them to give up arms and make reparations. Germany agreed to sign the Treaty of Versailles only after the victorious countries threatened to invade if Germany did not sign it. Germany made the last payment on reparations in 2010. Economic Issues - World War I was devastating to countries' economies. Although the European economy had stabilized by the 1920s, the Great Depression in the United States led to economic downfall in Europe. Communism and fascism gained strength in the wake of economic problems.
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Nationalism - An extreme form of patriotism that grew in Europe became even stronger after World War I, especially for countries that were defeated. Dictatorships - Political unrest and unfavorable economic conditions lead to the rise of dictatorships in countries such as Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union.
Failure of Appeasement - Czechoslovakia had become an independent nation after World War I, but by 1938, was surrounded by German territory. Hitler wanted to annex the Sudetenland, an area in western Czechoslovakia where many Germans lived. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wanted to appease Hitler and agreed to his demands for the Sudetenland after Hitler promised he would not demand more territory. Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March of 1939.
Axis Powers: Germany, Japan, and Italy formed a coalition called the Axis Powers. Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and two German-created states--Croatia and Slovakia--eventually joined.
Major Players: Germany - Adolf Hitler, Der Furher Japan - Admiral Hideki Tojo, Prime Minister Italy - Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister
Allied Powers: The United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union made up the Allies, the group fighting the Axis. Between 1939 and 1944 at least 50 nations would eventually fight together. Thirteen more nations would join by 1945 including: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, British Commonwealth of Nations, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Philippines and Yugoslavia.
Major Players: United States - Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Great Britain - Winston Churchill, Prime Minister China - Chiang Kai-Shek, General Soviet Union - Joseph Stalin, General
US Troop Statistics: 16,112,566 - Number of US troops that served in the conflict. 670,846 - Number of US wounded.
US Deaths: Battle: 291,557 Non-Battle: 113,842 Total In-Theatre: 405,399
Other Facts: About 70 million people fought in the armed forces of the Allied and Axis nations. Finland never officially joined either the Allies or the Axis and was at war with the Soviet Union at the outbreak of World War II. Needing help in 1940, the Finnish joined forces with Nazi Germany to repel the Soviets. When peace between Finland the Soviet Union was declared in 1944, Finland joined with the Soviets to oust the Germans. Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Sweden declared neutrality during the war. The Soviet Union lost the most soldiers, in excess of seven million. The number of civilian casualties in World War II may never be known. Many deaths were caused by bombing raids, massacres, starvation and other war-related causes. It is believed that approximately six million Jewish people died in Nazi concentration camps during the war. Also killed were hundreds of thousands of Roma people and people with mental or physical disabilities. The Lend-Lease Act was created to allow the United States to lend or lease weapons, equipment or raw materials to any nation fighting the Axis. Eventually, 38 nations received about $50 billion in aid. Most went to Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
In 1948, the United States created the Marshall Plan to help rebuild war torn Europe. Eventually, 18 nations received $13 billion in food, machinery and other goods.
In March of 1974, Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier still fighting the war, was found by a search party on the island of Lubang in the Philippines. After he is convinced the war is over by his former commanding officer, he is then flown to Manila and formally surrenders to President Ferdinand Marcos. Onoda died January 16, 2014, at the age of 91.
Timeline:
September 1, 1939 - Germany invades Poland. Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and France soon fall into German control, until only the United Kingdom is left to face Germany. June 10, 1940 - Italy joins the war on the side of Germany by declaring war against Britain (UK) and France. Fighting spreads to Greece and Northern Africa. June 14, 1940 - German troops march into Paris. July 1940-September 1940 - Germany and Great Britain fight an air war, the Battle of Britain, along the English coastline. September 7, 1940-May 1941 - German bombing campaign of nightly air raids over London, known as the Blitz. January 22, 1941 - British and Commonwealth troops take over the port city of Tobruk, Libya. June 22, 1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union. September 1941 - Japanese troops invade Indochina. December 7, 1941 - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, destroying more than half of the fleet of aircraft, and damaging all eight battleships. Japan also attacks Clark and Iba airfields in the Philippines destroying over half of the US Army's aircraft there. December 8, 1941 - Roosevelt delivers the "a date which will live in infamy" speech to Congress, and the US declares war on Japan. Japan invades Hong Kong, Guam, the Wake Islands, Singapore and British Malaya. December 11, 1941 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. By Christmas 1941 - Japan had taken Thailand, Guam, Hong Kong and Wake Island. 1942 - The Allies stop the Axis Powers' advance in Northern Africa and the Soviet Union. February 1942 - Japan invades the Malay Peninsula. Singapore surrenders within a week. June 4-6, 1942 - Japan's plans to invade the Hawaiian Islands, starting at Midway Island, but the United States cracks the code of the mission. Japan attacks Midway and loses four aircraft carriers and over 200 planes and pilots in the first clear victory for the United States. August 19, 1942 - The battle for Stalingrad begins as Germany pushes further into Russia. August 1942-February 1943 - US Marines fight for and hold the Pacific island of Guadalcanal. October 23, 1942 - British troops push Axis troops into retreating to Tunisia in the Second Battle of El Alamein. February 1, 1943 - The German troops in Stalingrad surrender, defeated in large part by the Soviet winter. The defeat marks the halt of Germany's eastbound advance. July 10, 1943 - Allied forces land in Italy. July 25, 1943 - The King of Italy is restored to full power, and Mussolini is deposed and arrested.
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November 1943-March 1944 - US Marines invade the Solomon Islands at Bougainville to recapture it from the Japanese. June 6, 1944 - D-Day, in which Allied forces land on five beaches at Normandy: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The landing includes over 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes and over 150,000 service men. August 25, 1944 - American and Free French forces liberate Paris. January 27, 1945 - Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz camp complex, located near Krakow, Poland. February 19-March 26, 1945 - US Marines battle the Japanese for the island of Iwo Jima. April 12, 1945 - Roosevelt dies in Warm Springs, Georgia. Vice President Harry Truman takes the oath of office as president. April 25, 1945 - Soviet troops surround Berlin. April 28, 1945 - Mussolini is killed attempting to escape to Switzerland. April 29, 1945 - US soldiers liberate the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich, Germany. April 30, 1945 - Hitler and wife Eva Braun commit suicide. May 7, 1945 - Germany surrenders in a red school house in Reims, Germany, Eisenhower's headquarters. V-E Day is celebrated on May 8 because that was the day the armistice went into effect. May 8, 1945 - V-E Day, Victory in Europe. The war in Europe is officially over. July 16, 1945 - First successful test of the atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico. July 29, 1945 - Truman warns Japan that the country will be destroyed if it does not surrender unconditionally. Japan continues fighting. August 6, 1945 - The first atomic bomb used in warfare, nicknamed Little Boy, is dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 140,000 people. August 9, 1945 - After getting no response from the Japanese government after the Hiroshima bombing, a second atomic bomb, nicknamed Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki, killing up to 80,000 people. August 14, 1945 - Japan unconditionally agrees to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and end the war. V-J Day, Victory over Japan, is declared. September 2, 1945 - Japan signs the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
U P D A T E : German President asks for forgiveness 80 years after start of World War II
By Laura Perez Maestro, Amy Woodyatt, Duarte Mendonca and Jamie Crawford, CNN Updated 2:36 PM ET, Sun September 1, 2019
(CNN)Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has asked for Poland's forgiveness 80 years after the start of World War II. "I stand before you, those who have survived, before the descendants of the victims, the old and the young residents of Wielun, I am humbled and grateful," Steinmeier said during a ceremony in the Polish city of Wielun, the site of one of the first Nazi bombings in the country on September 1, 1939.
"I bow to the victims of the attack in Wielun, I pay tribute to the Polish victims of German tyranny and I ask for forgiveness," he said.
Nearly 6 million Poles died during World War II, which remains the bloodiest conflict in history. More than 50 million people were killed in the conflict overall, including some 6 million Jews, half of whom were Polish.
At a ceremony in Warsaw, Polish President Andrzej Duda spoke of the atrocious history suffered by Polish people during WWII and the "trauma" that they still carry today.
The Polish President remembered the fallen and thanked the soldiers "who fought and sacrificed their lives for freedom."
In an address on Sunday morning in Westerplatte, Gdansk, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke of the huge material, spiritual, economic and financial losses Poland suffered in the war.
"We have to talk, we have to remember about the loses we suffered, we have to demand the truth, we have to demand compensation," Morawiecki said.
War reparations remain a contentious issue in Poland -- since coming to power in 2015, the Law and Justice (PiS) party has revived calls for compensation, Reuters reported. Germany made the last payment on reparations in 2010.
US Vice President Mike Pence spoke in Warsaw on Sunday at the commemoration ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of Germany's invasion of Poland. Two days later, on September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
"During the five decades of untold suffering and death that followed the outbreak of World War II, the Polish people never lost hope, they never gave in to despair, and they never let go of their thousand-year history," Pence said.
"In the years that followed this day 80 years ago, their light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it," he added.
U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur, bottom right, prepares to accept Japan's unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, it was the second time the world went to war. With the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, World War II was over.
Here is some background information about the end of World War II, by the numbers.
3 -- Nations leading the Axis Powers at the start of World War II: Germany, Italy and Japan. 4 -- Nations leading the Allied Powers: Great Britain, the United States, the USSR (Soviet Union) and China. September 1, 1939 -- Germany invades Poland December 7, 1941 -- Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and Manila, Philippines. September 3, 1943 -- Day Italy signs an unconditional surrender with the Allied Powers in Sicily. June 6, 1944 -- D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe 50 feet -- Depth underground of the bunker in which Adolf Hitler and partner Eva Braun committed suicide below the Chancellery in Berlin on April 30, 1945. May 8, 1945 -- V-E Day (Victory in Europe), after Gen. Alfred Jodl of the German High Command signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces. 2 -- Atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945. August 14, 1945 -- V-J Day (Victory in Japan), when the Japanese accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and unconditionally surrendered. September 2, 1945 - Day the Japanese delegation formally signs the instrument of surrender on board the USS Missouri, marking the official ending of World War II. 2,194 -- Days between the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, through September 2, 1945, when Japan signs the unconditional surrender. 4 -- Flags flown on the USS Missouri -- those of United States, Great Britain, USSR and China -- when the surrender papers are signed. 255 -- Allied ships in Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremony. 18 minutes -- Time it took for representatives of Japan, the United States, China, Great Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, The Netherlands and New Zealand to each sign two copies of the Instrument of Surrender, from 9:04 a.m. to 9:22 a.m. 16 million -- Americans who serve during World War II. 73,661 -- The number, as of May 2013, Americans classified as missing in action in World War II. 26.6 million -- Estimated number of casualties, military and civilian, suffered by the USSR. 10 million-20 million -- Estimated number of casualties, military and civilian, suffered by China from the fall of Manchuria in 1931 through the end of World War II. 6 million -- Approximate number of people killed in Nazi concentration camps.
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