Notes

"The Second World War", "WWII", and "WW2" redirect here. For other uses, see The Second World War (disambiguation) and WWII (disambiguation).
World War II
Infobox collage for WWII.PNG
(clockwise from top left)
Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943 American naval force in the Lingayen Gulf Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad
Date 1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945 (6 years and 1 day)[a]
Location Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia, China, Middle East, Mediterranean, North Africa and Horn of Africa, briefly North and South America
Result
Allied victory

Collapse of Nazi Germany
Fall of Japanese and Italian Empires
Dissolution of the League of Nations
Creation of the United Nations
Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers
Beginning of the Cold War (more...)
Participants
Allies Axis
Commanders and leaders
Main Allied leaders
Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
United States Franklin D. Roosevelt
United Kingdom Winston Churchill
Republic of China (1912–49) Chiang Kai-shek
Main Axis leaders
Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
Empire of Japan Hirohito[b]
Kingdom of Italy Benito Mussolini
Casualties and losses
Military dead:
Over 16,000,000
Civilian dead:
Over 45,000,000
Total dead:
Over 61,000,000 (1937–45)
...further details
Military dead:
Over 8,000,000
Civilian dead:
Over 4,000,000
Total dead:
Over 12,000,000 (1937–45)
...further details
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Campaigns of World War II
Events leading to World War II
Pacification of Libya 1923–1932
Japanese invasion of Manchuria 1931
Franco-Soviet-Czech Pact 1935
Second Italo-Ethiopian War 1935–36
Remilitarization of the Rhineland 1936
Spanish Civil War 1936–39
Anti-Comintern Pact 1936
Second Sino-Japanese War 1937
Anschluss 1938
Munich crisis 1938
German occupation of Czechoslovakia Mar. 1939
German ultimatum to Lithuania Mar. 1939
British guarantee to Poland Mar. 1939
Invasion of Albania Apr. 1939
Pact of Steel May 1939
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Aug. 1939
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World War II
Alphabetical indices
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
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0–9
Navigation
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Portal Category Bibliography
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World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of total war, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources.

World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 million to 85 million fatalities, most of which were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the deliberate genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, starvation, disease and the first use of nuclear weapons in history.[1][2][3][4]

The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937,[5] but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939[6] with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. Supplied by the Soviet Union, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. The war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the coalition of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, with campaigns including the North Africa and East Africa campaigns, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz bombing campaign, the Balkan Campaign as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history, which trapped the major part of the Axis military forces into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.

The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, and Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and then, decisively, at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. In 1943, with a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Allied invasion of Italy which brought about Italian surrender, and Allied victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.

The war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Japan formally surrendered on 2 September 1945. Thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies.

World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.[7] The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Africa and Asia began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and to create a common identity.[8]