World War II Part 1: Crash Course US History #35
World War II Part 1: Crash Course US History #35
In which John Green teaches you about World War II, a subject so big, it takes up two episodes. This week, John will teach you how the United States got into the war, and just how involved America was before Congress actually declared war. John will actually talk a little about the military tactics involved, and he’ll get into some of the weaponry involved, specifically the huge amount of aerial bombing that characterized the war, and the atomic bombs that ended the war in the Pacific.
Hey teachers and students - Check out CommonLit’s free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. Americans entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/the-a…
A call for soldiers led to an early civil rights victory, the Tuskegee Airmen: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/tuske…
America led the invasion of Normandy that would end the war, and American troops helped to liberate surviving Jews from Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/liber…
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Learn more about WWII in these other Crash Course videos:
Crash Course World History:
World War II (38): • World War II: Crash Course World Hist…
World War II, A War for Resources (220): • World War II, A War for Resources: Cr…
Crash Course European History:
World War II (38): • World War II: Crash Course European H…
World War II Civilians and Soldiers (39): • World War II Civilians and Soldiers: …
The Holocaust, Genocides, and Mass Murder of WWII (40): • The Holocaust,Genocides, and Mass Mur…
Post-World War II Recovery (42): • Post-World War II Recovery: Crash Cou…
Crash Course Black American History:
World War II (31): • World War II: Black American History #31
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Chapters:
Introduction: WWII 00:00
American Isolationism Pre-WWII 1:07
American Support for Allies in WWII 3:38
Pearl Harbor 5:03
WWII Fighting in the Pacific 5:43
WWII Fighting in Europe 6:35
Mystery Document 7:30
The End of WWII 8:38
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, \u0026 the Atomic Bomb 9:25
Credits 12:54
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Content
0.14 -> Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course
U.S. history, and today we’re going to talk
3.389 -> about a topic so huge to history buffs that
we can only discuss a tiny, little fraction
8.42 -> of it. I am of course referring to paratroopering.
No World War II.
12.719 -> World War II is the only historical event
that has, like, its own cable channel. Well
16.46 -> I should say it used to have its own cable
channel. These days the History Channel is
19.17 -> of course devoted primarily to lumberjacks
and oh my gosh is that guy really going to
23.75 -> shoot an alligator.
Who knew how nostalgic we could be for documentaries
26.95 -> about Joseph Stalin.
Mr. Green, Mr. Green. Finally we get to the
29.66 -> good stuff: like Patton, and Rommel, and Churchill,
and Eisenhower, Stalingrad, Gomer Pyle!
35.059 -> Oh I’m sorry to disappoint you, Me From
the Past, but while Patton and Eisenhower
39.199 -> were Americans, Rommel was a German (or General
Monty Montgomery’s dog).
44.199 -> Regardless, they were both from the green
parts of not-America also no Americans fought
47.96 -> at the battle of Stalingrad, although we did
talk about that in Crash Course World History.
51.379 -> And Gomer Pyle was a television character
played by Jim Nabors. I believe that you mean
55.78 -> to refer to the journalist Ernie Pyle.
intro
67.26 -> So here at CrashCourse we like to focus on
causes and effects of wars rather than strategy
71.51 -> and tactics, but given the importance that
World War II has in the American imagination,
76.27 -> we’re gonna discuss those a bit too today.
We’re going to defy Maria von Trapp and
79.86 -> start before the very beginning, because America’s
ideas about foreign policy were shaped by
84.05 -> two things: The Great Depression and World
War I.
86.89 -> After the American experience of World War
I, it’s not surprising that Americans were
90.64 -> just a smidge gun shy about involvement in
foreign affairs. Seriously Stan? A gun pun?
95.44 -> Now? No.
Now America actually came out of World War
98.53 -> I stronger than ever but man did a lot of
people die for not much change.
103.88 -> I mean I guess the Treaty of Versailles sort
of re-made Europe, but it didn’t make it
108.12 -> better.
And the League of Nations was a flop and generally
110.16 -> there was a lot of disappoin ted idealism.
The period of time between 1920 and the U.S.
114.65 -> entry into World War II has been called an
age of isolationism, although that isn’t
118.9 -> 100% accurate.
I mean, for one thing the U.S. sponsored a
121.79 -> series of arms reduction negotiations that
resulted in the Washington treaties limiting
125.54 -> the number of battleships that a country could
possess.
127.67 -> But of course those negotiations led to a
fat lot of nothing because the idea of a nation
132.079 -> limiting its battleships was a bigger joke
even than the League of Nations, which I will
135.829 -> remind you, we invented and then did not join.
Another way that the U.S. was less-than isolationist
141.03 -> was our pursuance of the Good Neighbor Policy
with Latin America. So called because we were
145.739 -> not a good neighbor.
Our idea was to be less intrusive in Latin
148.769 -> American politics, and we did remove troops
from the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which
152.819 -> was something but “good neighbor” is a
bit of an exaggeration.
156.069 -> I mean we continued to support repressive
dictators like Somoza in Nicaragua and Batista
160.12 -> in Cuba. You know, we’d never really been
great neighbors.
163.709 -> However, we were isolationist in the sense
that the United States was much less involved
167.879 -> in world trade, largely because of the Depression,
you know that meant that there wasn’t much
172.34 -> world trade, but also because of tariff policies.
But there was also something isolationist
175.93 -> about the formal actions of Congress, like
after Europe and Asia began to become belligerent
180.219 -> in the 1930s with Japan’s invasion of China,
and Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, and the
185.279 -> rise of fascist dictators in Spain and, of
course Germany, Congress responded by passing
190.26 -> a series of Neutrality Acts which banned the
sale of arms to belligerents.
194.389 -> Even if they were really nice, tea-drinking
belligerents who we were pals with.
197.76 -> And that points to another reason why people
tend to regard this as a time of isolationist
201.749 -> sentiment, our old friend Eurocentrism.
We were generally neutral in terms of foreign
205.849 -> intervention when it came to Europe.
Popular groups, like America First with celebrity
210.019 -> members from Charles Lindbergh to E. E. Cummings
cautioned against involvement in foreign affairs.
215.639 -> But they mostly meant European affairs.
The U.S. didn’t officially get involved
219.249 -> in the war until two years after Hitler invaded
Poland but America was deeply involved in
223.93 -> the European war before we actually sent troops.
FDR really wanted to help the Allies, especially
229.249 -> the Brits, who after the French surrender
in 1940 were the only ones actually fighting
233.409 -> the Nazis until 1941, when there were a whole
lot of Russians also fighting them.
237.359 -> Even Congress recognized that the Nazis were
a threat, and in 1940 it agreed to allow Cash
241.87 -> and Carry arms sales to Great Britain.
By the way, “Cash and Carry” is the name
245.62 -> of a liquor store near Stan’s house, but
anyway the sale of arms were “cash” sales
249.34 -> meaning that they were not paid for with loans
or IOUs and the carry part meant that the
254.079 -> British would carry their own arms over, you
know, to Britain.
257.31 -> It’s the difference between buying a pizza
at a grocery store and getting it delivery,
260.459 -> except, you know, it’s not like that at
all and I just want pizza.
264.11 -> Then, in September 1940 Congress created the
nation’s first peacetime draft, taking the
268.12 -> next step toward involvement. And that was
a huge deal because, you know, you don’t
272.06 -> muster an army with no desire to eventually
use it.
275.11 -> By 1941, in spite of all our neutrality, FDR
had pretty clearly sided with the Allies.
280.15 -> America became the “arsenal of democracy”
with the Lend Lease Act authorizing military
284.65 -> aid to countries that promised to pay it back
somehow after the war. We promise, we’ll
288.62 -> figure it out.
So, the U.S. essentially gave billions of
291.09 -> dollars worth of arms and war material to
Britain and, after the Nazis invaded in June
295.12 -> of 1941, to the USSR as well.
And the U.S. also froze Japanese assets here
300.22 -> and basically ended all trade between America
and Japan.
303.31 -> But of course the event that pushed us fully
into the war happened on December 7, 1941
307.5 -> when Japanese pilots attacked the American
naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
311.889 -> 187 aircraft were destroyed, 18 naval vessels
were damaged or destroyed, and more than 2000
317.819 -> American servicemen were killed.
FDR asked Congress for a declaration of war,
321.19 -> which they granted voting 477 to 1. And the
day after that, Germany declared war on the
326.43 -> United States and World War II officially
became a world war.
330.639 -> We almost always start the American story
of World War II in Europe because, you know,
334.319 -> Hitler, so I’m going to start in the Pacific,
where until 1944 there were actually more
338.47 -> American personnel deployed than in Europe.
Things didn’t start well in the Pacific.
342.139 -> Let’s go to the ThoughtBubble.
Perhaps worse than Pearl Harbor was the surrender
346.15 -> of 78,000 American and Filipino troops at
Bataan. This was the largest surrender by
350.46 -> American troops in history and it resulted
in thousands dying on the Bataan Death March
354.68 -> to prisoner of war camps where thousands more
would die.
357.509 -> But in May of 1942 we protected Australia
from the Japanese fleet by winning the Battle
361.72 -> of the Coral Sea, and then in June we won
a huge victory at Midway island, midway between
366.99 -> Hawaii and Japan I guess, and probably named
by historians.
370.449 -> The U.S. strategy in the Pacific has been
called Island Hopping and it involved taking
373.99 -> Japanese controlled islands one at a time
to be used as bases for bombers that could
378.389 -> then be used against Japan itself. It was
a slow process and the fighting over these
383.159 -> jungle-y South Pacific islands was fierce
and extraordinarily costly. The battle at
387.77 -> Guadalcanal went from August 1942 to February
1943 and they didn’t freeze like in Stalingrad,
393.97 -> but conditions weren’t much better.
And now let’s switch to the European theater.
398.139 -> We call this the European war because we were
fighting against Europeans and it ended in
402.259 -> Europe, but the first U.S. troops to fight
against Nazis actually did so in North Africa,
406.509 -> so it’s kind of a misnomer.
American weaponry was pretty poor but after
409.75 -> our initial invasion in North Africa in November
1942 we got into it, and by 1943 we and the
415.379 -> British defeated Rommel in the desert and
we were ready to invade Europe, which should
419.74 -> have made Stalin happy because up to this
point Russians had been doing the bulk of
423.719 -> the dying in the war.
But Stalin wasn’t happy, first because he
426.55 -> was a mean and nasty person and those kinds
of people are rarely happy, and secondly,
430.37 -> because rather than invading France and striking
at Germany more directly, the Allies invaded
435.24 -> Sicily and Italy where we fought for most
of 1943 and much of 1944 until finally, on
441.68 -> June 6th we joined some Brits and Canadians
in invading Normandy on D-Day. And that was
447.259 -> the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
Thanks, ThoughtBubble. Oh it’s time for
450.71 -> the Mystery Document already? Alright. The
rules here are simple.
455.78 -> I read the Mystery Document and usually I
get it wrong and I get shocked.
459.699 -> “They seemed terribly pathetic to me. They
weren’t warriors. They were American boys
463.509 -> who by mere chance of fate had wound up with
guns in their hands, sneaking up a death-laden
468.569 -> street in a strange and shattered city in
a faraway country in a driving rain. They
473.979 -> were afraid, but it was beyond their power
to quit. They had no choice. They were good
479.249 -> boys. I talked with them all afternoon as
we sneaked slowly forward along the mysterious
484.389 -> and rubbled streets, and I know they were
good boys. And even though they weren’t
488.36 -> warriors born to the kill, they won their
battles. That was the point.”
492.659 -> Man, that is some good writing, Stan. By famous
war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Pewwww. That
500.969 -> was me being a warrior. Pew, pew.
I can’t even make finger guns. That’s-that’s
506.03 -> how much of a not-warrior I am. I’m a worrier.
I knew it was Ernie Pyle for two reasons.
511.219 -> First, he’s talking about cities so it’s
the European theatre. Secondly, he’s the
515.19 -> best European theatre American writer in World
War II by far.
518.829 -> So while Americans did liberate Paris and
were part of the final assault on Germany,
522.599 -> and also liberated a number of concentration
camps, Russians did most of the fighting in
526.86 -> Europe, losing at least 20 million people,
and in the end it was the Russians who captured
532.05 -> Berlin.
Although the Nazis never really had a chance
533.959 -> to win the war after they started fighting
the Russians and the Americans entered into
537.61 -> it, it didn’t actually end until May 8th
or 9th, 1945 (depending on when you got the
542.82 -> news)
And the war in the Pacific continued until
544.959 -> August. Japan surrendered unconditionally
after the United States dropped an atomic
548.87 -> bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th and on Nagasaki
on August 9th.
552.3 -> We don’t celebrate the end of World War
II in the United States, and I guess this
555.74 -> is because we would have to decide whether
to celebrate the end of the war in Europe
559.82 -> or in Japan. Or maybe it’s just because
it’s difficult to celebrate the use of atomic
564.62 -> weapons.
Atomic bombs were developed through the Manhattan
566.76 -> Project, so called because the bombs were
partly invented in Chicago and then built
570.63 -> and tested in New Mexico. Trickery.
That was the sort of covert thing the U.S.
574.66 -> used to do really well before we developed
the Internet. Although we weren’t that good
578.459 -> at it since the Soviets did steal our technology
and build a nuclear bomb like three years
582.709 -> later.
The two atomic bombs that were eventually
584.35 -> dropped were the most destructive weapons
the world had ever seen. The one dropped on
588.12 -> Hiroshima killed 70,000 people instantly and
by the end of 1945 another 70,000 had died
594.079 -> from radiation poisoning.
The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki also
597.11 -> killed 70,000 people. In fact, the death toll
from those two bombs was greater than the
602.12 -> number of American fatalities in the entire
Pacific War.
605.79 -> And that leads to one of the most hotly debated
questions in recent history: was the use of
609.529 -> atomic bombs justified or ethical?
Those arguing against their use often point
613.829 -> out that the Truman administration had good
evidence that Japan would surrender if they
617.76 -> were allowed to keep their emperor on the
throne.
619.91 -> And some also point out that the primary targets
were not military, although there were 40,000
624.38 -> troops stationed in Hiroshima.
Others argue that the real reason the United
627.399 -> States dropped the bombs was to threaten the
USSR, and prevent them from taking more territory
632.22 -> in the east. And then there’s the argument
that using such a destructive weapon was morally
636.449 -> reprehensible because it was so destructive
as to be qualitatively different from other
641.589 -> weapons.
For a couple centuries, our weapons had had
643.3 -> the theoretical capability of eliminating
all humans, but never before had it been so
648.16 -> easy.
But others reply that dropping the bombs helped
651.47 -> save American lives. Some of Truman’s advisers
worried that invasion of Japan would result
655.97 -> in 250,000 American deaths and at least that
many Japanese deaths.
660.66 -> And that’s important to note because if
there was one thing truly, horribly innovative
664.85 -> about World War II, it was bombing.
Sure there was radar and jets, but they weren’t
669.63 -> nearly as significant as aerial bombardment,
and by the time the a-bombs dropped, the idea
674.519 -> of precision bombing only military targets
wasn’t an option, in part because bombing
679.26 -> was incredibly risky to planes and pilots.
And by 1945, it was an acceptable and widespread
684.75 -> strategy to target civilians as part of a
total war. In World War II perhaps 40% of
690.07 -> the estimated 50 million people killed were
civilians.
692.86 -> Compare that with World War I, where it was
only 10%.
695.42 -> We should be horrified that 140,000 people
were killed in Hiroshima, but we should be
699.69 -> horrified by all the civilian attacks in World
War II. 25,000 people died in Dresden, more
705.55 -> than 100,000 died in the firebombing of Tokyo
in March of 1945.
709.769 -> Thinking about Truman’s decision to drop
the atomic bombs is important because it forces
713.579 -> us to consider our understanding of history.
Part of why we say that using atomic bombs
717.81 -> was worse than conventional bombing was because
we know what came after – the Cold War,
722.269 -> the threat of nuclear annihilation. From the
present, the dawn of atomic warfare is indeed
727.399 -> terrifying.
But people living at the time were living
729.6 -> amid a different kind of terror and they couldn’t
have known that there would be a nuclear arms
734.12 -> race that threatened all of humanity.
The Japanese didn’t look like they were
737.41 -> going to give up and people on both sides
were dying every day, so before we pass judgment,
742.339 -> let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes
of both the soldiers who were fighting, who
747.6 -> didn’t have to fight on mainland Japan,
and the civilians who were killed by the bombs.
752.18 -> There’s no answer to be found there, but
the opportunity of studying history is the
755.63 -> opportunity to experience empathy.
Now of course we’re never going to know
758.79 -> what it’s like to be someone else, to have
your life saved or taken by decisions made
763.389 -> by the Allied command.
Studying history and making genuine attempts
766.56 -> at empathy helps us to grapple with the complexity
of the world, not as we wish it were, but
771.61 -> as we find it. Thanks for watching. I’ll
see you next week.
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778.94 -> because of you and your support through Subbable.com.
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789.149 -> for everyone.
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Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Objoad6rG6U