Computer and video games

The success of computer and online gaming there is usually credited to South Korea's push for broadband Internet connections in the home and earlier bans on Japanese products (these restrictions were removed by the late 1990s). capture of islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa brought the Japanese homeland within range of naval and air attack. StarCraft gosu (expert players) are celebrities in a game that some have called the country's national sport. U.S. Developers there boast MMORPGs such as Lineage and Ragnarok Online with millions of subscribers and a third of the world's MMOG revenue. The Western Allies celebrated "V-E Day" on 8 May and the Soviet Union "Victory Day" on 9 May. Take for example South Korea. German forces in Italy were surrendered on 2nd May1945, those in northern Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands on the 4th May1945, and the German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered unconditionally all German forces on 7 May in Reims, France.

Computer games are huge business worldwide. Admiral Karl Dönitz became leader of the German government, but the German war effort quickly disintegrated. A large number of summer blockbuster films spawn a companion game, often launching at the same time in order to share the marketing costs. Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on 30 April 1945, he committed suicide. The game and film industries are also becoming increasingly intertwined, with companies like Sony having significant stakes in both. When this failed, Hitler went into delusion, imagining that everyone was against him and that he still had battalions of troops to send into battle. This is untrue; in the United States, video game sales have exceeded the movies' total box office revenue each year since about 1996, but the movie studios trounce the video game publishers when the movies' "ancillary revenue" is counted, meaning sales of DVDs, sales to foreign distributors, and sales to cable TV, satellite TV, and broadcast television networks. As a final resistance effort, he called for civilians, including children, to fight the oncoming Red Army in the Volkssturm militia.

There is a commonly repeated, mistaken belief that video game sales now exceed the revenues of the movie industry. Hitler, however, was still alive, and was slowly going mad. Retail PC game sales have been declining slightly each year since about 1998, but this fact should be taken with a grain of salt: the retail sales numbers from NPD do not include sales from online downloads, nor subscription revenue for games like MMORPGs. Most of the Nazi leaders had either been killed or captured. These figures are sales in dollars, not units; unit shipments for each category were higher than the dollar sales numbers indicate, as more software and hardware was sold at reduced prices compared to 2003. By now, the German Army was in full retreat and Berlin had already been battered due to preliminary air bombings. It reported that as of 2004:. The Red Army (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army) began its final assault on Berlin on 16 April.

The NPD Group tracks computer and video game sales in the United States. It resulted in an April meeting to form the United Nations: nation-states were created in Eastern Europe; it was agreed Poland would have free elections (in fact elections were heavily rigged by Soviets); Soviet nationals were to be repatriated, and the Soviet Union was to attack Japan within three months of Germany's surrender. In South Korea, computer games are preferred, especially MMORPG games and real-time strategy games; there are over 20,000 PC bang Internet cafes where computer games can be played for an hourly charge. Roosevelt made arrangements for post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Japanese consumers avoid computer games and instead buy video games, with a strong preference for games created in Japan, that run on Japanese consoles (1 reason the Xbox series is less popular). Churchill, Stalin, and Franklin D. Sales of different types of games vary widely between these markets due to local preferences. In that sense it is an absolutely exemplary tragedy for the horrors of 20th Century warfare..."[1].

[3]. It also contained all of the worst from Germany during the Nazi period. China is not considered a significant market, most likely because an estimated 95% of video games sold in the country are pirated. It was a wonderfully beautiful city and a symbol of baroque humanism and all that was best in Germany. Other significant markets include Spain, Germany, South Korea, France, and Italy. According to British historian Frederick Taylor: "The destruction of Dresden has an epically tragic quality to it. The four largest markets for computer and video games are the United States, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom. The bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between February 13 and February 15, 1945 remains one of the more controversial events of World War II.

The average age of the video game player is now 30 [2], belying the myth that video games are largely a diversion for teenagers. Throughout the war, the Soviet Union engaged roughly 80%^{[citation needed]} of all Germany's forces. The popularity of computer and video games, as a whole, has been increasing steadily ever since the 1984-1987 drop-off caused by the video game crash of 1983, and the popularity appears to be continuing to increase. to open up a second front. This term has now expanded to include any game that has more direct action, with fewer long term objectives, focuses on time limits and, for the most part, shorter in-game levels. On the other hand, some say that throughout the war Stalin called on the U.S. Arcade games that are no longer profitable to lease can be purchased by private individuals, many of whom then explore the game dynamics by altering the programs in minor ways. By this time the Soviet steamroller had become so powerful that some historians argue that the U.S., British and Canadian landing at Normandy was more to prevent a coast-to-coast Soviet block than to fight Germany.

Controls are similar to those available for many consoles (albeit usually as peripherals) and range from the classic joystick and buttons (Pac-Man), to light guns (Duck Hunt), to pads on the ground that sense pressure (Dance Dance Revolution). By now, the Soviets had reached the eastern borders of pre-war Germany. These are programmed, equipped, and decorated for a specific game, consisting of a video display, a set of controls, and the coin slot. The offensive was defeated. Arcade games, traditionally, are "coin-operated games", played on a standalone device originally leased to commercial entertainment venues. However, with the overcast skies clearing allowing Allied air supremacy to enter the equation, and with the German failure to capture Bastogne, as well as the arrival of General Patton's Third Army, the Germans were forced to retreat back into Germany. Because they are designed to be played on the go, they were traditionally small enough to carry conveniently in a bag or jacket (the Virtual Boy being an exception to this), but due to their small size, handheld consoles have reduced processing power compared to larger consoles, meaning that games are shorter, and until the release of the Nintendo DS, were largely limited to 2D. In addition, the weather during the initial days of the invasion favoured the Germans because the bad weather grounded Allied aircraft.

Handheld consoles act as their own controllers, which the player uses to interact with the game, as well as having in-built display and audio output devices. The Allied forces, largely unprepared for this sudden attack, suffered heavy casualties. Handheld games are played on handheld game consoles, such as the Nintendo Game Boy line, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. At first, the Germans scored successes against the Americans stationed in the Ardennes. Consoles themselves branched off from personal computers around two decades ago, a fact which is still evident not only in the name, but also in many of the peripherals available for many consoles, like the keyboard and mouse peripherals released for the Sony PlayStation 2 and the Sega Dreamcast. The mission was unrealistic to begin with, since German plans largely relied on capturing Allied fuel dumps in order to keep their vehicles moving with the goal of capturing the vital port of Antwerp, and thus crippling the Allies in the Battle of the Bulge. The player usually interacts with the game through a controller, and video and sound are typically delivered to the player via a television through composite A/V cables, although most modern consoles support additional outputs, such as surround sound, progressive scan, and High Definition setups through the use of component cables. Thus, Hitler thought he could drive a wedge between the frequently feuding Western Allies, causing them to agree to a favourable armistice, after which Germany could concentrate all her efforts on the Eastern front and have a chance to defeat the Soviets.

Console games are played on a video game console,or "home console", a specialized computer specifically designed to play games of a certain format. In December 1944, the German Army made its last major offensive in the West, largely because even if successful in the east it would have had no effect on the massive Red Army rolling towards the Reich. Some of these games, such as Runescape, however, have expanded far beyond this, and can often be considered on the same level as "mainstream" PC games. Germany withdrew from the Balkans and held Hungary until February 1945. Some are on going user-based games that have no ending. The Warsaw Uprising was fought between 1 August and 2 October. These games generally do not share the same magnitude of development costs, depth, or seriousness of PC and console games, and are generally quick to complete by comparison. Romania surrendered in August 1944 and Bulgaria in September.

The Internet is also host to thousands of small web-based games, written using formats like Flash and Javascript. A decisive victory by the Canadian First Army in the Battle of the Scheldt secured the entrance to the port of Antwerp, freeing it to receive supplies by late November 1944. Online games need to allow several people to play at the same time, so not all genres are suitable; the most popular genres include MMORPGs, FPSs, racing/driving games, strategy games, and sports titles. Logistical problems were starting to plague the Allies' advance west as the supply lines still ran back to the beaches of Normandy. It is now a key feature of modern games, with the inclusion of Internet connectivity in consoles such as the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube (although it was only fully exploited on the Xbox); portable consoles such as the PSP or DS that use Wi-Fi, and in mobile/cellular phones. Allied paratroopers attempted a fast advance into Germany with Operation Market Garden in September but were repulsed. The first console to incorporate this feature was the Sega Dreamcast. The Allies' armistice conditions included further territorial losses and the internment or expulsion of German troops on Finnish soil executed in the Lapland War, now as co-belligerents of the Allies, who also demanded the political leadership to be prosecuted in "war-responsibility trials", which the Finnish public perceived as a mockery of the rule of law.

Online gaming began with PC games, but has expanded over time to include most modern consoles. After the Wehrmacht retreated from the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland, Finland's defence was untenable. Online Games are those which are played over the Internet. Finland's defence had been dependent on active, or in periods passive, support from the German Wehrmacht that also provided defence for the chiefly uninhabited northern half of Finland. Ease of software piracy is also a much greater threat with PC games, although console hardware modifications do make it possible to play pirated games on them as well. Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive involving 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks, was launched on 22 June, destroying the German Army Group Centre and taking 350,000 prisoners. Without the proper hardware, the game may perform poorly or not run at all, as opposed to console software, in which the software is designed based on the set hardware configuration of the console. Shortly after Allied landings at Normandy, on 9 June, the Soviet Union began an offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that after three months would force Nazi Germany's co-belligerent Finland to an armistice.

One possible explanation for the declining sales of personal computer games in relation to that of consoles can be found within the PC itself: a computer must meet certain minimum requirements such as CPU speed, Random access memory (RAM), system clock speed (MHz or GHz), video card memory, hard drive space, operating system, Internet connection speed (for online games) and other criteria. By early 1944, the Red Army had reached the border of Poland and lifted the Siege of Leningrad. For more information, see sales. The clandestine French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on 19 August, and a French division under General Jacques Leclerc, pressing forward from Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces there and liberated the city on August 25. According to the Entertainment Software Association, console games have outsold computer games roughly four units to one in 2003 and 2004 [1]. Allied forces stationed in Italy invaded the French Riviera on 15 August and linked up with forces from Normandy. There is, however, a continuing movement to get the most popular games to run under the Mac and Linux operating systems, although it is still small. An Allied breakout was effected at St.-Lô, and the most powerful German force in France, the Seventh Army, was almost completely destroyed in the Falaise pocket while counter-attacking.

Today, most major PC games require a recent version of the Windows operating system to be installed on the computer. For months the Allies measured progress in hundreds of yards and bloody rifle fights in the Bocage. PC games are often more detailed than console games because of early market releases of their external architecture and graphics cards. The hedgerows themselves proved impossible to penetrate and if a Sherman attempted to run-over these walls they exposed their vulnerable underbellies to panzerfaust fire. Video feedback is received by the user through the computer screen, sound through speakers or headphones. Troops also refered to the causeways as death-alleys because the Germans had the entire length zeroed in with mortars and 88's. They are played on the personal computer with standard computer interface devices such as the keyboard and mouse, or additional peripherals, such as joysticks. The narrow causeways of the hedgerow lanes caused great difficulty for tanks and made rotating their turrets difficult if not impossible.

Personal computer games are commonly referred to as "computer games" or "PC games". ² Hedgerows aided the defending German units by giving them perfect areas for MG-42 emplacemtents. During the last generation of gaming, most major PC game releases have coincided with the release of console versions, and titles initially developed for a single platform are often ported to others if they prove to be successful. But the airborne divisions secured the rear, enabling the seaborne troops to break inland. Many games intended for PCs are now just as prevalent on consoles, with many developers creating versions for more than one platform. German artillery batteries pounded the beaches. The final home platform is the PC. The allies suffered large casualties during the beach assault.

The 3 main home video game platform companies are Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, who between them have created seven of the eight home platforms most commonly used today. ^[9]On "D-Day" (6 June 1944) the western Allies invaded German-held Normandy in a pre-dawn amphibious assault spearheaded by American (82nd and 101st), British (6th) and Canadian paratroopers, opening the "second front" against Germany. Games are not interchangeable between platforms so, for example, Xbox games will not work in your PC. Further south the main Japanese army in the theatre were fought to a standstill on the Burma-India frontier by the British Fourteenth Army (the "Forgotten Army"), which then counter-attacked, and having recaptured all of Burma was planning attacks towards Malaya when the war ended. Personal computers, consoles, handheld systems, and arcade machines are all common. ground troops cleared the Japanese forces from northern Burma so that the Ledo Road could be built to replace the Burma Road. Today there are many different devices, or platforms, on which games may be played. led and trained Chinese divisions, a British division and a few thousand U.S.

The increase in the popularity of online gaming has also resulted in sub-genres being formed, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). U.S. Most games nowadays are a combination of two or more genres (e.g action/RPG). This forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift, known as "flying the Hump". The most common genres in use today include platformer, adventure, role-playing game (RPG), first person shooter (FPS), third person shooter (both these are sometimes refered to as shoot-'em-ups), sports, racing, fighting, action (note that this term is abused often), puzzle, simulation, and real time strategy (RTS). The Japanese had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists. Games, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres based on gameplay, atmosphere, and various other factors. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war, though more implicitly.

Although the use of this term is often disputed, as it is considered too vague for the range of concepts it describes, it is currently the most commonly used and accepted term for this purpose when describing video games. The Nationalist Kuomintang Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, both opposed the Japanese occupation of China but never truly allied against the Japanese. It includes direct interaction, such as controls and interface, but also design aspects of the game, such as levels and graphics. Marines captured islands closer to the Japanese mainland. In computer and video gaming, gameplay (sometimes called "Game mechanics") is a general term that describes player interaction with a game. The effectiveness of this stranglehold increased as U.S. The Xbox 360, will be powered by a multi-core CPU, the PlayStation 3 will be powered by Cell processor technology, and the Nintendo Revolution will allow the gamer to interact with the game via a wireless motion sensing controller and promises more innovations, although full technical specifications are yet to be revealed. Allied submarines and aircraft also attacked Japanese merchant shipping, depriving Japan's industry of the raw materials it had gone to war to obtain.

Sony with the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo with the codenamed Revolution will join Microsoft with the already released Xbox 360 in this year's "technology race". The last major offensive in the south-west Pacific Area was the Borneo campaign of mid-1945, which was aimed at further isolating the remaining Japanese forces in South East Asia and securing the release of Allied POWs. 2006 will see the continuation of the next generation of console gaming in the form of two new consoles. As the Philippines were being retaken in late 1944, the Battle of Leyte Gulf raged, arguably the largest naval battle in history. The end of 2005 saw the release of the Xbox 360 - the first of the next generation of consoles. The rest of the Solomon Islands were retaken in 1943, New Britain and New Ireland in 1944. In Western countries the consoles have had similar levels of success (PSP sales are slightly higher), but in Japan the DS has been a huge hit, vastly outselling the PSP. forces then undertook the prolonged campaign to retake the occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, experiencing some of the toughest resistance of the war.

The Nintendo DS is a highly innovative handheld, the PSP is much more powerful and also includes limited media capabilities. Australian and U.S. The other two more technically advanced handhelds to be released in 2004, the Nintendo DS (DS stands for Dual-Screen) and the PlayStation Portable (PSP), didn't help the N-Gage. Mid-1943 brought the fifth and final German Sutjeska offensive against the Yugoslav Partisans before the invasion and subsequent capitulation of Italy, the other major occupying force in Yugoslavia. In 2004 Nokia released a re-designed N-Gage, called the N-Gage QD, which didn't fare much better. Rome was captured on 5 June 1944. It was criticised for being poorly designed, and flopped. Allied forces advanced north but were stalled for the winter at the Gustav Line, until they broke through in the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Nokia entered the handheld market with its N-Gage game-phone hybrid in 2003. Italy surrendered on 8 September, but German forces continued to fight. Sega realised they could no longer compete, and announced they would discontinue the Dreamcast and no longer manufacture hardware, becoming a third-party developer in 2002. Having captured Sicily, the Allies invaded mainland Italy on 3 September 1943. Nintendo released their successor to the Nintendo 64, the GameCube, and the first all new Game Boy since the consoles inception, the Game Boy Advance. On 25 July Benito Mussolini was fired from office by the King of Italy, allowing a new government to take power. Its flagship game, Halo: Combat Evolved, is also available at the system's launch. Newly captured North Africa was used as a springboard for the invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943.

In 2001 Microsoft entered the videogame console industry by releasing its new home console, the Xbox. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, and the Battle of Kursk ended in a Soviet counteroffensive that threw the German Army back. It was an instant hit and became the best-selling computer game of all time, surpassing Myst. In July, the Wehrmacht launched a much-delayed offensive against the Soviet Union at Kursk. The Sims was also released. After the victory at Stalingrad, the Red Army launched eight offensives during the winter, many concentrated along the Don basin near Stalingrad, which resulted in initial gains until German forces were able to take advantage of the weakened condition of the Red Army and regain the territory it lost. In 2000 Sony released the widely anticipated PlayStation 2. On August 7, 1943, a combined American-Canadian force invaded the Aleutian Island only to find them abandoned.

1998 saw the releases of the Sega Dreamcast in Japan (1999 in the US) and the Game Boy Color from Nintendo. A substantial element of the Asian campaign was played out, starting in 1942, in the Aleutian Islands. The Saturn was successful in Japan but a failure in North America, leaving Sega outside of the main competition. On Guadalcanal, the Japanese resistance failed in February 1943. By the end of this period, Sony had dethroned Nintendo, the PlayStation outselling the Nintendo 64. In late August and early September, while battle raged on Guadalcanal, an amphibious Japanese attack on the eastern tip of New Guinea was met by Australian forces at Milne Bay, and the Japanese land forces suffered their first conclusive defeat. In particular, SquareSoft, which had released all previous games in its Final Fantasy series for Nintendo consoles, now turned to the PlayStation; Final Fantasy VII (1997) was a huge success, establishing the popularity of role-playing games in the west and making the PlayStation the primary console for the genre. On 7 August 1942, the United States assaulted the island.

Nintendo's choice to use cartridges instead of CD-ROMs for the Nintendo 64, unique among the consoles of this period, proved to have negative consequences. forces began to attack captured territories, beginning with Guadalcanal Island, against a bitter and determined Japanese defense. The flagship title, Super Mario 64, became a defining title for 3D platform games. Nonetheless, U.S. After many delays, Nintendo released its 64-bit console, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, selling more than 1.5 million units in only three months. Even prior to the American entry to the war, the Allied leaders had agreed that priority should be given to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Both consoles used 32-bit technology; the door was open for 3D games. This was one of the most significant victories in Australian military history.

In 1994-1995, Sega released Sega Saturn and Sony made its debut to the video gaming scene with the PlayStation. But amazingly, the outnumbered and untrained Australian 39th battalion defeated the 5,000-strong Japanese army. Basic 3D graphics entered the mainstream with flat-shaded polygons enabled by additional processors in game cartridges like Virtua Racing and Starfox. This was met with Australian militia, many of them very young and undertrained, fighting a stubborn rearguard action until the arrival of Australian regulars returning from action in North Africa, Greece and the Middle East. CD-ROM drives were first seen in this generation, as add-ons for the PC Engine in 1988 and the Megadrive in 1991. However, in July an overland attack on Port Moresby was led along the rugged Kokoda Track. The PC Engine eventually lost out to the Super Famicom, but retained enough of a user base to support new games well into the late 1990s. It was a complete victory for the Americans, and the Japanese Navy was now on the defensive.

In Japan, the PC Engine's (Turbografx 16) 1987 success against the Famicom and CD drive peripheral allowed it to fend off the Mega Drive (Genesis) in 1988, which never really caught on to the same degree as outside Japan. The Americans lost one carrier and fewer planes. The NEC TurboGrafx 16 was the first 16-bit system to be marketed in the region, but did not achieve a large following, partly due to a limited library of English games and effective marketing from Sega. The loss of many planes and skilled pilots (many of them took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor) was also difficult to redress. The North American market was dominated by the Sega Genesis early on after its debut in 1989, with the Nintendo Super NES proving a strong, roughly equal rival in 1991. American pilots sunk four Japanese carriers, which the Japanese industry could not replace swiftly. While some of the other systems remained in production until the mid-90s, the Game Boy remained at the top spot in sales throughout its lifespan. naval leaders that Midway was the Japanese target.

Several rival handhelds also made their debut around that time, including the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx. A month later the invasion of Midway Island was prevented by decoding secret Japanese messages, and hence alerted U.S. Included with the system was Tetris, which became a popular puzzle game. The two sides suffered roughly equal losses. In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, the first popular handheld console. This was both the first successful opposition to Japanese plans and the first naval battle fought only between aircraft carriers. See the article on Console wars for additional information on that facet of game history. Had the capture of Port Moresby succeeded, the Japanese Navy would have been within striking range of Australia.

The last two decades of game history have been marked by separate markets for games on video game consoles, home computers and handhelds. In May 1942, a naval attack on Port Moresby, New Guinea, was thwarted by Allied navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. and many others of today's popular Nintendo genre. In April 1942, Americans succeeded in attacking Japan itself for the first time in the Doolittle raid, which boosted morale on the home front and caused Japan to shift some resources to homeland defense. The video game crash of 1983, however, produced a dark age in the market that was not filled until the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) reached North America in 1985.This presented Americans with games such as Mario Bros. Some 250,000 Axis soldiers were taken prisoner. The late 1970s to early 1980s brought about the improvement of home consoles and the release of the Atari 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision. Inevitably, advancing from both the east and west, the Allies finally defeated the German Afrika Corps on May 13, 1943.

He created a system with limited capabilities called the Magnavox Odyssey, which paved the way for the next wave of home consoles. The withdrawing Germans continued to put up stiff defence, and Rommel defeated the American forces decisively at the Battle of Kasserine Pass before finishing his strategic withdrawal back to the meagre German supply chain. The first home console video games, were created by Ralph Baer who is now known as the creator of video games. Ultimately, German and Italian forces were caught in the pincers of a twin advance from Algeria and Libya. The 1970s also saw the release of the first home video game consoles. This lack of supplies and air support destroyed any chance of a large German offensive in Africa. The paddles were white bars with a dot moving between them. Rommel's Afrika Corps was not being supplied adequately because of the loss of transport shipments caused by Allied—mostly British—navies and air forces in the Mediterranean.

One of the best-known of these games is Pong, a simple game simulating Ping Pong. Hitler invaded and occupied Vichy France in response. Arcade games were developed in the 1970s (Pac-man to Frogger) and led to the so-called "Golden Age of Arcade Games". He was allowed to retain local control by the Allies, to the annoyance of Free French leaders. The first video game was Tennis for Two created by William Higginbotham in 1958. The Vichy commander, Admiral Darlan, negotiated an end to hostilities, against orders from the Vichy government. The first primitive computer and video games were developed in the 1960s and 1970s and ran on platforms such as oscilloscopes, university mainframes and EDSAC computers. In Algiers, 400 members of the French resistance captured much of the city, though it was retaken before Allied forces could arrive.

. In fact, resistance was stronger than expected but still sporadic. In common usage, "computer game" or "PC game" refers specifically to games played on a personal computer, "console game" refers to games played on specifically-designed set top box, that play through a TV and "video game" (or "videogame") refers to any game played on a device that plays through your TV but also includes PC, Console, Mobile Phone or PDA or other handheld device. It was hoped that the local forces of Vichy France would put up no resistance and submit to the authority of Free French General Henri Giraud. To avoid ambiguity, this game software is referred to as "computer and video games" throughout this article, which explores things common to both types of game. The first wave was almost entirely American troops, because it was thought that the French would react more favourably to Americans than British. The phrase interactive entertainment is the formal reference to computer and video games. The operation was launched on 8 November 1942.

Usually there are rules and goals, but in more open-ended games the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of the virtual universe. The aim of Torch was to gain control of Morocco and Algiers through simultaneous landings at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers, followed a few days later with a landing at Bône, the gateway to Tunisia. These terms are not always interchangeable as some games, particularly older games, do not use a video display. Operation Torch was headed by General Dwight Eisenhower. A video game is a computer game where a video display such as a monitor or television is the primary feedback device. The plan for landings in Africa was approved in July 1942. A computer game is a computer-controlled game that players may interact with. Churchill put forward the idea of a small invasion in Norway or landings in French North Africa.

PC game sales: $1.1 billion, down 2% from 2003 [6]. Only if Russia collapsed would they approve a main landing in France. Console and portable hardware and accessory sales: $3.7 billion, down 35% from 2003 [5]. It was also thought that American forces were in a process of expansion, organization and exercise, not capable yet of fighting an experienced German army. Console and portable software sales: $6.2 billion, up 8% from 2003 [4]. The British opposed this because of insufficient landing craft and logistical problems. For specific information regarding "console games" or, see console game.. The American Chiefs of Staff favoured a cross-channel (France) amphibious operation in the summer.

For specific information regarding "computer games", see personal computer game.. This decision resulted in a long debate as to where and when to open a Second Front against Germany. giving priority of knocking out Germany before Japan. This consideration led to the overall strategy "Germany First"; i.e. During the Arcadia Conference from December 1941 to January 1942, the Allied leaders concluded that it was essential to keep Russia in the war.

After the German defeat at El Alamein, Rommel made a successful strategic withdrawal to Tunisia. In addition, Rommel was getting little or no help by this time from the struggling Luftwaffe, which was now more tasked with defending Western European air space, and fighting the Soviet Union, than providing Rommel with support in North Africa. The western Allies had the advantage of being close to their supplies during the battle. Commonwealth forces took the offensive, and although they lost more tanks than the Germans began the battle with, Montgomery was ultimately triumphant.

Erwin Rommel, German commander of the Afrika Korps, known as the "Desert Fox", was absent from the battle because he was recovering from jaundice back in Europe. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred between October 23 and November 3, 1942, after Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had replaced Claude Auchinleck as commander of the Commonwealth forces, now known as the Eighth Army. However, they had outrun their supplies, and a Commonwealth defence stopped their thrusts. German forces had advanced to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal.

The First Battle of El Alamein took place between 1 July and 27 July 1942. Some historians cite this as the European war's "turning point". Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels responded with his Sportpalast speech to the German people. The results were the destruction of the city, millions of casualties, and the collapse of Wehrmacht's Sixth Army as a viable fighting force.

It did not, and he surrendered completely on 2 February. Hitler promoted General Friedrich Paulus, who was in charge of the German forces in the area, to Field Marshal in the vain hope it would deter him from surrendering because never before had a German Field Marshal surrendered. By early February 1943, it was clear that the Sixth Army would have to surrender. In November a Soviet offensive encircled the Sixth Army.

At night, the Soviet forces were resupplied from the east bank of the Volga, and the Wehrmacht forces were eventually ground down; especially after Hitler diverted the armour of the Sixth Army to the Caucasus. The siege of Stalingrad continued for many months, with vicious urban warfare leading to high casualties on both sides. In the Eastern front, an aborted German offensive was launched towards the Caucasus to secure oil fields, and German armies reached Stalingrad. In May 1942, one of the most powerful Nazis, Reinhard Heydrich, was assassinated in Prague in the Operation Anthropoid.

Main articles: Battle of Stalingrad, Operation Torch. Some historians mark this moment as another major turning point of the war with Hitler provoking a grand alliance of powerful nations, most prominently the UK, the USA and the USSR, who could wage powerful offensives on both East and West simultaneously. Roosevelt the pretext needed for the United States joining the fight in Europe with full commitment and with no meaningful opposition from Congress. Japan did not oblige him, and this diplomatic move proved a catastrophic blunder which gave President Franklin D.

Hitler made the declaration in the hopes that Japan would support him by attacking the Soviet Union. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941, even though it was not obliged to do so under the Tripartite Pact of 1940. The British island fortress of Singapore was captured in what Churchill considered one of the most humiliating British defeats of all time. In a matter of months, all these territories and more fell to the Japanese.

Immediately following these attacks, Japan invaded the Philippines and also the British Colonies of Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo and Burma with the intention of seizing the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. air bases in the Philippines. Simultaneous to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan also attacked U.S. The same day, China officially declared war on Japan despite having been engaged in warfare for over four years (it had done so in order to receive military aid as to avoid neutrality complications).

The following day, the United States declared war on Japan. The survival of these assets have led many to consider this attack a catastrophic long term strategic blunder for Japan. However, the attack failed to strike targets that could have been crippling losses to the US Pacific Fleet such as the aircraft carriers which were out at sea at the time of the attack or the base's ship fuel storage and repair facilities. Japan lost only 29 aircraft and their crews and five midget submarines.

2408 Americans were killed including 68 civilians; 1178 were wounded. This attack resulted in 8 battleships (including the California, the Utah, the West Virginia, the Oklahoma, the Arizona, and the Tennessee) either sunk or damaged, 3 light cruisers and 3 destroyers sunk as well as damage to some auxiliaries and 343 aircraft either damaged or destroyed. The Japanese forces met little resistance and devastated the harbor. naval base in the Pacific.

On 7 December 1941, Japanese warplanes commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo carried out a surprise air raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the largest U.S. With a combined force of only 14,000, the Canadian Army, British Army and the British Indian Army, the vastly outnumbered Allied troops held out until the surrender of the British colony on Christmas Day (known to locals as 'Black Christmas'). On December 8, 1941 Japanese forces arrived at Hong Kong, which later led to the Battle of Hong Kong. Despite what warning signs remained, the attack on Pearl Harbor achieved military surprise and dealt severe damage to the American Fleet's battleships, though the primary targets, aircraft carriers, remained safely at sea.

It is hard to determine whether the Japanese intended to release an advance declaration of war, however, as means of coordinating secret directives with public communication, particularly during a weekend in the U.S., were limited. Pacific Fleet while consolidating oil fields in Southeast Asia. With the United States and other countries cutting exports to Japan, particularly fuel oil, Japan planned a strike on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, 7 December 1941, to cripple the U.S. Over a seven-month period, Chennault's Flying Tigers destroyed an estimated 115 Japanese aircraft, sunk numerous Japanese ships, and had a notable participation in the campaign of Burma.

military personnel to resign from the service so that they could participate in a covert operation in China: the American Volunteer Group, also known as Chennault's Flying Tigers. Roosevelt signed an unpublished (secret) executive order in May 1940 allowing U.S. By 1937, war had broken out as the Japanese sought control of China. Japan had invaded China in 1931.

A war had begun in Asia years before World War II started in Europe. Australian and other Allied troops in the city resisted all until relieved, but a renewed Axis offensive captured the city and drove the Eighth Army back to a line at El Alamein. Meanwhile, Rommel's forces advanced rapidly eastward, laying siege to the vital seaport of Tobruk. In June 1941, Allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon, capturing Damascus on 17 June (see Syria-Lebanon campaign).

The Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union began with Soviet air attacks shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, on 25 June, and ended with an armistice in 1944. Some historians identify this as the "turning point" in the Allies' war against Germany; others identify the capitulation of the German Sixth Army outside Stalingrad (modern-day Volgograd) in 1943. Soviet counter-attacks defeated them within sight of Moscow's spires, and a rout was only narrowly avoided. Having pushed to occupy Moscow before winter, German forces were delayed into the Soviet Winter.

German armies pursued a three-pronged advance against Leningrad, Moscow, and the Caucasus. Industries were dismantled and withdrawn to the Ural mountains for reassembly. Soviet forces came to fight a war of scorched earth, withdrawing into the steppe of Russia to acquire time and stretch the German army. The "Great Patriotic War" (Russian: Великая Отечественная Война, Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna) had begun with surprise attacks by German panzer armies, which encircled and destroyed much of the Soviet's western military, capturing or killing hundreds of thousands of men.

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the largest invasion in history, commenced on 22 June 1941. The Allies, on the other hand, came to the conclusion that every major invasion should be supported by paratroopers. General Kurt Student would later say, "Crete was the grave of the German parachutists". So heavy were the losses that Hitler decided never to launch an airborne invasion again.

The German invasion troops suffered 6,200 casualties (with almost 4,000 dead) out of 14,000 used. However, over 10,000 Greek and 500 Commonwealth troops remained at large and caused problems for the German occupiers. After a week it was decided that so many German troops had been flown in that there was no way to defeat them, and about 17,000 Commonwealth soldiers were evacuated. Their invasion on two of the airfields failed, but they successfully captured one, which allowed them to reinforce their position by landing reinforcements.

The Germans attacked the island simultaneously on the three airfields. Crete was defended by an group of about 43,000 Greek, New Zealand, Australian and British troops, not all of them fully equipped. On 20 May 1941, the Battle of Crete began when elite German Fallschirmjäger and glider-borne mountain troops and some 539 aeroplanes launched a massive airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete. British troops were diverted from North Africa to assist with the defence but failed to prevent Greece's capture.

With these new troops the Axis succeeded in driving the Greek forces back. Hitler reluctantly sent forces to assist Mussolini's forces in their attempt to capture Greece, principally to prevent a British build-up on Germany's strategic southern flank. Hitler's forces then invaded Greece and Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. This was followed by anti-Axis demonstrations in the country and a coup which overthrew the government and replaced it with a pro-Allied one on 27 March 1941.

Europe: ^[8]Yugoslavia's government succumbed to the pressure of Italy and Germany and signed the Tripartite Treaty on 25 March 1941. These actions intensified Japan's conflict with the United States and the United Kingdom, who reacted with an oil boycott. In 1940, Japan occupied French Indochina (Vietnam) upon agreement with the Vichy Government and allied with the Axis powers, Germany and Italy. While Gibraltar was never under direct attack, Alexandria and to a deadlier degree Malta were hit repeatedly by Axis attacks: the thrusts towards the Suez Canal for the former, and the 1940/42 Blitz for the latter, making the island of Malta the most heavily bombed place on earth.

On the other hand, the Italian declaration of war challenged the British supremacy of this sea, a supremacy hinged on Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria. Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August 1940. However, German forces (known later as the Afrika Korps) under General Erwin Rommel landed in Libya and renewed the assault on Egypt. British, Indian and Australian forces counter-attacked (see Operation Compass), but this offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Commonwealth forces were transferred to Greece to defend it from German attack.

The aim was to make Egypt an Italian possession, especially the vital Suez Canal. The North African Campaign began in 1940; Italian forces in Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. By mid-December they had occupied one-fourth of Albania. Greek forces successfully repelled the Italian attacks and launched a full-scale counter-attack deep into Albania.

Italy invaded Greece on 28 October 1940, from bases in Albania. President Roosevelt announced a shift in the American stance from neutrality to "non-belligerency". The U-Boats reduced shipments considerably; however, the United Kingdom refused to seek peace, with Prime Minister Winston Churchill stating that "We shall never surrender". In a long-running campaign, German U-Boats attempted to deprive the British Isles of necessary Lend Lease cargo from the United States.

Similar efforts were made, though at sea, in the Battle of the Atlantic. The Luftwaffe was not successful, and Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of the British Isles, was abandoned. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command but turned to terror bombing London. Fighter aircraft fought overhead for months as the Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force fought for control of Britain's skies.

Not having secured a rapid peace with the United Kingdom, Germany began preparations to invade with the Battle of Britain. In June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. While some units from the French army were still fighting, a number of top politicians and military leaders decided that it would be better to surrender given the situation; France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to the establishment of the Vichy France puppet government in the unoccupied part of France. German forces then continued the conquest of France with Case Red, advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast.

Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly against the attack of Army Group B, and the British Expeditionary Force, trapped in the north, being encircled, was evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. In the first phase of the invasion, Case Yellow, the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist bypassed the Maginot Line and split the Allies in two by driving to the English Channel through northern France. The Allies had hoped to establish a static continuous front and were ill-prepared for the German Blitzkrieg tactics. France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were invaded on 10 May, ending the Phony War and beginning the Battle of France.

All Allied forces had been evacuated and what remained of the Norwegian Army surrendered. By late June, German forces were in complete control of Norway. Norway fought back, with British, French and Polish exile forces landing to support the Norwegians at Namsos, Åndalsnes and Narvik. Denmark was occupied without resistance.

Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940, in Operation Weserübung, ostensibly to counter the threat of an Allied invasion from the region. The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939, beginning the Winter War, which lasted until March 1940 with Finland ceding territory to the Soviet Union. The Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September 1940, formalising their alignment as the "Axis Powers". The Kriegsmarine pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was sunk in South America after the battle of the River Plate.

There were isolated engagements during the "Phony War" or "Sitzkrieg" period, including the sinking of HMS Royal Oak in the anchorage at Scapa Flow and Luftwaffe bombings of the naval bases at Rosyth and Scapa Flow. remain neutral in the war, a position that the majority of Americans, reluctant to join in what they saw as "someone else's war," welcomed. Indeed, the Soviets had their agents in the U.S., working alongside German sympathisers, advocate that the U.S. The Soviet Union honoured the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and did not fight the Germans: Stalin was happy to have those he felt were his natural and true enemies—the capitalist West and Nazi Germany—fight each other.

A prominent example was the assistance of Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain. Polish forces continued to fight the Axis powers after their country fell. The "Sitzkrieg" lasted until May 1940. Germany paused to regroup as the British and French waited for them at the frontline during a period that would be jokingly termed "the Phony War", or the "Sitzkrieg", because no actual fighting was taking place.

As Poland fell, the British and French were either caught unaware of German intentions or had not allowed themselves to believe that Germany would invade Poland. The last Polish Army unit was defeated on 6 October. Hours later, the Polish government escaped to Romania. In accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland from the east on 17 September, so the Polish Army was completely surrounded by the German and Soviet forces.

Only partly mobilized and with troops inadequately equipped with largely outdated weapons (which included large numbers of horse-mounted cavalry), and without the anticipated support of French or British forces, Poland was overrun by the Wehrmacht's superior numbers and "blitzkrieg" tactics. Canada followed a week later, on 10 September. Australia and New Zealand declared war the same day, although through the quirk of the international date line, New Zealand then Australia were the first to declare war on Germany. France and the United Kingdom honoured their defensive alliance of March 1939 by declaring war two days later on 3 September.

War broke out in Europe on 1 September 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. Surprised by the unanticipated level of resistance from China, the Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and POWs when Nanking was occupied (see Nanjing Massacre), killing as many as 300,000 civilians within a month. The city eventually fell to the Japanese and in December 1937, the capital city, Nanking (now Nanjing), fell and the Chinese government moved its seat to Chongqing for the rest of the war. The Japanese made vast initial advances, but were stalled in Shanghai for months in the Battle of Shanghai.

Rather than retreating swiftly, as in previous engagements with the Japanese, the Chinese government began a war of resistance, marking the official start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would soon become part of the World War. ^[7]On 7 July 1937, Japan, after occupying northeastern China as Manchuria in 1931, launched another attack against China near Beijing (see Marco Polo Bridge Incident). There are some other historians that argue the war started on the Manchurian Incident on 18 September 1931. Some historians argue that the Italian attack on Ethiopia (The Second Italo-Abyssinian War), which lasted seven months in 1935-1936, was the actual start of World War II.

Other candidates include the Japanese invasion of China on 7 July 1937, (the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War), or the entry of Hitler's armies to Prague in March 1939. The most common date used is 1 September 1939, marking the German invasion of Poland, which resulted in the British and French declarations of war two days later. ^[6]The date on which World War II started is a debated subject; historians do not all agree on which event signified the start of the war. Main articles: European Theatre of World War II, Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, Pacific War, End of World War II in Europe.

Such situations allowed neutral countries to become hotbeds of espionage. For example, neutral Switzerland was generally considered to be "Allied-friendly", while neutral Spain was considered "Axis-friendly", despite the fact that neither country openly proclaimed any alliances. Sovereignty was difficult to maintain, as many countries that did not directly participate in the conflict nevertheless held vested interests in seeing a particular side prevail. Countries that attempted to remain neutral in the conflict were often viewed with suspicion by the participants, and pressured to make contributions to the most influential power in their neighbourhood.

Many other countries, including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Greece, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Thailand and Yugoslavia are also considered important Allies, although some of these were conquered and occupied by Axis forces or even officially joined the Axis as a result of coercion. entered the war after, first, Japan and, then, Germany declared war on it and launched direct attacks on its navy, shipping and other interests. But the U.S. would not interfere in European affairs.

Similarly, the US had the (much older) unilateral Monroe Doctrine, which stated that Europe should not interfere in the Americas and, in turn, the U.S. But Germany violated the pact when it invaded the USSR in 1941. On August 23, 1939, just before the war broke out, the USSR and Germany signed the non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which, among other things, divided Eastern Europe into regions of influence. China had been at war with Japan since 1937.

The nations, which declared war on Germany in September 1939, included Britain and the Commonwealth, France, and Poland. Among the Allied powers, what emerged to be the Big Three were the United Kingdom (from September 3, 1939), the Soviet Union (from June 1941) and the United States (from December 1941), though some consider smaller countries like Australia and Canada to be part of the Big Five as it is called. As discussed below, the Soviet Union remained an ally of Germany, as a supplier, until Germany ended that relationship on June 22, 1941 by invading that country. The Soviet Union provided supplies to Germany, while the United Kingdom and France were attempting to fend off Germany's successful 1940 advance into Western Europe.

The Soviet Union was actually an ally of Germany at the beginning of the war, sharing with Germany the division of Poland and Baltic states. Spain's fascist government never joined the Axis but signed the Anti Comintern Pact of 1941 with Germany and sent volunteers to fight on Germany's Eastern Front. Smaller countries participating on the Axis side were Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Finland. The Axis Powers consisted primarily of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which split the earth into three spheres of influence under the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and vowed to defend one another against aggression.

Some nations participated on different sides at different times. A number of smaller countries participated in the war, some of them under occupation or as proxies of one of the large powers. The belligerents of the Second World War are usually considered to belong to either of the two blocs: the Axis and the Allies. This was a significant contributing factor in the outbreak of World War II in 1939.^[5].

The League commissioner in Danzig was unable to deal with German claims on the city. The League of Nations was powerless and mostly silent in the face of many major events leading to World War II such as Hitler's re-militarisation of the Rhineland, annexation of Austria, and occupation of Czechoslovakia. Japan also sought to secure additional natural resources, such as oil and iron ore, due in part to the lack of natural resources on Japan's own home islands. In Asia, Japan's efforts to become a world power and the rise of militarist leadership (in the 1930s, the government in Japan was undermined as militarists rose to power and gained de facto totalitarian control) led to conflicts first with China and later the United States.

Roberts[4]. The two conflicts are also described in this way by Duke University's J.M. The London School of Economics has gone so far along its route that its history department now teaches a course entitled "European Civil War 1890 to 1945"[3]. Some academics have gone so far in linking the Treaty of Versailles directly to the conflict as to claim that the European theatres of World War I and II actually constitute a single conflict with a 22-year ceasefire (much as the 1337-1453 Hundred Years War is treated as a single conflict).

They led Germany through a chain of events: rearmament, reoccupation of the Rhineland, incorporation of Austria Anschluss, dismemberment and occupation of Czechoslovakia and finally the invasion of Poland. In Germany, there was a strong national desire to escape the bonds of the World War I Treaty of Versailles, and eventually, Hitler and the Nazis assumed control of the country by calling for a heroic mass effort to restore past glory. ^[2]The causes of World War II are naturally a debated subject, but a common view, particularly among the allies in the early post-war years, ties them to the policy of appeasement, which was directed by Britain and France after the First World War and expansionism of Germany and Japan: Germany had lost wealth, power and status following the First World War and the main purpose of the economic, military, and (eventually) territorial expansion was to give Germany a place as a world power again and, in addition, to obtain resource rich land at the expense of Poles and Ukranians. There was a fundamental shift in power from Western Europe to the new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, with significant boundary changes and displacement of people as the Soviet Union's borders shifted westwards.

China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In Asia, the United States' military occupation of Japan led to Japan's democratization. Western Europe largely aligned as NATO, and Eastern Europe largely as the Warsaw pact countries, alliances which were fundamental to the ensuing Cold War. This partition was, however, informal; rather than coming to terms about the spheres of influence, the relationship between the victors steadily deteriorated, and the military lines of demarcation finally became the de facto country boundaries.

After World War II, Europe was partitioned into Western and Soviet spheres of influence, the former undergoing economic reconstruction under the Marshall Plan and the latter becoming satellite states of the Soviet Union. The vast outcomes of the war, including new technology and changes to the world's geopolitical, cultural and economic arrangement, were unprecedented in human history.^[1]. It is estimated to have cost about 1 trillion US dollars in 1945 (adjusted for inflation; roughly 10.5 trillion in 2005), not including subsequent reconstruction. It was the first time that a number of newly developed technologies, including nuclear weapons, were used against either military or civilian targets.

Atomic weapons, jet aircraft, rockets and radar, the blitzkrieg (or "lightning war"), the massive use of tanks, submarines, torpedo bombers and destroyer/tanker formations, are only a few of many wartime inventions and new tactics that changed the face of conflict. Few areas of the world were unaffected; the war involved the "home front" and bombing of civilians to a greater degree than any previous conflict. This figure includes acts of genocide such as the Holocaust and General Ishii Shiro's Unit 731 experiments in Pingfan, incredibly bloody battles in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific Ocean, and massive bombings of cities, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the firebombing of Dresden and Pforzheim in Germany and the blitz on British cities such as Coventry and London. Approximately 62 million people died as a result of the war, almost half of which Russians (at the decisive Eastern Front).

The war ended in 1945 with an Allied victory. China, which had been engaged in war with Japan since the mid-1930s, also fought with the Allies. In the same year, the United States of America entered the war on the Allies' side after having been attacked by Germany's ally Japan. The Soviet Union had enabled German attack on Poland by signing a pact with Germany, but, in 1941, Germany also invaded the Soviet Union, driving it into the Allies' camp.

Some of the nations that Germany conquered also sent military forces, particularly to the Eastern front, while others joined the Allies. Germany was later joined by Italy, jointly known as the Axis Powers, and Japan. The war was initially fought between Germany and the Allies, at first consisting of the United Kingdom (with the British Empire), France and Poland. .

It engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest and deadliest war in human history. World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a military conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945.
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