World War II

It has been suggested that the war ended at the armistice of 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than the formal surrender of Japan (2 September 1945); in some European histories, it ended on V-E Day (8 May 1945).

Many civilians died because of disease, starvation, massacres, bombing and deliberate genocide.

World War II, or the Second World War[1] (often abbreviated WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945 which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.

From 1922 to 1925, the Italian Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed political forces supporting class conflict or liberalism, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at forcefully forging Italy as a world power, and promising to create a "New Roman Empire."[13]

The war resulted in essentially a stalemate and ceasefire, after which North Korean leader Kim Il Sung created a highly centralised and brutal dictatorship, according himself unlimited power and generating a formidable cult of personality.[241][242]

The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc by directly annexing several countries it occupied as Soviet Socialist Republics that were originally effectively ceded to it by Germany in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, such as Eastern Poland,[228] the three Baltic countries,[229][230] part of eastern Finland[231] and northeastern Romania.[232][233]