Western Civilization II / Unit 17 WC2 1628 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds

Sequencing the War, 1939 to 1945

Captions available

The idea

Seven years on one line, one turning point per year. Nineteen thirty-nine: Poland in September. Nineteen forty: the Ardennes in May, Dunkirk, France's surrender in June, the Battle of Britain through September, the Tripartite Pact. Nineteen forty-one: Lend-Lease in March, Barbarossa on the twenty-second of June, Pearl Harbor in December. Nineteen forty-two: Midway in June, El Alamein in October, Torch in November, Stalingrad surrounded. Nineteen forty-three: Stalingrad's surrender in February, Kursk in July, Italy's fall, Tehran. Nineteen forty-four: D-Day in June, Hungary's Jews, the Warsaw Uprising. Nineteen forty-five: Yalta in February, Berlin and V-E Day in May, Potsdam in July, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, surrender on the second of September. The shape: two years of Axis victory, one year of overreach, then the turn at Midway, Alamein and Stalingrad within five months, then two and a half years of grinding back. Practice by placing each event in its year.

In practice

Victory, overreach, the turn of forty-two, the grind.

Where people slip

Dates are the anchor's and the witness's; the Ghetto Uprising is forty-three, not forty-four.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

Builds on

Unlocks

Nothing yet depends on this.

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