The War Ends
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Related resources
Aggression and Appeasement
Blitzkrieg and the Fall of France
D-Day and the Liberation of Europe
The Battle of Britain
War in the Pacific
Alliances and the Causes of WWI
What students do
- Sequence the events from V-E Day on May 8, 1945 through Japan's formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri
- Analyze General MacArthur's opening remarks from the September 2, 1945 surrender ceremony
- Explain what the Potsdam Declaration demanded of Japan and what it deliberately left out
- Compare how Germany's four occupation zones and Japan's single occupation under MacArthur were governed differently
What it covers
- What the Potsdam Conference decided about occupying Germany and what the Potsdam Declaration demanded of Japan
- Why the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials created the legal charge of crimes against humanity
- How the United Nations was founded to prevent the failures that let World War II happen
Learning targets
- Sequence the events from V-E Day through Japan's formal surrender.
- Explain what the Potsdam Conference and Declaration decided and demanded.
- Describe how Germany and Japan were occupied after their surrenders.
- Explain why the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials shaped modern international law.
- Describe the founding and purpose of the United Nations.
From one teacher to another
By this point in the unit, students just want the ending, not another set of dates, so this lesson earns that ending instead of rushing past it. It walks through the collapse of the different fronts, the decisions that stopped the fighting, and what it meant for a world that hadn't known peace in years. It's the last stop in my World War II unit before the class turns to the Cold War that grows directly out of it.
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