World War II
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World War II was a global conflict fought from 1 September 1939 to 2 September 1945 between the Allies and the Axis powers. It was the deadliest conflict in history, with a death toll estimated between 70 and 85 million people, the majority of them civilians, including the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The war began with the German invasion of Poland, which brought Britain and France into the war, and it spread across Europe, East Asia, North Africa and the oceans. Germany conquered most of the continent in 1940, but the Battle of Britain, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the entry of the United States after Pearl Harbor turned the tide. The turning points came at Stalingrad, Midway and Normandy, and Soviet forces took Berlin in May 1945 while American island-hopping brought them to the edge of Japan. Germany surrendered in May 1945, and Japan surrendered on 2 September after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war ended the European empires, left the continent divided between two superpowers and led directly to the United Nations. Fighting ranged from the Arctic convoys to the jungles of Burma, and the war ended with Europe and Asia in ruins.