I wanted to include these two photos about the Second World War.  The photo on the right is a Russian veteran pausing to remember--you don't celebrate--the Allied victory in Europe which came at such an enormous cost for the Russians.  (See my remarks on Russia and World War II.)  The photo dates from about 1960 or so.  The photo on the left is a nasty legacy of the American experience in World War II.  These are surviving towers from a Japanese-American internment camp where American citizens of Japanese descent were imprisoned during the war.

• Read chapter 26 in the textbook.
• Read my remarks on Russia and World War II and my notes on World War II.
• Read the Atlantic Charter (1941) as the basic statement of the fair peace to end the war and of basic freedoms for people.
• Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the unit.
• Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this unit's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.

• Submit the Optional Special Project paper.
• Submit a Pop Culture paper in which you look at some aspects of the growing spread of pop culture throughout the world.  Point value is 100 points possible extra credit for a two-page paper (less for one page).
• Have a look at the online presentation on the Holocaust in Poland (collaboration between myself and Professor Andrew Wise).
• Read the short paper by Bryan Grasser on Bletchley Park, Great Britain's secret code-breaking operation during World War II (*.pdf file).  Bryan wrote the paper as a special project vacation option when he was enrolled in HIS 102.
• Listen to some further information about this unit as a mp3 file.  You can also read the information as a txt file.
• Check World War II in Photos: A Retrospective in 20 parts (In Focus by Alan Taylor of The Atlantic).
• Read some of the great, inspirational speeches by Winston Churchill:  We Shall Fight on the Beaches (Speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940) and Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat (May 13, 1940).
• The Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century by Matthew White is an extremely interesting site that deals not just with the major wars but also famines, etc.

• The Last Days of World War II - Death of the Reich
• World War II Videos
• John Merriman - Yale, Collaboration and Resistance in World War II
• Why We Remember the Holocaust
• Witnesses to the Holocaust: Liberation 1945
• An Alfred Hitchcock documentary on the Nazi Holocaust
• The Rape Of Nanking - 54 minute documentary - trailer
• Why We Fight: The Battle of China
• World War II: The Lost Color Archives (1/5)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Pearl Harbor Address
• German Surrender (US newsreel footage)
• See also the videos dealing with Russia and World War II in the HIS 242 course.
• For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the url and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.

• Take the short 5-point quiz for chapter 26. Log into Blackboard and look under "Chapter Quizzes." You have five minutes to complete each quiz (multiple-choice questions).
• For a maximum of 50 points extra credit, read Neville Chamberlain's Peace For Our Time speech (30 September, 1938; transcription) and then his comments on the agreement in the House of Commons and write a one-page paper examining Chamberlain's intent and rationale for the Munich agreements.
• For a maximum of 50 points extra credit, read the Documents on the Decision to Drop the Bomb and write a one-page paper summarizing some of the pros and cons of the decision to use the atomic bomb in 1945.
• For a maximum of 50 points extra credit, in a one-page paper What types of evidence did the allied prosecutors bring against the Nazi leaders in the proceedings at Nuremberg?
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit (maybe more), in a long paragraph, What should people do now in respect to the atrocities that occurred before and during World War II?
• For 25 points maximum extra credit, read A. Anatolii [Kuznetsov], Babi Yar (1967, published in Moscow by Molodaia Gvardiia) and write a long paragraph explaining why that horror occurred.
• For 25 points maximum extra credit, read the materials on Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941 and write a short paragraph explaining why Germany and Russia maintained their alliance for two years.
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read Vyacheslav Molotov (1889-1986) broadcast on the Invasion of The Soviet Union (June 22, 1941) and write a paragraph explaining the key points of Molotov's speech.  Note that it was Molotov, not Stalin, who announced that the Soviet Union was now at war with Germany.
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read Adolf Hitler Reichstag Speech, (February 20, 1938) and in a paragraph explain your interpretation of Hitler's remarks.
  
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read Chamberlain's speech on the Nazi Invasion of Poland (1 September 1939; transcription) and in a paragraph examine what Chamberlain must have been thinking as he faced his colleagues in the House of Commons.
• Watch Leni Riefenstahl's documentary film Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will) and answer the movie study questions for a maximum of 10 points extra credit.  Please write in formal, complete sentences.
• For extra credit, please suggest a relevant website for this unit of the course.  Send the title of the site, the url and a brief explanation why you find the information interesting and applicable to the material being studied this unit.