The Second World War", "WWII", and "WW2" redirect here.

For other uses, see The Second World

War (disambiguation) and WWII (disambiguation).

World War II

(clockwise from top left)

 Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing

 Australian25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein

 German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943

 American naval force in the Lingayen Gulf

 Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender

 Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad

Date  1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945

 (6 years and 1 day)[a]
Location Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East
Asia,China, Middle East, Mediterranean, North
Africa, Horn of Africa, Australia,
brieflyNorth and South America
Result  Allied victory

 Collapse of Nazi Germany

 Fall of the Japanese and Italian Empires
 Allied occupations
of Germany andJapan and foundation of
the Italian Republic
 Beginning of the Nuclear Age
 Dissolution of the League of Nationsand
creation of the United Nations
 Emergence of the United States and
the Soviet Union as rival superpowersand
beginning of the Cold War(more...)

Participants

Allies Axis
 Commanders and leaders

Main Allied leaders Main Axis leaders

 Joseph Stalin  Adolf Hitler

 Franklin D. Roosevelt  Hirohito

 Winston Churchill  Benito Mussolini

 Chiang Kai-shek

Casualties and losses

 Military dead:  Military dead:

 Over 16,000,000  Over 8,000,000

 Civilian dead:  Civilian dead:

 Over 45,000,000  Over 4,000,000

 Total dead:  Total dead:

 Over 61,000,000  Over 12,000,000

 (1937–1945)  (1937–1945)

 ...further details  ...further details

 v

 t

 e
Campaigns ofWorld War II

Europe
Poland

Phoney War

Winter War

Denmark & Norway

France & Benelux

Britain

Balkans

Eastern Front

Finland

Western Front (1944–45)

Pacific War

China

Pacific Ocean

South-East Asia

South West Pacific

Japan

Manchuria (1945)

Mediterranean and Middle East

North Africa
 Horn of Africa

Mediterranean Sea

Adriatic

Malta

Yugoslavia

Iraq

Syria–Lebanon

Iran

Italy

Dodecanese

Southern France

Other campaigns

Atlantic

Arctic

Strategic bombing

America

French West Africa

Madagascar

Contemporaneous wars

Soviet–Japanese border conflicts

Franco-Thai War

Ecuadorian–Peruvian War

Ili Rebellion

World War II

Alphabetical indices

 ABCDEFGHIJKLM
 NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
 0–9

Navigation


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o Countries
o Equipment

o Timeline
o Outline
o Lists

o Portal
o Category
 o Bibliography

 v
 t
 e

World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was
a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all
the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: theAllies and the Axis. A state
of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The
major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war
effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest
conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in
the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic
bombing, premeditated death fromstarvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in
war.[1][2][3][4]
Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937,[5][b] though
neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is generally said to have begun on 1
September 1939,[6] with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on
Germany by France and the United Kingdom. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series
of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and
formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939,
Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European
neighbours, Poland,Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns
in North Africa and East Africa, and the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued primarily
between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of
Britain, the Blitz, and the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis
powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history.
This Eastern Front trapped the Axis, most crucially the GermanWehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In
December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European
coloniesin the Pacific. Following an immediate U.S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by
one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers quickly declared war on the U.S. in solidarity with
their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived
by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies
from defeated territories.