Effects of the War EQ 8:What were the major immediate and

long-term effects of WWII?

Yalta Conference, 1945

• Focus on post war issues• structure of the UN• occupation zones in Europe•division of east and west

• critics say FDR gave in to Stalin too much

•Poland’s government•the USSR still hadn’t declared war on Japan

Potsdam Conference, 1945

• Truman told Stalin about the atomic bomb• he already knew about it

• the Big Three discussed the “situation” in Poland and the war in the Pacific• the USSR still hadn’t declared war on Japan

The United Nations, 1945

• 50 nations formed a successor to the League of Nations in San Francisco

• 5 nations formed the security council—the US, France, Britain, China, and the USSR

Nuremburg Trials

• 22 Nazi leaders were tried for crimes against humanity• this is how much of the information on the Final Solution and the Holocaust came out

• Nuremburg was the birthplace of the Nazi Party

Major Technological Developments

• Aviation• faster, longer travel•B-52, B-29

• jet aircraft• the German Messerschmitt Me-262 was not developed until the end of the war

• commercial airlines•Boeing 747

Major Technological Developments

• Weaponry• rocketry led to the space program

• rocketry led to communications satellites and GPS

• the atomic bomb led to nuclear power

Major Technological Developments

• Communication• Radar

•RAdio Detection And Ranging

•air traffic control, weather forecasting, speed control

• sonar•SOund, NAvigation and Ranging

•maps of ocean floor and sonograms

Major Technological Developments

• Medicine• penicillin

• an antibiotic used to fight bacterial infection

• infection used to kill more soldiers and civilians than battle

• morphine• opium based pain reliever

• plasma• liquid portion of human blood allows for blood transfusion

• nuclear medicine• cancer treatments

• much of the new knowledge came from medical experimentation done by German and Japanese doctors in their prison camps

Cost of the War

• 62 millions casualties• 25 million military casualties• 37 million civilian casualties• abt. 10 million in the Holocaust

• 6 millions Jews (78% of all Jews in Europe)

• 400,000 Americans died

• 70% of European industry destroyed• 13% of US population served (16 million)

• US spent $381 billion on war

The Cost of Modern Warby James Brady, American University (1968)Updated by Mr. Valenzuela using the CPI figures from the BLS in 2004

• The total estimated cost of World War II would have been sufficient to pay for all of the following. . .

• A $200,000 house for every family in the United States, Britain, Belgium, and Portugal.

• A $10,000,000 library for every city of 200,000 inhabitants or over, in the US, Britain, and Russia.

• A $50,000,000 university for each of those cities.

• A $25,000 automobile for every family in the U.S. and Britain.

• The Salaries of 50,000 teachers and an equivalent number of nurses at $60,000 per year for 100 years.

• A college or vocational education (at an estimated cost of $90,000) for every high school graduate in the United States between the ages of 17-21.