World War II

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the... north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a completely separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning "inland" or "in the middle of the earth" . It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km² , but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea.
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The Middle East or Mideast is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. The term is considered to be Eurocentric and used as a... synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, and throughout its history, the Middle East has been a major centre of world affairs. When discussing ancient history, however, the term Near East is more commonly used. The Middle East is also the historical origin of major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Middle East generally has an arid and hot climate, with several major rivers providing for irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas. Many countries located around the Persian Gulf have large quantities of crude oil. In modern times the Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region. The Middle East expected economic growth rate is at about 4.1% for 2010 and 5.1% in 2011. The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office.
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Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically... south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic and volcanic activity. Southeast Asia consists of two geographic regions: Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as Indochina, comprises Cambodia, Laos, Burma , Thailand, Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia, and Maritime Southeast Asia, which is analogous to the Malay Archipelago, comprises Brunei, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines, Christmas Island, and Singapore. Geographically Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are sometimes grouped in the Southeast Asia subregion, although such grouping is rare politically, since in political usage the definition of Southeast Asia is overshadowed by ASEAN memberships. The same is true for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India, and occasionally regions of the Seven Sister States such as Manipur. Austronesian peoples predominate in this region. The major religions are Buddhism and Islam, followed by Christianity.
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south,... bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east. At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres . The eastern Pacific Ocean was sighted by Europeans early in the 16th century, first by the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it Mar del Sur .
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The 1940s was the decade that started on January 1, 1940 and ended on December 31, 1949. The Second World War took place in the first half of the... decade, which had a profound effect on most countries and people in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The consequences of the war lingered well into the second half of the decade, with a war-weary Europe divided between the jostling spheres of influence of the West and the Soviet Union. To some degree internal and external tensions in the post-war era were managed by new institutions, including the United Nations, the welfare state and the Bretton Woods system, providing to the post–World War II boom which lasted well into the 1970s. However the conditions of the post-war world encouraged decolonialisation and emergence of new states and governments, with India, Pakistan, Israel, Vietnam and others declaring independence, rarely without bloodshed. The decade also witnessed the early beginnings of new technologies , often first developed in tandem with the war effort, and later adapted and improved upon in the post-war era.
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The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its... islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East. The term Pacific War is used to encompass the Pacific Ocean theatre, the South West Pacific theatre, the South-East Asian theatre and the Second Sino-Japanese War, also including the 1945 Soviet-Japanese conflict. It is generally considered that the Pacific War began on 7/8 December 1941 with the Japanese invasion of Thailand for the invasion of British Malaya, and the attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States' Territory of Hawaii by the Empire of Japan. Some authors consider the conflict in Asia can be dated as far as 7 July 1937, beginning with the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China, or possibly 19 September 1931, beginning with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. However, it is more widely accepted that the Pacific War itself started in early December 1941, with the Sino-Japanese War then becoming part of it as a theater of the greater World War II.
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The African, Mediterranean and Middle East theatres encompassed the naval, land, and air campaigns fought between the Allied and Axis forces in the... Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and Africa. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered World War II on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered at the end of World War II in Europe. Fighting would, however, continue in Greece, where British troops had been dispatched to aid government forces during the early stages of the Greek Civil War. On 11 June 1940, the day after Italy declared war on the Allies, the campaign began when Italian and Commonwealth forces began a series of raids on each other. Among the more notable achievements of these raids was the capture of Fort Capuzzo by elements of the British Army by 17 June. Benito Mussolini was anxious to link Italian North Africa with Italian East Africa . He also wanted to capture Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Arabian oilfields.
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The Middle East Theatre of World War II is defined largely by reference to the British Middle East Command, which controlled Allied forces in both... Southwest Asia and eastern North Africa. From 1943, most of the action and forces concerned were in the adjoining Mediterranean Theatre. The region was quiet for the first few months of the war, until Fascist Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10, 1940. It remained a major active theatre for two and a half years until the British Commonwealth Eighth Army crossed the border from Libya into Tunisia. In February 1943, command of the Eighth Army passed from the Middle East Command to the Allied Joint command for the Mediterranean, AFHQ. The Middle East Theatre remained quiet for the remainder of the war. The Allies initially believed that the Middle East could become a major operational theatre, because they thought that the Germans might invade the area. This did not materialise, although when Allied forces occupied much of the area, in anticipation of such an invasion, there was fighting against Vichy French forces in Lebanon and Syria, and against Iraq in the Anglo-Iraqi War.
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There were several separate Africa campaigns during World War II. Allied forces fought Axis forces, between 1940 and 1943, on the African mainland... and in nearby waters and islands. The bulk of the combat operations took place in the Mediterranean Basin. Here the primary combatants were Italy and Germany for the Axis; and the United Kingdom, with its Commonwealth , and, later, American forces. The primary theatre was in North Africa, where the aptly-named North African campaign raged from 10 June 1940 to 16 May 1943. It was in itself composed of three near sequential campaigns, the Western Desert Campaign in Egypt and Libya; the landing of Anglo-American forces in Vichy French controlled Morocco and Algeria; and the campaign in Tunisia. The Mediterranean Sea itself was also a stage of constant combat activity. Outside of the Mediterranean, there was additional conflict against Vichy French controlled territories in French West Africa , French Equatorial Africa and Madagascar . Early in the war, there was also combat in East Africa.
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