Humanity has always lived with wars, the reasons are the most diverse: fight for territory, separatist movements, religion, ethnic intolerance, natural wealth, political differences, among others. Due to world conflicts, the world map does not remain with a fixed configuration. This cartographic dynamic makes the work of cartographers difficult, as they periodically need to reshape the borders of countries.
In the last century, the place in the world that suffered the most changes in terms of the configuration of borders was the European continent. As a result of the struggle for territories, one of the greatest conflicts of humanity began, the Second World War.
Mind Map - World War II
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This event provided drastic transformations in the world geographic space, especially in Europe. World War II took place between 1939 and 1945. This conflict involved a large number of countries that fought a war, largely on European territory.
Among the main reasons that led to this event were the intentions to implement projects of an expansionist nature in countries such as Germany, Italy and Japan. Such nations wanted to reach the condition of hegemonic powers and believed that the way to achieve this feat was through the conquest of new territories.
Based on this ideology, the countries mentioned promoted invasions of other territories with the intention of annexing them to their respective domains. Germany took over neighboring countries such as Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938. In 1939, it was Italy's turn, which conquered Albania. Japan invaded several territories in the Pacific region.
The consolidation of the war only took place in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. With this act, England and France immediately came to the defense of the invaded country, declaring war on Germany. Later, in 1941, the then Soviet Union also joined the conflict because it was invaded by the German army. Later that same year, the United States entered the conflict after receiving a Japanese air strike on its naval base at Pearl Harbor.
The conflict took place involving two groups of countries, called: Axis and Allies. The first group consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan. The second, had as members: France, England, Soviet Union, United States, Brazil, among others.
After many clashes involving the Axis countries and the Allies, which lasted for years, the war showed signs that it would end, due to the surrender of Italy in the year 1943. Two years later, Germany and Japan could not stand it and they also redeemed themselves, consolidating the defeat of the Axis group. Japan surrendered after being hit by two atomic bombs, one in Hiroshima city and the other in Nagasaki.
By Eduardo de Freitas
Graduated in Geography
*Mental Map by Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/geografia/resumo-segunda-guerra-mundial.htm
