James Alva Coon

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.

A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in US history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System and defined American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century. He is often rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth prime minister of Canada in 1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. He is best known for his leadership of Canada throughout the Second World War (1939–1945) when he mobilized Canadian money, supplies and volunteers to support Britain while boosting the economy and maintaining morale on the home front.

King acceded to the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1919. Taking the helm of a party bitterly torn apart during the First World War, he reconciled factions, unifying the Liberal Party and leading it to victory in the 1921 election. His party was out of office during the harshest days of the Great Depression in Canada, 1930–35; he returned when the economy was on an upswing.

A survey of scholars in 1997 by Maclean's magazine ranked King first among all Canada's prime ministers, ahead of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. As historian Jack Granatstein notes, "the scholars expressed little admiration for King the man but offered unbounded admiration for his political skills and attention to Canadian unity."

George VI was king of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was the last emperor of India and the first head of the Commonwealth.

As the second son of King George V, George VI was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Edward who ascended the throne upon the death of their father in 1936. However, later that year Edward abdicated to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor.

Arthur Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940) was a British statesman and Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940.

Chamberlain is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany. When Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and Chamberlain led Britain through the first eight months of the Second World War. Chamberlain resigned the premiership on 10 May 1940, as he believed that a government supported by all parties was essential, and the Labour and Liberal parties would not join a government headed by him.

World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2.) The vast majority of the world's countries - including all the great powers - eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies 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. WWII 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 from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Canada declared war on Germany, 7 days after Britain and France. The first Canadian troops left for England in December. Although "obliged to go to war at Britain's side," King's delay of a week was a symbolic gesture of independence

Text and image © The Canadian Encyclopedia

The National Registration Act 1939 established a National Register which began operating on 29 September 1939 (National Registration Day), a system of identity cards, and a requirement that they must be produced on demand or presented to a police station within 48 hours.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician, statesman, army officer, and writer, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. As Prime Minister, Churchill led Britain to victory in the Second World War. Ideologically an economic liberal and British imperialist, he began and ended his parliamentary career as a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but for twenty years from 1904 he was a prominent member of the Liberal Party.

Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism. Also praised as a social reformer and writer, among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Battle of Britain: RAF Fighter Command thwarted the Luftwaffe's attempts to gain air supremacy over southern England, averting invasion and downing 1,733 German aircraft. This came at a cost: 915 British aircraft were lost and about 544 of 2,927 RAF aircrew. Their numerical disadvantage prompted the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill to say 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'

The German invasion of Russia – Operation Barbarossa begins. More than 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invade the USSR along a front stretching almost 3,000 km – the largest military operation in history would also result in the largest casualty rate

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941.

The surprise attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theatres. There were precedents for unannounced military action by Japan, but the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy". Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was later judged in the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.

Stephen William Hawking was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author, who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.

Hawking achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discussed his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. He was a fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

In 1963, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually paralysed him. He died on 14 March 2018 at the age of 76, after more than 50 years battling the disease.

Colossus was a set of computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943–1945 to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform Boolean and counting operations. Colossus is thus regarded as the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer, although it was programmed by switches and plugs and not by a stored program.

The existence of the Colossus machines was kept secret until the mid-1970s, although some of its personnel and secret information undoubtedly fueled further development in the U.S. in the late 1940s; the machines and the plans for building them were destroyed in the 1960s as part of the effort to maintain the secrecy of the project. This deprived most of those involved with Colossus of the credit for pioneering electronic digital computing during their lifetimes.

“We cannot afford to fail.” General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander. The British and American airborne armada began its mission. They landed at the edges of the invasion area on the Normandy coast to secure the western and eastern flanks of the beachheads to protect them from German attacks. Failure would see Hitler given the opportunity for an 11th-hour attempt to save Germany and launch his new V-weapons against British cities.

Concentration Camps were erected in Germany from Mar 1933 after Hitler became Chancellor. Used to hold and torture political opponents and union organizers, the camps initially held around 45,000 prisoners and reached a monstrous 715,000 in January 1945

The first major camp, Majdanek, was discovered by the advancing Soviets on July 23, 1944.

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), succeeding upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt after serving as vice president. He implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO.

Soon after succeeding to the presidency he became the only world leader to have used nuclear weapons in war. Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. He rallied his New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election and won a surprise victory that secured his own presidential term.

For days, people had been anticipating the German surrender – bell ringers were on-hand to ring in victory at St Paul’s Cathedral, while across the country Union Jack flags and bunting were ready for the celebrations that would come. On 8 May 1945 unconditional surrender was signed and the news the world had been waiting for arrived. War in Europe was over!

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British statesman and Labour Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951.

Following the end of the War in Europe, Attlee and Churchill favoured the coalition government remaining in place until Japan had been defeated. However, Herbert Morrison made it clear that the Labour Party would not be willing to accept this, and Churchill was forced to call an immediate election. Labour won by a huge landslide, winning 393 seats in the House of Commons, a working majority of 146. This was the first time in history that the Labour Party had won a majority in Parliament.

While the war in Europe ended in May it continued in the Far East. The Japanese finally surrendered on 14 August following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The next day, Wednesday 15 August 1945 was celebrated as VJ (Victory over Japan) Day. The official US commemoration is September 2. The name, V-J Day, had been selected by the Allies after they named V-E Day for the victory in Europe.

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights. The UN has 4 main purposes
1. To keep peace throughout the world
2. To develop friendly relations among nations
3. To help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve these goals

The Nuremberg trials were a series of military trials held by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war after WWII to prosecute prominent members of the leadership of Nazi Germany who had any role in the Holocaust and other war crimes. The First trial was of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal - 24 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich – Bormann was tried in absentia, while Robert Ley committed suicide within a week of the trial's commencement.

In a country weary but disciplined by war, the National Health Service (NHS) is launched with the proud expectation that it would make the UK the ‘envy of the world’.

At its launch by Bevan on 5 July 1948 it had at its heart three core principles: That it meet the needs of everyone, that it be free at the point of delivery, and that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay.

Louis Stephen St. Laurent (1 February 1882 – 25 July 1973) was the 12th prime minister of Canada, from 15 November 1948 to 21 June 1957. He was a Liberal with a strong base in the Catholic francophone community, from which he had long mobilised support to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. His foreign policy initiatives transformed Canada from an isolationist ex-colony with little role in world affairs to an active "middle power".

St. Laurent was an enthusiastic proponent of Canada's joining NATO in 1949 to fight the spread of Communism, overcoming opposition from some intellectuals, the Labor-Progressive Party, and many French Canadians. The contrast with Mackenzie King was not dramatic – they agreed on most policies. St. Laurent had more hatred of communism, and less fear of the United States. He was neither an idealist nor a bookish intellectual, but an "eminently moderate, cautious conservative man ... and a strong Canadian nationalist"