World War II
World War II (1939–1945) was the largest and deadliest war in history. It began in Europe on 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, and became global in 1941 with Operation Barbarossa and the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Axis powers — Germany, Italy and Japan — were defeated by the Allies — France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and China — after the turning points of Midway, El Alamein and Stalingrad and the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944. Germany surrendered in May 1945; Japan in September 1945, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Estimates of the dead vary widely — Britannica gives 35,000,000–60,000,000, other tabulations differ — because wartime statistics are inexact. The Holocaust, documented by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, murdered six million European Jews and millions of others. The war produced the United Nations, accelerated decolonisation, and inaugurated the Cold War.