Ok, it’s the beginning of 1942, and for the Allies, things are looking, well, kinda bleak. France, one of the great powers of the world as recently as 1939, is now occupied by the Nazis, who are in total control of the north and west of France, and who have installed a puppet government in the south and east of France. Great Britain is alone in Europe, and it very dependent on imported goods, but Nazis are threatening British shipping in the Atlantic with both surface boats and U-boats. The Soviet Union has lost almost a million square miles of territory to Nazi Germany, and the Germans are at the doors of Moscow and Leningrad, and in the south have captured much of the Ukraine.

The Italians, with German help, have captured Greece and Cyprus, and are also trying to gain territory in North Africa, pushing towards British-held Egypt and the vitally important Suez Canal.

British naval control of the Mediterranean and the North Sea is threatened by German air power and U-boats.

In the Pacific, the United States has lost its entire battleship fleet, though some will be back in action before the end of the year. The Japanese have captured the US territory of the Philippines, and the British holdings of Singapore and Hong Kong, and are threatening Indonesia and Australia. The Japanese navy has also driven the British navy out of the Pacific, and now the only area that the Royal navy is really in control of is the Indian Ocean.

So that’s a quick summary of how things are looking for the Allies. Looks pretty grim, actually. Let’s take a closer look at each area of the world, and just how close the Axis is to completely taking over the world.

Last episode, we left the German soldiers freezing off ihr Gesäß in the the early, harsh Russian winter of 1941. But there was more going on in the winter of 1941 than just frozen Germans. I mentioned back in episode 113, which was about the rise of Hitler and fascism, that the Germans had made a pact with Italy and with Japan. Both the Germans and the Empire of Japan regarded the Soviet Union as their most dangerous potential enemy, which is why they signed a treaty. This is actually going to work against them here in just a minute.

Last episode, I said Hitler might have done better in the long run if he hadn’t had Germany attack Great Britain. Well, after that mistake, he decides to double down, and make an even bigger mistake. He is about to fall victim to one of the classic blunders - never get involved in a land war in Asia! Well, technically, he doesn’t get all the way to Asia, but he was trying to.

Anyway, it’s going to be an even bigger mistake than not continuing to bomb the RAF bases in south and east England. And it’s going to lead to the biggest invasion in human history, the deadliest battle in human history, and the biggest tank battle in human history. And, the deadliest overall campaign in human history. So many people are about to die.

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I’m going to make a quick confession to you here: The Battle of Britain is one of my three favorite parts of all of human history. The other two would be the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus, and then the American Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the Constitution, all of that right as the US was being founded. And then this, the Battle of Britain.

Why is this one one of my favorites periods? Well, it’s got it all: a clear villain, a heroic underdog who fights valiantly, a moment when all seems lost, and then a sudden change of fortunes as the tide begins to turn. The battle of Helm’s Deep, or the Battle of Minas Tirith - this has the same narrative arc.

Plus, it has some of the most amazing airplanes that ever flew, which I will get to in a bit. The American war for Independence was cool, but they didn’t have Spitfires or Messerschmitts. Neither did Minas Tirith. I guess Mordor did have the Nazgul on their flying lizards, but that’s not quite the same.

Anyway, this was one of those crucial turning points in history, where if it had gone differently, even by a small bit, our modern world would not be the same. It really was a pretty close shave.

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You might have noticed that I kind of used the same title twice in a row, which might seem like kind of lazy writing, but I really couldn’t think of a better title to describe what is about to happen. Since Germany had such easy success in the blitzkrieg of Poland, Hitler decide that they could do it to France too.

And basically, that’s exactly what they do. In fact, they were maybe even more successful in France.

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Ok, here we are, poised right on the edge of World War II. I’m going to try to not bog down as much as I did on the US Civil War, but I still have 9 episodes planned to cover World War II. Is that bogging down? I can’t imagine doing it in less episodes than that. Too much interesting and important stuff is about to happen. Also, what happens during the war, including who wins which battles, who gains and loses territory, and what happens to governments during and after the war will make a big difference in our modern world. So to set the stage for all that happens geopolitically after the war, we have to look pretty closely at what happens during the war.

Plus, World War II was kind of the last time that the world made any sense, and we’ll need to talk about that at some point.

Anyway, at the end of our last episode, we left about 106 German divisions poised along the Polish border. That’s not an ominous sign, is it?

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Well here we are, about to introduce one of history’s most notorious villains. I’m talking about Adolf Hitler. He really is remembered as one of the worst, most dangerous people of all time. If you took a survey and asked most people ‘Who is the worst person who ever lived?’ I bet Hitler would be the runaway winner. Also, if you asked people, ‘Who had the worst mustache of all time?’ Yeah, Hitler, again.
Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

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This episode, we’re going to talk about the great depression.

Last episode, we talked about the stock market crash of 1929, and mentioned that it was one of the causes of the Great Depression.

The Great Depression left a very strong mark on the people who lived through it. We’re getting to the point in history where a lot of us know people who have lived through the events that we’re talking about. My grandparents, for example, lived through the Great Depression. My parents were born during it. If you know someone who lived through it, they will have very vivid memories of how hard things were for most people during that time. It shaped people’s impressions of life, government, their country, and what mattered in life more than just about any other event of their lives.

Website: shortwalkthroughhistory.com

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