World War II was a global conflict involving nearly every country in the world. But who was on each side—and why?

When President Franklin Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board in January 1944, he tasked this new government agency with rescuing and providing relief for Jews and other groups facing Nazi persecution and murder in Europe. By that time, more than five million European Jews had already been murdered. The War Refugee Board staff used creativity and the near-certainty of Allied victory to aid hundreds of thousands of people in the final seventeen months of World War II.

Two months before Pearl Harbor, a sailor became Louisiana's first fatality in World War II.  

Dr. Rana Mitter depicts how China held a critical role in the Pacific theater during the war as a key ally for the United States. The war's end, however, brought a devastating blow to American diplomacy as China ultimately fell to communism, forever changing the global balance of power in the emerging Cold War.

In her My Day column on May 9, 1945, the day after V-E Day was officially confirmed, Eleanor Roosevelt reflects on the cautious mood, the devastation in Europe, and the unfinished task of winning peace.