In January of 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined a vision of the future in which people the world over could enjoy four essential freedoms. This vision persisted throughout World War II and came to symbolize the ideals behind the rights of humanity and the pursuit of peace in a postwar world.

The United States was not the only leading power on the world stage after the end of World War II; it had a new competitor for this power in the Soviet Union. Tensions between the former allies quickly grew, leading to a new kind of conflict—one heightened with the threat of atomic weapons—that came to dominate global politics for the remainder of the twentieth century.

As fighting came to an end in 1945, people the world over faced for the first time the unprecedented extent of destruction and loss of life caused by World War II. As the costs of victory came into devastating focus, the diplomatic responses, rising global tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, and social disruption that followed in the aftermath of this conflict showed that World War II was truly "the war that changed the world."

In 1942 the 24th General Hospital was created by doctors from Tulane University and nurses from New Orleans. Serving in the Mediterranean theater, they were known as the “Tulane Unit.”

From the Grand Alliance to the Cold War.

Fighting World War II presented daunting military obstacles overseas, but it also involved serious challenges for American communities on the Home Front. 

As the United States prepared for war, military leaders had a long list of needs—guns, tanks, ships, and equipment of every kind. One of the things they needed most of all, however, was people. 

World War II put a heavy burden on US supplies of basic materials like food, shoes, metal, paper, and rubber. The Army and Navy were growing, as was the nation’s effort to aid its allies overseas. Civilians still needed these materials for consumer goods as well. To meet this surging demand, the federal government took steps to conserve crucial supplies, including establishing a rationing system that impacted virtually every family in the United States.

At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, about 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry lived on the US mainland, mostly along the Pacific Coast. About two thirds were full citizens, born and raised in the United States. Following the Pearl Harbor attack, however, a wave of antiJapanese suspicion and fear led the Roosevelt administration to adopt a drastic policy toward these residents, alien and citizen alike. 

When we think of World War II, the first images that enter our minds usually involve battle: armies fighting their desperate struggles on land, huge navies patrolling the oceans, and aircraft soaring sleekly overhead.

There’s an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention. That sentiment was definitely the case during World War II, a massive global conflict that presented the United States with a variety of tactical and logistical challenges. At every turn Americans seemed to need more of everything—more supplies, bigger bombs, faster airplanes, better medical treatments, and more precise communications.

Wartime needs increased labor demands for both male and female workers, heightened domestic hardships and responsibilities, and intensified pressures for Americans to conform to social and cultural norms.