Background to War  The Second World War was fought from 1939 to
1945. In those six years, more soldiers were killed than in any
war that had ever been fought. More civilians died because of
the war than ever before in history. In no other war did so many
people lose their homes, their possessions, their whole way of
life. The total number of deaths from World War II has been
estimated at 50 million, which is about 1 out of every 5 people
in the United States today.  The most terrible war  World War II
was the first time a war was fought all over the world. By the
time it ended, there had been fighting on every continent except
South America and Antarctica, and in almost all the oceans.
Armies had battled one another on jungle islands in the Pacific
Ocean, and in the deserts of North Africa. Planes had bombed
Australia and Hawaii, London and Moscow, Norway and Egypt. Large
parts of Europe and eastern Asia were in ruins. Two cities in
Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had been utterly destroyed by
atomic bombs. Al