World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseOff Newfoundland in the Placentia Bay, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt jointly established a vision for a post-war world, which was issued as a joint declaration called Atlantic Charter on 14 Aug 1941. Interestingly, this event took place before the United States had entered the war.

ww2dbaseIn brief, the eight points were:

• No territorial gains sought by the United States or the United Kingdom
• Territorial adjustments must conform to the people involved
• The right to self-determination of peoples
• Trade barriers lowered
• Postwar disarmament
• Freedom from want and fear
• Freedom of the seas
• An association of nations

ww2dbaseBoth Germany and Japan interpreted the Atlantic Charter as a joint aggression toward their causes. As a response, Adolf Hitler pushed up his schedule to carry out the persecution of the Jews; in Japan, militarists pushed harder for more aggression toward American and British holdings in the Pacific. At the same time, it also formed the foundations to the United Nations that we know today.

Atlantic Charter Conference Interactive Map

Photographs

Atlantic Charter Conference Timeline

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