List of Benchmarks for United States History |
| Standard 25. | Understands the causes and course of World War II, the character of the war at home and abroad, and its reshaping of the U.S. role in world affairs |
| | Level II (Grade 5-6) |
| | 1. | Understands events leading to U.S. involvement in World War II (e.g., reasons for American isolationist sentiment and its effects on international relations and diplomacy; American responses to German, Italian, and Japanese aggression in Europe, Africa, and Asia from 1935 to 1941, global involvement of nations and people before World War II; the location of Pearl Harbor and events that brought the U.S. into the war) |
| | 2. | Understands significant military aspects of World War II (e.g., major turning points of the war; Axis and Allied military campaigns in the European and Pacific theaters; the financial, material, and human costs of the war and their economic consequences for the Allies and the Axis powers; the locations of the major theaters of war in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific; the diverse contributions of men and women during the war) |
| | 3. | Understands events on the U.S. home front during World War II (e.g., economic and military mobilization; the internment of Japanese Americans and the implications for civil liberties) |
| | Level III (Grade 7-8) |
| | 1. | Understands the development of new political thinking and forms of government in Europe between World War I and World War II (e.g., the rise of fascism, national socialism, and communism) |
| | 2. | Understands how the outcome of World War I contributed to the outbreak of World War II (e.g., lack of support for the League of Nations, the breakdown of the Versailles settlement in the 1930s) |
| | 3. | Understands U.S. international relations prior to its entrance into World War II (e.g., the events that caused growing tensions between the U.S. and Japan, the bombing of Pearl Harbor) |
| | 4. | Understands military strategies used during World War II (e.g., the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR in 1939; the "Battle for Britain"; Japanese strategy in East Asia and the Pacific; Roosevelt's strategy for an aggressive war against the Axis powers and a defensive war in Asia; the North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy invasions) |
| | 5. | Understands the dimensions of Hitler’s "final solution" and the Allies’ response to the Holocaust and war crimes (e.g., human costs of Nazi genocide, Roosevelt’s immigration policy toward Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany) |
| | 6. | Understands the legacy of World War II (e.g., the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan during World War II, how military experiences fostered American identity and cross-cultural interaction, the purpose and organization of the United Nations) |
| | 7. | Understands how World War II influenced American society (e.g., how the war fostered cultural exchange and promoted nationalism and American identity, the effects on gender roles and the American family) |
| | 8. | Understands how minority groups were affected by World War II (e.g., how minority groups organized to gain access to wartime jobs and discrimination they faced, factors that led to the internment of Japanese Americans) |
| | Level IV (Grade 9-12) |
| | 1. | Understands the influence of international events on U.S. policies and political developments (e.g., Roosevelt’s foreign policy toward Latin America and the reasons for the Good Neighbor Policy; the effect of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 on the U.S. Communist Party) |
| | 2. | Understands events that led to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (e.g., why Japan set up the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, U.S. reasons for cutting off oil to Japan, U.S. response to the November 10 proposal from Japan) |
| | 3. | Understands President Roosevelt’s ideas and policies during World War II (e.g., Roosevelt’s administration’s wartime diplomacy among the Allied powers, the ideas presented in his Four Freedoms speech) |
| | 4. | Understands how World War II influenced the home front (e.g., the impact on science, medicine, and technology; how Americans viewed their achievements and global responsibilities at the war’s end; how minorities contributed to the war effort and the contradiction between their treatment at home and the goals that they were fighting for in Europe; the effects of the relocation centers on Japanese American families) |
| | 5. | Understands characteristics of the end of World War II (e.g., why there was a delay in creating a second front in Europe, the Soviet Union's role in helping to defeat the Axis Powers and the reasons for the success of D-Day) |
