In what sense did World War II become more “global” during its first two or two-and-a-half years? Now, for the first two years of the war, the war was mainly focused in Europe and Asia, so it was a pretty big war, almost as big as World War I, but it was not quite a “global war”, at least not yet.

To start, I would like to say how World War II started. After the first world war, Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, take the guilt of starting the war, pay reparations, Germany lost territory, and was forced to keep a small military. There was also the Great Depression, and the economies were shrinking, trade was reduced, businesses closed, prices fell, banks failed, and unemployment rose. In some cases of a depression, people look for a political leader to resolve there problems, and the people chose Hitler. He promised to make Germany wealthy and powerful again. Hitler then began to built a secret military and was building up Germany’s army and weapons. Hitler then invaded Czechoslovakia. At this time, neither France nor Britain were prepared to make war, so they let it be. But then Germany invaded Poland. By this time, France and Britain had had enough of Germany breaking its promises, and declared war on Germany. At this time, World War II had begun in Europe, and would soon spread to other parts of the world (this was taken from my “What problems from World War I helped contribute to the outbreak of World War II?” essay).

I believe that World War II became global after the United States joined, and the US joined the day after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The day after the attack the US declared war on Japan, and thereby entering the war.