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The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes referred to as the Third and Fourth Battles of Savo Island, the Battle of the Solomons, The Battle of Friday the 13th, The Night of the Big Guns, or, in Japanese sources, the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea (第三次ソロモン海戦, Dai-san-ji Soromon Kaisen), took place from 12 to 15 November 1942 and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied (primarily American) and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The action consisted of combined air and sea engagements over four days, most near Guadalcanal and all related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle.
Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. There were several subsequent attempts to recapture the airfield by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy using reinforcements delivered to Guadalcanal by ship, efforts which ultimately failed. In early November 1942, the Japanese organized a transport convoy to take 7,000 infantry troops and their equipment to Guadalcanal to attempt once again to retake the airfield. Several Japanese warship forces were assigned to bombard Henderson Field with the goal of destroying Allied aircraft that posed a threat to the convoy. Learning of the Japanese reinforcement effort, U.S. forces launched aircraft and warship attacks to defend Henderson Field and prevent the Japanese ground troops from reaching Guadalcanal.
In the resulting battle, both sides lost numerous warships in two extremely destructive surface engagements at night. Nevertheless, the U.S. succeeded in turning back attempts by the Japanese to bombard Henderson Field with battleships. Allied aircraft also sank most of the Japanese troop transports and prevented the majority of the Japanese troops and equipment from reaching Guadalcanal. Thus, the battle turned back Japan’s last major attempt to dislodge Allied forces from Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi, resulting in a strategic victory for the U.S. and its allies and deciding the ultimate outcome of the Guadalcanal campaign in their favor. The Japanese decided on the evacuation of Guadalcanal the following month, which they completed by early February 1943.
World War II[b] or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world’s countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70 to 85 million deaths, more than half of which were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.
The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in the aftermath of World War I and the rises of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan. Key events preceding the war included Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and Germany’s annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, leading the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany. Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In 1940, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania. After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued mainly between Germany and the British Empire, with fighting in the Balkans, Mediterranean, and Middle East, the aerial Battle of Britain and the Blitz, and naval Battle of the Atlantic. Through campaigns and treaties, Germany gained control of much of continental Europe and formed the Axis alliance with Italy, Japan, and other countries. In June 1941, Germany led an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front and initially making large territorial gains.
In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Asia and the Pacific, including at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leading the United States to enter the war against Japan and Germany. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia, but its advances in the Pacific were halted in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway. In late 1942, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union, and in 1943 their continued defeats on the Eastern Front, an Allied invasion of Italy, and Allied offensives in the Pacific forced them into retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France at Normandy as the Soviet Union recaptured its pre-war territory and the U.S. crippled Japan’s navy and captured key Pacific islands. The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of all German-occupied territories; a joint invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which culminated in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops; and Germany’s unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. The U.S. planned an invasion of the Japanese archipelago and dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August, when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August, and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945.
World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the world, and it set the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.—becoming the permanent members of its security council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion