A French team coordinated by Mathias Pessiglione, Inserm researcher have identified the part of the brain driving motivation during actions that combine physical and mental effort: the ventral striatum. The results of their study were published in PLoS Biology on 21 February 2012.
The results of an activity (physical or mental) partly depend on the efforts devoted to it, which may be incentive-motivated. For example, a sportsperson is likely to train with "increased intensity" if the result will bring social prestige or financial gain. The same can be said for students who study for their exams with the objective of succeeding in their professional career. What happens when physical and mental efforts are required to reach an objective?
Mathias Pessiglione and his team from Inserm unit 975 "Centre de recherche en neurosciences de la Pitié-Salpêtrière" examined whether mental and physical efforts are driven by a motivation 'centre' or whether they are conducted by different parts of the brain. The researchers studied the neural mechanisms resulting from activities that combine both action and cognition.
To this end, a series of 360 tests, combining mental and physical effort, were performed whilst being monitored by a scanner. The 20 voluntary participants were placed in the supine position, with their heads in a functional MRI scanner. They then had to complete a series of tasks through which they could accumulate winnings. However, in each series the winnings were limited to the first incorrect response. The tasks combined cognitive and motor actions. The participants had to find the highest number from among different-sized numbers and then select it by squeezing a handle located by their left or right hand (depending on the number's location). At the end of the test, a winnings summary was displayed to motivate the participant.
Using images obtained from the MRI scans taken during the test, Mathias Pessiglione and his team identified a general motivational system in the depths of the brain, i.e. a structure capable of activating any effort type, both mental (concentrating on the task in hand) or physical (lifting a load). The researchers observed that the ventral striatum was activated in proportion to the amount of money involved: the higher the degree of motivation, the higher the activation level. Furthermore, the ventral striatum is connected to the median part of the striatum (the caudate nucleus) when the task to be performed is cognitively difficult (when the physical size and the numerical value of the numbers did not correspond). This ventral region solicits the lateral part of the striatum (the putamen) when the difficulty is motor-related (when the handle had to be squeezed very tightly).
The researchers suggest that the expectation of a reward is encoded in the ventral striatum, which can then drive either the motor or cognitive part of the striatum, depending on the task, in order to boost performance. "The ventral striatum may commute connections in accordance with the request, i.e. enhance the neuronal activity in the caudate nucleus for a cognitive operation and in the putamen for a physical action" explains Mathias Pessiglione.
“Dear Sir, my children, relatives and citizens are protected by your blessings, either at home or in the jungle.” (Dasharatha speaking to Vishvamitra, Janaki Mangala, 25)
It’s a tough fight. You’re not sure what the outcome is going to be. You’ve invested so much time and effort travelling throughout the region that will be governed. You have shaken so many hands, flipped numerous pancakes, and kissed about every baby there is in each town. Despite your best efforts, you’re still in danger of losing. The polls say that the race is neck and neck. What you really need to get you over the top is the endorsement of this one particular group. If they can favor you, you will get the necessary votes on election night to sweep into office. Once at the helm, you have all the power. You can do whatever you want and make a real difference in the lives of others.
Now the election is over. The group you wanted support from came through and pushed you across the finish line. Ah, but governing is a totally different story. The groups that supported you now want their favors returned. Thus you have to appoint connected people to important posts and pass legislation specifically targeted to their interests. The groups in question may be benefitted, and you may have been helped by getting elected, but the welfare of your family, children and most importantly, citizens, is not guaranteed through this practice.
Why is this the case? From a moral standpoint the interests of one particular faction shouldn’t automatically take precedent over others. For instance, if one group is in favor of passing a law to help their particular business, what about the group that doesn’t want the bill to pass? All citizens are equal in the eyes of the law, despite the discrepancy in incomes. Perhaps the person who pays millions of dollars in taxes feels more entitled to government protection than the person who pays no tax, but a good head of state doesn’t take this difference into account. The government’s duty is to provide for the general welfare by first protecting life and property, and in this respect the property of the poorest man is equally as worthy of protection as the largest estate of the multi-millionaire.
By rule, focusing attention on specific parties, repaying them for favors granted in the past, is a losing proposition. Unless everyone is benefitted by what you do, you are not a good leader. King Dasharatha of Ayodhya knew this hidden gem of the Vedic teachings a long time ago. Though he had it all and could give favors to any specific group, he knew that the blessings of one particular class would be beneficial to everyone. He thus praised Vishvamitra Muni to no end, telling the sage that the family, children and citizens under the protection of the king were actually protected by the blessings of the saintly class.
Let’s say that I get favored by Vishvamitra, whose position in this case can correspond to that of a priest, or religious figure. Vishvamitra is a single person, so how is receiving his favor any different from getting the endorsement of a powerful lobbying group? The special interest organizations at least represent so many other people, but someone like Vishvamitra is a loner. He doesn’t have family to support or a business to run. In one sense you could say that he is selfish. He lives in the forest alone, and worships God through austerity and sacrifice. Why should the king or any man of prominence be interested in what the sage wants?
Well, Vishvamitra’s dedication to austerity is what makes him most eligible for being heard from. He doesn’t have any possessions. He calls the forest his home and the holy name of the Lord his wealth. Abandoning a life of sensual pursuits, exalted sages like Vishvamitra prefer the quiet surroundings of the forest, where they can worship God fully and thus remain enlightened. From connecting with God one acquires the knowledge necessary to survive in any situation. A special interest group looks for a benefit that temporarily aids their situation, but life has much more important things than mere bodily maintenance. The form accepted at the time of birth will eventually be renounced, but the spirit soul, the vital force within, is always there. Its needs take precedent over the body’s.
Someone like Vishvamitra accepts knowledge from the shrutis, or the scriptural tradition passed on through aural reception. From the shrutis one can impart wisdom to others, regardless of the target’s position in life. In this way Vishvamitra’s favor can mean acquiring knowledge on how to take care of children, relatives and citizens. Not everyone is in the same position or has the same desires, but through following the direction of the brahmana community, those who are by quality in the mode of goodness and dedicated to God, every person can advance spiritually, which is the real purpose of the human form of body.
The animals enjoy eating, sleeping, mating and defending, including bouts with intoxication and illicit sex. In fact, there is no such thing as marriage in the animal community. They don’t operate under piety and sin because they are not intelligent enough to understand these higher concepts. Right and wrong are introduced to the human being because soberly following guidelines allows a better end to be reached. The instruction manual accompanying the new appliance allows the owner to properly assemble and operate their purchased item. The instructions are rules in a sense, lines drawn between virtue and sin. Accepting virtue brings one closer to the desired end and sin brings about negative consequences.
The brahmana knows right and wrong, good and bad, favorable and unfavorable, for any person. Thus having their favor turns out to be the greatest blessing for a king. Dasharatha was hesitant to give up the company of His son Rama, whom Vishvamitra requested as a personal bodyguard. The sage was being harassed in the forest by night-rangers, a situation similar to terrorists going after priests while they are delivering a sermon. These vile creatures would attack the sages and then eat their flesh. Vishvamitra knew that Rama was the most capable bow warrior in the world, that He could defeat anyone though He was not yet twelve years of age.
Dasharatha had fatherly affection for Rama, the eldest of his four sons. As a lesson to us all, Dasharatha showed that even attachment to family members can be renounced for a higher purpose. Vishvamitra’s desires and instruction were beneficial to everyone, regardless of where they were living. If Rama were in the forest or in the royal palace, the sage’s favor would protect Him nonetheless. The hidden secret was that Rama was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna Himself in the guise of a warrior prince. This made parting with Rama that much more difficult for Dasharatha and Rama’s protection in the forest more necessary for Vishvamitra.
The issue may be raised that if you invest so much trust in one person, if they lead you astray then so many other people will be negatively affected. This highlights one of the appealing aspects to democracy, the insulation from tyrannical rule gone wrong. If you have just one leader who messes things up, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. In a democracy, however, major change requires majority vote, so passing legislation that goes against the wishes of the general population is more difficult, but still not impossible. There was certainly a risk in assigning so much stock to Vishvamitra, but the sage’s qualities were what made him worthy of his position. He was not a spiritualist in name only. He was known for having only the welfare of the people in mind. He didn’t have much, so why would he act in a way that would harm Dasharatha? Vashishtha, Ayodhya’s royal priest, reminded Dasharatha of Vishvamitra’s lofty standing, how he knew very well what Rama was capable of.
The sage’s intuition would later prove to be correct. Lord Rama, accompanied by His younger brother Lakshmana, would protect Vishvamitra from many attacking night-rangers. By pleasing the sage, the brothers would learn mantras applicable to the standard method of warfare of the time, bow and arrow. From uttering a specific mantra Rama could make one of His arrows equal in force to modern day nuclear weapons. Aside from benefitting Dasharatha with his blessings, the world would be better off as a result of Vishvamitra’s actions. The sage would bring Rama and Lakshmana to Tirahuta to attend a contest to determine the husband for King Janaka’s daughter Sita. Rama, the only Lord for the surrendered souls and the only husband for the goddess of fortune, would win Sita’s hand in marriage. Thus having Vishvamitra’s favor continues to bring benefits to the eager souls of today looking to connect with God by hearing about His glorious deeds.
In Closing:
The brahmana piety’s defender,
All good comes from their special favor.
With clever words and political spin,
And group’s endorsement candidate wins.
But favoritism not governing way legitimate,
Politician needs instruction for everyone’s benefit.
A new study reveals a dazzling degree of biological diversity in an unexpected place – a single neural connection in the body wall of flies.
The finding, reported in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raises several interesting questions about the importance of structure in the nervous system and the evolution of neural wiring.
"We know almost nothing about the evolution of the nervous system, although we know it has to happen – behaviors change, complexity changes, there is the addition of new neurons, formation of different synaptic connections," says geneticist Barry Ganetzky, the Steenbock Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The result is even more remarkable because he and graduate student Megan Campbell found the surprising diversity in a location very familiar to scientists. Called neuromuscular junction 4 (NMJ4), it's where a single motor neuron contacts a specific muscle in the fly body wall to drive its activity.
The synapses where neurons connect with their neuronal or muscular targets are morphologically complex, resembling miniature trees decked out with tiny bulbs that are the nerve terminals, called synaptic boutons.
"Synapses are where the important information transfer and integrative functions of the nervous system occur," Ganetzky explains. "It's the fundamental place where information processing takes place, and there is an underlying belief that the structure of the synapse is key to understanding its function."
Each muscle is innervated by a different motor neuron that forms an NMJ with a shape, size, and geometry that is characteristic for that particular NMJ. Fortunately, the consistency of the fly's anatomy makes it possible to identify the exact same synapse in different individual flies, even across different species. NMJ4 is well studied in the context of synaptic development and function, and Ganetzky himself has used NMJ4 for decades to pinpoint genes with a host of biological roles from movement disorders to neurodegeneration.
The current project began with a simple musing about what really is "normal" for laboratory-bred fruit flies and their wild brethren. Looking at the NMJ4 in the common lab fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, Campbell found that the synaptic morphology was consistent between lab-bred and wild flies, and between strains collected in Madison, Wis., and as far away as Zimbabwe. All the flies had similar-looking arbors and boutons.
Encouraged, they decided to branch out. "Drosophila is a very rich genus – thousands of species with different behaviors, different food preferences, different environments, different climates, different sizes – with upward of 50 million years of divergence," comparable to the evolutionary separation between mice and humans, says Ganetzky.
Despite such differences, he adds, the larval body plan is exactly the same across all known Drosophila species regardless of their size, habitat, or food source. "Cell for cell, the body wall musculature and innervation patterns are identical," he says.
They began to look at NMJ4 in other Drosophila species, aided by the fly collection of UW–Madison evolutionary biologist Sean B. Carroll. When they focused on their target synapse in 21 different species of Drosophila from around the world, they expected to find some predictable patterns of modest variation.
But after looking at just a few species, Campbell says, a different story emerged: like Drosophila melanogaster, each species had a characteristic NMJ4 appearance, but that appearance varied dramatically among species. In some species, NMJ4 consisted of a few boutons arranged in a simple unbranched pattern; others had many boutons distributed over a number of long branches or numerous boutons packed into dense, tightly clustered arbors.
"The results were absolutely flabbergasting – variation far beyond anything we ever anticipated," Ganetzky says.
But the surprises didn't end there.
The striking differences in complexity did not correlate with evolutionary relatedness of the species; in other words, the NMJs of more closely related species did not look any more alike than those of more distantly related flies.
They even found distinct differences between species separated by less than one million years of evolution, species that are otherwise so similar that even fly experts struggle to distinguish them based on appearance. Such rapid evolution is remarkable, the authors say, though its biological significance isn't yet clear.
What could explain such tremendous variation? One possibility is genetic drift – the random accumulation of genetic changes that alter the appearance of the NMJ but otherwise have no effect on the organism; in essence, any NMJ that gets the job done will suffice. The alternative is that each NMJ is shaped by natural selection because its particular size and structure in some way increases survival or reproductive success for members of that species.
With help from fellow UW–Madison geneticists Bret Payseur and Beth Dumont, they used a quantitative model to analyze the different NMJ morphologies as a function of the evolutionary relationship among 11 species whose evolutionary tree is precisely known from genome sequencing. The results, Ganetzky says, indicate that the variability they observed is unlikely to be random. "What that suggests is that there is some driving force – natural selection – that is shaping the synapse to be a particular way."
Thinking that neural function would be an obvious target of selection, they measured electrical activity in the circuit. But activity recordings from four species representing the range of morphological complexity revealed the same basic neural workings no matter the synaptic structure.
The researchers say there may be subtle functional differences between the different NMJ structures, undetected by their assay but which could translate to distinct biological differences – for example, learning capacity or response to stressful conditions – that would provide a target for natural selection.
"We believe there's some reason why the variation matters, but we don't know yet what that reason is," Ganetzky says.
Meanwhile Campbell and Ganetzky are now working to understand the underlying genetic and molecular mechanisms as well as the biological significance, if any, of that naturally occurring variation.
"We think we've made an important discovery about nature that we think opens up all kinds of new doors. At this point, we've raised many, many more questions than we've answered… questions about the evolution of nervous systems, evolution of behavior, the relationship between neuronal and synaptic morphology and function," Ganetzky says. "I hope this captures the interest of scientists in many other fields to apply their own areas of expertise."
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan unleashed World War II with the intention of establishing, by military conquest, a permanent dominance over Europe and Asia respectively. These two nations were the most significant members of the Axispartnership, which was based on anti-Communism and dissatisfaction with the world order after World War I.
Under the leadership of dictator Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany aimed at the acquisition of a vast, new empire of "living space" (Lebensraum) in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The Nazi leadership calculated that the realization of German hegemony in Europe would require war, and began planning a European war from the day the Nazis came to power in late January 1933.
Imperial Japan followed a policy of military conquest with support of its Emperor, military establishment, and many in the educated elite who sought Japanese rule and influence throughout East Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Germany and Japan formed an anti-Communist front aimed at the Soviet Union in 1936. That same year Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany formed the Axis alliance, shortly after Italy completed its brutal and successful conquest of Ethiopia.
Japan initiated its policy of military conquest by invading Chinese Manchuria in September 1931. Six years later, in July 1937, Japan invaded China proper to unleash World War II in Asia.
After incorporating Austria and the Czech lands without having to resort to war in 1938 and 1939 and securing the neutrality of the Soviet Union, ruled by dictator Joseph Stalin, with a pact of nonaggression, Germany invaded Poland. The invasion, on September 1, 1939, initiated World War II in Europe. Having permitted Nazi Germany to destroy the interwar Czechoslovak state, Britain and France had guaranteed the integrity of Poland's borders in April 1939. They responded to the German invasion of Poland by declaring war on Germany on September 3. Within a month, German and Soviet forces conquered Poland and partitioned the Polish state.
The lull which followed the defeat of Poland ended on April 9, 1940, when German forces invaded Norway and Denmark. Denmark surrendered that day. Norway held out until early June before German forces could occupy the entire country. On May 10, 1940, Germany began its assault on western Europe by invading France and the neutral Low Countries (theNetherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg). The Low Countries were under German occupation by the end of May. On June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany. The armistice provided for the German occupation of the northern half of France and permitted the establishment of a collaborationist regime in the south with its seat in Vichy. From July 10 to October 31, 1940, the Germans waged, and ultimately lost, an air war over England, known as the Battle of Britain.
In accordance with sphere of influence arrangements with Nazi Germany in 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland at the end of November 1939. After a bitterly fought winter war, the Soviets forced the Finns to cede territory along the northern shores of Lake Lagoda north of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and on the Arctic coastline in March 1940. With German encouragement, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 and annexed them in August 1940. The Soviets also seized Bessarabia and northern Bukovina from Romania in late June 1940.
Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940, and invaded southern France on June 21. Dissatisfied with Italy's share in the spoils at the armistice negotiations, Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini attacked Greece in October 1940 from Albania (which the Italians had seized in April 1939). The Italians also attacked British forces in Egypt from Italian-controlled Libya in late October 1940. Both adventures resulted in military disaster that required German intervention.
Germany enticed Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia in November 1940 and Bulgaria in March 1941 to join the Axis. In April 1941, Germany -- supported by Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria -- invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia. By mid-June, the Axis powers had subdued Greece. Out of the collapse of Yugoslavia arose the so-called Independent State of Croatia under the leadership of the fascist and terrorist Ustasa organization. The new state, which encompassed Bosnia and Herzegovina, formally joined the Axis on June 15. Germany occupied eastern Slovenia, the Serbian Banat and most of Serbia proper. Italy seized Istria and western Slovenia, attached Kosovo province to Albania, and occupied the Croat-Dalmatian coastline and Montenegro. Hungary annexed Backa in northeastern Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria occupied Macedonia and the Pirot province of Serbia. After permitting Bulgaria to occupy Greek Thrace, Germany and Italy divided Greece into occupation zones, with the Italians in the west and the Germans in the east.
On June 22, 1941, the Germans and their Axis partners (except Bulgaria) invaded the Soviet Union in direct violation of the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Finland, seeking redress for its defeat in the winter war of 1939-1940, joined the Axis and the German invasion. By the end of October 1941, German troops had advanced deep into the Soviet Union, overrunning the Baltic states and laying siege to Leningrad in the north; capturing Smolensk and marching on Moscow in the center; and capturing Kiev (Kyiv) and approaching Rostov on the mouth of the Don River in the south. Stiffening Red Army resistance in August and again in November 1941 prevented the Germans from capturing the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow. On December 6, 1941, Soviet troops launched a significant counteroffensive that drove the Germans permanently from the outskirts of Moscow.
One day later, on December 7, 1941, Japan, still engaged in warfare on the Chinese mainland, launched a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States immediately declared war on Japan. Great Britain followed suit. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. During the winter of 1941-1942, the Japanese attacked and conquered the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), and British Singapore. In the late spring and early summer of 1942, the British were able to halt the Japanese advance in Burma; and the U.S. soundly defeated the Japanese navy at Midway in the Pacific. In August 1942, U.S. forces halted the Japanese advance in the Pacific islands towards Australia at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
In May 1942, the British Royal Air Force carried out a raid on the German city of Köln (Cologne) with a thousand bombers, for the first time bringing war home to Germany. For the next three years, Allied air forces systematically bombed industrial plants and cities all over the Reich, reducing much of urban Germany to rubble by 1945.
In late 1942 and early 1943, Anglo-American forces achieved a series of significant military triumphs in North Africa. The failure of Vichy French armed forces to resist enabled the Allies to quickly occupy French North Africa to the Tunisian border within days of landings on the beaches of Morocco and Algeriaon November 8, 1942. It also triggered the German occupation of Vichy France on November 11, 1942. The British victory over the German Afrika Korps at El Alamein in Egypt in late October 1942 precipitated the flight of Axis military units west across Libya into eastern Tunisia. Trapped in Tunisia, the Axis forces in Africa, approximately 150,000 troops in all, surrendered in May 1943.
In June 1942, the Germans and their Axis partners resumed their offensive in the Soviet Union, reaching Stalingrad (Volgograd) on the Volga River, securing the Crimean peninsula, and penetrating deep into the Caucasus region by late September 1942. In November, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive northwest and southwest of Stalingrad that cut off the German forces in the city. On February 2, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets. The Germans mounted one more offensive at Kursk in July 1943, the biggest tank battle in history, but Soviet troops and tanks blunted the attack and assumed a military initiative that they would not again relinquish. By late 1943, the Germans were forced to evacuate the Caucasus and to relinquish Kiev.
In July 1943, the western Allies successfully landed in Sicily. This precipitated the decision of the Italian Fascist Party Grand Council to depose Mussolini. Led by Field Marshall Pietro Badoglio, the Italian Army took advantage of the political vacuum to overthrow the Fascist regime, replacing it with a military dictatorship. In early September, just prior to the landing of Anglo-American forces in Salerno near Naples, the Badoglio government surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on September 8. German troops stationed in Italy seized control of northern Italy, and continued to resist. Mussolini, who had been arrested by Italian military authorities, was rescued by SS commandos in September and established (under German supervision) a neo-Fascist puppet regime in northern Italy.
The Allies successfully landed near Anzio, just south of Rome, but were not able to capture Rome until early June 1944. German troops continued to occupy northern Italy, and resisted tenaciously until they surrendered on May 2, 1945. After the liberation of Rome, Allied air forces could bomb German targets in eastern Europe, such as the synthetic fuel and rubber plants at Auschwitz-Monowitz in Silesia.
On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), over 150,000 Allied soldiers landed on the Normandy beaches of France. Trapped on the Normandy coast for six weeks, the British and Americans broke loose on July 25 and liberated Paris by August 25. On September 11, 1944, the first U.S. troops crossed into Germany. By December, all of France, most of Belgium, and part of the southern Netherlands had been liberated.
On June 22, 1944, Soviet forces destroyed the German Army Group Center in Eastern Belorussia. They swept west to the Vistula River across from Warsaw by August 1, 1944. In early August, Soviet troops, having conquered the eastern Romanian province of Bessarabia, appeared on the Prut River and prepared to strike into the heart of Romania, precipitating a Romanian surrender on August 23. The Bulgarians surrendered on September 8, 1944. These developments forced the Germans to evacuate Greece, Albania, and southern Yugoslavia. To forestall Hungarian government efforts to pursue a separate peace, Germany had occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944. Germany had then, in October, sponsored a coup d'état of the radical Arrow Cross Party to prevent another Hungarian effort to surrender. Finally, the appearance of Soviet troops on the Finnish border induced the Finns to sue for an armistice on September 12, 1944. In August 1944, the underground Polish Home Army and the Slovak National resistance organizations rose against the Germans to liberate Warsaw and Slovakia from German rule; the Germans were able to quell both uprisings.
On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched an unsuccessful counterattack in Belgium and northern France, known as the Battle of the Bulge. By New Year's Day, British and U.S. troops had driven the Germans back into Germany. On January 12, 1945, the Soviets resumed the offensive, liberating Warsaw and western Poland. In December the Soviets had encircled Budapest, though the city did not fall until February 13, 1945. By early April, the Soviets had driven the remnants of the Arrow Cross regime out of Hungary and forced the surrender of the fascist Slovak Republic with the fall of Bratislava on April 4, 1945. On April 13, the Soviets captured Vienna, while Marshall Josip Tito's Partisans compelled the flight of the Ustasa leaders and the collapse of the so-called Independent State of Croatia.
In mid-February 1945, the Allies bombed Dresden, killing approximately 35,000 German civilians. U.S. troops crossed the Rhine River at Remagen on March 7, 1945. A final Soviet offensive on April 16, 1945, enabled Soviet forces to encircle Berlin. As Soviet troops fought their way towards the Reich Chancellery, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the western Allies at Reims and on May 9 to the Soviets in Berlin.
After clearing the Japanese from the Solomon Islands in November 1942, British and U.S. forces began slowly to move northward, island-hopping toward the Japanese mainland, while British forces worked with the Nationalist Chinese government to fight the Japanese in China. In a parallel campaign, the Chinese Communist movement fought the Japanese, while it defended itself against attacks from the Nationalists. In October 1944, U.S. troops landed in the Philippines; by May 1945, British and U.S. troops had conquered Okinawa, the last major Japanese base before the mainland itself. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, following with a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9. On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria. Less than a week later, on August 14, 1945, Japan agreed to surrender; the formal ceremony took place on September 2. World War II was over.
World War II resulted in an estimated 55 million deaths worldwide. While many of the following statistics are subject to variation in the available source material, they serve as benchmarks for estimates. In battle, the United States lost 292,129 dead and 139,709 missing in action. The Soviet Union suffered 8,668,400 dead and another 4,559,000 missing. Germany lost 2,049,872 dead and 1,902,704 missing. China lost 1,324,516 dead and 115,248 missing. Japan lost 1,506,000 dead and 810,000 missing. Great Britain lost 397,762 dead and 90,188 missing.
The large number of civilian dead was equally appalling. The Soviet Union lost 14,012,000 civilians, including between 1.0 and 1.5 million Jews. China lost more than a million civilians; while Poland lost nearly five million civilians, including nearly three million Jews.
The Holocaust took place in the broader context of World War II. Still reeling from Germany's defeat in World War I, Hitler's government envisioned a vast, new empire of "living space" (Lebensraum) in eastern Europe. The realization of German dominance in Europe, its leaders calculated, would require war.
1939
After securing the neutrality of the Soviet Union (through the August 1939German-Soviet Pact of nonaggression), Germany started World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3. Within a month, Poland was defeated by a combination of German and Soviet forces and was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
1940
The relative lull in fighting which followed the defeat of Poland ended on April 9, 1940, when German forces invaded Norwayand Denmark. On May 10, 1940, Germany began its assault on western Europe by invading the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), which had taken neutral positions in the war, as well as France. On June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany, which provided for the German occupation of the northern half of the country and permitted the establishment of a collaborationist regime in the south with its seat in the city of Vichy.
With German encouragement, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 and formally annexed them in August 1940. Italy, a member of the Axis (countries allied with Germany), joined the war on June 10, 1940. From July 10 to October 31, 1940, the Nazis waged, and ultimately lost, an air war over England, known as the Battle of Britain.
1941
After securing the Balkan region by invading Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6, 1941, the Germans and their allies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in direct violation of the German-Soviet Pact. In June and July 1941, the Germans also occupied the Baltic states. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin then became a major wartime Allied leader, in opposition to Nazi Germany and its Axis allies. During the summer and autumn of 1941, German troops advanced deep into the Soviet Union, but stiffening Red Army resistance prevented the Germans from capturing the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow. On December 6, 1941, Soviet troops launched a significant counteroffensive that drove German forces permanently from the outskirts of Moscow. One day later, on December 7, 1941, Japan (one of the Axis powers) bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States immediately declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States as the military conflict widened.
1942-1943
In May 1942, the British Royal Air Force carried out a raid on the German city of Cologne with a thousand bombers, for the first time bringing war home to Germany. For the next three years, Allied air forces systematically bombed industrial plants and cities all over the Reich, reducing much of urban Germany to rubble by 1945. In late 1942 and early 1943, the Allied forces achieved a series of significant military triumphs in North Africa. The failure of French armed forces to prevent Allied occupation of Morocco and Algeria triggered a German occupation of collaborationist Vichy France on November 11, 1942. Axis military units in Africa, approximately 150,000 troops in all, surrendered in May 1943.
On the eastern front, during the summer of 1942, the Germans and their Axis allies renewed their offensive in the Soviet Union, aiming to capture Stalingrad on the Volga River, as well as the city of Baku and the Caucasian oil fields. The German offensive stalled on both fronts in the late summer of 1942. In November, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad and on February 2, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets. The Germans mounted one more offensive at Kursk in July 1943, the biggest tank battle in history, but Soviet troops blunted the attack and assumed a military predominance that they would not again relinquish during the course of the war.
In July 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily and in September went ashore on the Italian mainland. After the Italian Fascist Party's Grand Council deposed Italian premier Benito Mussolini (an ally of Hitler), the Italian military took over and negotiated a surrender to Anglo-American forces on September 8. German troops stationed in Italy seized control of the northern half of the peninsula, and continued to resist. Mussolini, who had been arrested by Italian military authorities, was rescued by German SS commandos in September and established (under German supervision) a neo-Fascist puppet regime in northern Italy. German troops continued to hold northern Italy until surrendering on May 2, 1945.
1944
On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), as part of a massive military operation, over 150,000 Allied soldiers landed in France, which was liberated by the end of August. On September 11, 1944, the first US troops crossed into Germany, one month after Soviet troops crossed the eastern border. In mid-December the Germans launched an unsuccessful counterattack in Belgium and northern France, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Allied air forces attacked Nazi industrial plants, such as the one at the Auschwitz camp (though the gas chambers were never targeted).
1945
The Soviets began an offensive on January 12, 1945, liberating western Poland and forcing Hungary (an Axis ally) to surrender. In mid-February 1945, the Allies bombed the German city of Dresden, killing approximately 35,000 civilians. American troops crossed the Rhine River on March 7, 1945. A final Soviet offensive on April 16, 1945, enabled Soviet forces to encircle the German capital, Berlin. As Soviet troops fought their way towards the Reich Chancellery, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies at Reims and on May 9 to the Soviets in Berlin. In August, the war in the Pacific ended soon after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 120,000 civilians. Japan formally surrendered on September 2.
World War II resulted in an estimated 55 million deaths worldwide. It was the largest and most destructive conflict in history.
Further Reading
Berthon, Simon, and Joanna Potts. Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-Creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006.
Bess, Michael. Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2006.
Chickering, Roger, Stig Fo¨rster, and Bernd Greiner. A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2005.
Plowright, John. The Causes, Course, and Outcomes of World War Two. England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Weinberg, Gerhard L.Hitler's Foreign Policy: The Road to World War II, 1933-1939.New York: Enigma, 2005.
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Production Development: Christine Outram, Peter Hirshberg, Anoush Rima Tatevossian Animation: Filippo Camedda Voice Over: Alice Kariuki Voice Editing: Rosie Starr
“Dear Sir, my children, relatives and citizens are protected by your blessings, either at home or in the jungle.” (Dasharatha speaking to Vishvamitra, Janaki Mangala, 25)
Now the election is over. The group you wanted support from came through and pushed you across the finish line. Ah, but governing is a totally different story. The groups that supported you now want their favors returned. Thus you have to appoint connected people to important posts and pass legislation specifically targeted to their interests. The groups in question may be benefitted, and you may have been helped by getting elected, but the welfare of your family, children and most importantly, citizens, is not guaranteed through this practice.
Well, Vishvamitra’s dedication to austerity is what makes him most eligible for being heard from. He doesn’t have any possessions. He calls the forest his home and the holy name of the Lord his wealth. Abandoning a life of sensual pursuits, exalted sages like Vishvamitra prefer the quiet surroundings of the forest, where they can worship God fully and thus remain enlightened. From connecting with God one acquires the knowledge necessary to survive in any situation. A special interest group looks for a benefit that temporarily aids their situation, but life has much more important things than mere bodily maintenance. The form accepted at the time of birth will eventually be renounced, but the spirit soul, the vital force within, is always there. Its needs take precedent over the body’s.
Dasharatha had fatherly affection for Rama, the eldest of his four sons. As a lesson to us all, Dasharatha showed that even attachment to family members can be renounced for a higher purpose. Vishvamitra’s desires and instruction were beneficial to everyone, regardless of where they were living. If Rama were in the forest or in the royal palace, the sage’s favor would protect Him nonetheless. The hidden secret was that Rama was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, 
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