World War II was the bloodiest war in human history. Its casualties alone earned it that title, but it’s also important to examine the events of the war that led to it being the deadliest. I invite you to join me in examining a few of the events that occurred last week in the war and what their effects on the modern world are, if any.

1939

On Sept. 10, the Battle of the Atlantic began.

Over the course of the war, shipping from America would cross the dark stretches of the ocean to the United Kingdom, providing the island nation with the resources to continue fighting. While these nations had the naval power to combat Germany, there was one ace Germany had up its sleeve: the U-boat, the word Germany used for its submarines.

With the country’s limited naval production capacity, the U-boats’ cheap production costs made it Germany’s best weapon for attacking Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

In response, the Allies developed significant improvements to the sonar system they used, which was an instrument mounted to the hulls of ships that sent out sound waves to gather data about what lay below the surface.

It was thanks to this technology that U-boats could be spotted more easily than ever before, but it also led to something else that we still use to this day.

While mapping the Atlantic and oceans in general had been a task since the age of sailing ships, sonar allowed for a far clearer picture than any other method. This led to researchers developing a proper image of the ocean floor and allowed the installation of infrastructure that we still use to this day.

While the first transatlantic cable was installed in 1858, a vital piece of infrastructure that powers the modern world was installed in 1988, the first fiber-optic undersea cable. This allowed for the creation of the internet between America and Europe and it’s an invention that requires no explanation for its significance—you wouldn’t be reading this without it, after all.

Today, the oceans are mapped mostly by grids of lasers or other forms of light projection, but it’s thanks to the efforts of those who developed the technology to face an underwater threat that the technology is here at all.

1940

On the seventh of September, the Germans began their bombing raids over London, officially starting the Battle of Britain.

Germany’s naval capacity was far too weak for an amphibious assault across the English Channel, so after the Fall of France, they left the job to their air force to cripple the spirit of the British population into surrendering.

For 57 consecutive nights, the Germans would bomb the British capital and they would continue to bomb the country until around April of 1941, even though the Battle of Britain would “officially” end on October 31, 1940, according to a pamphlet published by the British Air Ministry.

During this time, Britain relied heavily on its radar defense system, commonly referred to as “Chain Home” stations, to give them enough time to intercept German bombers. Over 40 stations were constructed by the war’s end and it was during this period that the importance of proper radar was realized.

It goes without saying that military radar benefited from these developments, but there’s another, far more civilian use that we see more often: weather radars.

Weather radars essentially began because of World War II. Radar operators discovered how the weather can mask enemy movements and sought to add filters and improvements to deny the enemy any advantages.

Soon after the war, the effects on radars caused by storms were studied, and in 1953, the first recorded observation of a tornadic thunderstorm was made by a man named Donald Staggs in Champaign, Illinois. It wasn’t until September of 1961—almost twenty years exactly after the Battle of Britain—that a live television broadcast of the weather would be made.

As of today, networks of radar stations to monitor the weather are installed in most developed countries, becoming the go-to method for weather observation.

1941

On Sept. 8, German forces completed their encirclement of the Soviet city of Leningrad and the Siege of Leningrad began.

Situated in the northwest of the Soviet Union, the city was a vital supply line for the armies of the entire region and was one of the three main cities in the western Soviet homeland, the others being Moscow and Stalingrad.

It had come under German fire only three months after their planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa and it would not be relieved until almost 900 days later on January 27, 1944.

In the summers of 1942 and 1943, barges full of supplies would cross the lakes that surrounded the city and in the winters, sleds would cross the frozen lakes. But, with a siege that long in a city that experienced the worst winter had to offer, the living conditions in the city deteriorated rapidly despite the best efforts of relief teams.

It is estimated that half a million died from the bombardments alone and the famines that swept the city and its surrounding villages brought the death toll beyond a million and a half.

By casualty count alone, it is the most lethal siege in human history.

As for today, the city is now called St. Petersburg, but the change in name after the fall of the communist regime didn’t change how its history is celebrated. Every year on January 27, a military parade marches through Palace Square. In it are a few reenactors wearing period-appropriate clothing and also an escort of Soviet tanks built during the war.

1942

On Sept. 9, a Japanese submarine launched its single floatplane over the Oregon coast and dropped incendiary bombs in the nearby forests.

Unknown to most, there were attacks on continental America during World War II, but their impact was negligible. Compared to the convoy hunting of the German U-boats in the Atlantic, the Japanese used their submarines more as strike platforms to attack land installations and warships.

This specific attack by the Japanese submarine I-25 marked the start of the last of these attacks on the American homeland, with its second and final attempt later in the month on September 29. On both attempts, the floatplane dropped incendiary bombs in forests across Oregon, but previous rainfall meant the attacks did little to no damage. However, this was a unique event in the war since these two attacks “were the first ever aerial bombardment of the United States mainland and the only such bombardments of World War II.”

As stated above, these attacks, which were ultimately intended to cause fear in the American population, had no significant impact on the war or lasting effects on the nation. It wouldn’t be until far later in the war that any Japanese fire-bombings would cause deaths, but those were from balloons carrying incendiary ordinance and not aircraft.

As for monuments related to these submarine attacks, there is one in Ellwood, California, dedicated to an attack on an oil field there on February 23, 1942. The attack resulted in no casualties and caused minimal to no damage to the oil field.

1943

On Sept. 8, the Italian government announced its unconditional surrender to Allied forces.

Italy in World War II was considered “the soft underbelly of Europe” by Winston Churchill and it was indeed the first Axis nation to fall.

The fall of Sicily earlier in August caused a tremendous shift in the political landscape of the nation, so much so that Benito Mussolini, Italy’s dictator, was removed from power and replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio in the regions under Allied control.

In response to the surrender, German troops were moved from the eastern front to install Mussolini as a puppet dictator in the north of Italy. The frontline would never move past the northern portion of the country, but he would still be executed by partisans on April 28, 1945, almost a week before Germany would surrender.

Italy after the war wouldn’t fall under the same level of occupation that Germany did, mostly because there was already an Allied-backed government ready to take control and because no communist forces reached that region of Europe.

Several communist partisan groups that were already in the region clashed with the democratic parties. However, with the formation of the Italian Republic in 1946, the start of the Cold War, and the U.S.-sponsored Marshall Plan being underway, the anti-communist sentiment was at an all-time high and the communist party never gained a significant foothold.

Italy emerged from the Cold War in a series of political and economic unrest and the next several decades for the country involved a series of reforms. The Cold War was over, but its effects were still present in the nation.

Today, Italy celebrates its freedom from fascism every year on June 2-3 in “Festa della Repubblica,” or Italian Republic Day, and it continues to prosper far more than it had in the past, albeit with the modern problems of the modern world to deal with.

1944

On Sept. 7, the first two of Germany’s V-2 rockets were fired at Paris, France.

The Germans during World War II had a long list of “Vergeltungswaffe,” or retaliation weapon, programs over the course of the war. The first of these was the V-1, which was the first cruise missile ever built and then the V-2 followed and improved upon the formula.

The V-2 rockets launched from sites in Germany and were intended for Allied cities, often a nation’s capital. They were intended to cause significant damage to the Allied war efforts, but even though thousands of civilians died and around 3,000 V-2s were launched, they had little effect on the war.

The success of the V-2 rockets came after the war, when Allied and Communist forces raced to gather as many of the revolutionary rockets and scientists as they could.

One scientist was Wernher Von Braun. He surrendered to the Americans later in 1944 and continued working for them for close to twenty years, aiding in the development of some of the nation’s first ballistic missiles.

Braun would also be an advocate for space exploration and would help create several of the rockets used to launch the first missions skyward.

Today, while there are many museums in the nation that record the history of space exploration, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, has special mentions of Braun from when he worked in the city.

It is, therefore, an odd twist of history that we have the Second World War to thank for our journeys into space and our advancement into the missile age.