Lists about life for soldiers and civilians alike during the Second Great War, which raged from 1939-1945.

WWII

Military

The European theater in WWII&nbsp;was such a mammoth and complex chapter in history, it&#39;s probably impossible to document every astonishing, horrifying, or heartbreaking story from that chaotic milieu.&nbsp;In such an enormous conflict, with so much at stake, it&#39;s inevitable some would go far beyond what seems&nbsp;conceivable with regards to compassion, malice, political convictions, or, in some cases, good old-fashioned weirdness.&nbsp;These lesser-known <a href="/list/ww2-photos-of-child-soldiers/gordon-cameron" target="_blank">World War&nbsp;II</a> stories are but a few examples of the rare heroism, astonishing cruelty, and bizarre improbability that marked one of the most momentous struggles in the history of civilization. Read on for some amazing true stories from WWII Europe.&nbsp;

14 Lesser-Known Stories From World War II That Should Be Made Into Movies

General

14 Mind Blowing Lost Stories from the European Theater of WWII

Phil Gibbons

Lists about the WWII genocide, also called the Shoah, in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany systematically murdered some 11 million people, including Poles, homosexuals, the disabled, and approximately 6 million European Jews.

The Holocaust

True Stories

Nazi death camps have received a great deal of attention in film and popular culture. Accounts of <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/people-who-hid-from-the-nazis/aaron-edwards">Holocaust survivors</a> and <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/photos-of-concentration-camps-in-the-holocaust/philgibbons">life in concentration camps</a> have been the basis of compelling&nbsp;stories&nbsp;factual&nbsp;and fictional. Yet the relative scarcity of true Holocaust stories underlines the difficulty of survival in the face of evil. Placed in a system designed to deliberately exterminate them, a lucky few concentration camp survivors lived to tell their stories against all odds.&nbsp;

There was a distinct difference between camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were extermination camps designed to systematically murder most&nbsp;prisoners upon arrival, and camps like Buchenwald, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen, which were meant to imprison political and social enemies of the Reich (many of whom were Jews who were worked to death).&nbsp;Despite the monumental death toll of the camps, accounts from Holocaust survivors have helped&nbsp;paint a&nbsp;harrowing,&nbsp;disturbing portrait&nbsp;of&nbsp;the reality of what life was really like in a Nazi concentration&nbsp;camp.

Holocaust Survivors Tell Haunting Stories Of Life In Concentration Camps

Firsthand Accounts of What Life Was Really Like in Concentration Camps

History

<a href="https://www.history.com/news/anne-frank-diary-symbol-holocaust" target="_blank">Anne Frank&#39;s story</a> was first published in 1947.&nbsp;Since then, the work now known as The Diary of Anne Frank&nbsp;has enthralled and touched people all over the world, becoming <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-required-reading-books/tamar-altebarmakian">required reading</a> in the process. Perhaps it&#39;s the personal feel of the manuscript that makes it so vital: It details&nbsp;the daily life&nbsp;of a&nbsp;young Jewish girl, who, along with her family and several other individuals, <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/people-who-hid-from-the-nazis/aaron-edwards">hid from the Nazis during WWII</a>&nbsp;in a secret&nbsp;annex in Amsterdam. Tragically, Frank&#39;s fate mirrors that of so many other individuals during the war. She and her companions were discovered and arrested&nbsp;on August 4, 1944.

What happened to everyone in The Diary of Anne Frank? What was the fate of her mother Edith and father Otto, and did Peter van Pels survive? The sad truth is that most of the people&nbsp;in The&nbsp;Diary&nbsp;of&nbsp;a&nbsp;Young&nbsp;Girl died&nbsp;in concentration camps. Their stories, as well as those of the heroic associates who risked their lives&nbsp;attempting to save them, provide a gripping&nbsp;microcosm of the horror, heartbreak, and oppression inflicted upon the people of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Fascinating Things Most People Don't Know About Anne Frank's Family

The Supporting Players In The Diary Of Anne Frank

On June 6, 1944, the D-Day invasion by Allied forces began in the French region of Normandy. What happened on D-Day, one of the largest military undertakings in world history, remains among the most remarkable stories of WWII. Facts about this endeavor, code&nbsp;named <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/wwii-secret-missions/philgibbons" target="_blank">Operation Overlord,</a>&nbsp;continue to amaze the public over 70 years after this momentous&nbsp;event. Here are some remarkable and surprising details about the D-Day invasion, the attack&nbsp;that was the beginning of the end of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/strange-hitler-facts/mike-rothschild" target="_blank">Nazi Reich</a> and ground zero for the&nbsp;onset of the struggle for the liberation of Europe. From <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/actors-who-fought-in-wwii/brian-guthrie" target="_blank">leading men you had no idea landed on D-Day</a> to sleeping Nazi leadership, the invasion that began the end of WWII is full of surprising, heroic, and heart-wrenching moments.

14 Facts About The D-Day Invasion Most People Don't Know

14 Facts About Operation Overlord And The D-Day Invasion

Lists about real and fictional spies, agents, operatives, and the very exciting, deceitful, and dangerous lives they lead.

I Spy

World History

It is not surprising that a global conflict like World War II generated so many amazing spy stories. Espionage has always been a business marked by deceit, betrayal, and frequently, death. The fate of a captured spy is usually brutal, and even relatively benign entities like the Allies dealt harshly with such individuals. Still, their treatment was relatively kind compared to the Nazis.

The remarkable World War II&nbsp;spy stories&nbsp;include <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/ww2-figures-tombstones/mallory-weiler" target="_blank">heroes and villains</a>, loyalists and traitors, and the greatest World War II spies that were motivated by duty, principle,&nbsp;or just plain money.

The Most Hardcore WWII Spy Stories You'll Ever Read

The 12 Most Badass WWII Spy Stories You'll Ever Read

From 1789 to 1799,  French revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy of the Ancien Régime, set up a republic, eliminated a lot of people, and drastically changed the course of human history.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

The French Revolution was one of the bloodiest events in modern history. Between 1789 and 1799, French men and women went through dramatic changes in their social and political systems: They overthrew a monarchical system built on aristocratic and church privilege and attempted to replace it with a more democratic vision of society. But hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in France paid for these political and social transformations with their lives.

Though most people associate French revolutionary violence with the guillotine - a new-fangled contraption that efficiently killed an individual by lopping off his or her head in a single slice&nbsp;- bloodshed happened throughout the revolution in different ways. People attacked one another on the streets, in prisons, and even in churches. Men and women <a href="/list/marie-antoinette-children/genevieve-carlton" target="_blank">in the royal family</a>, aristocracy, and the church were slain for their association with the Old Order. The lucky ones lost their heads. As the revolution progressed, various factions turned on each other; there was no single vision of a post-revolutionary world.

Was the entire French Revolution a bloody mess? Well, no. The French Revolution brought about important political and social changes that are still relevant today. But the fact remains that the revolution played out against a backdrop of violent upheaval.&nbsp;

Horrific French Revolution tales still have the power to shock and disturb even centuries after the events. These moments&nbsp;stand&nbsp;alongside <a href="/list/brutal-21st-century-rebellions-and-uprisings/peterdugre">brutal 21st-century rebellions</a>, <a href="/list/most-unforgivable-things-the-catholic-church-has-done/lea-rose-emery">horrible things done by the Catholic Church</a>, and <a href="/list/weird-torture-methods/justin-andress">terrible torture methods</a> as moments in history when the dark side of human nature was&nbsp;laid bare for all to see. This most violent revolution was not just about egalit&eacute;, fraternit&eacute;, and libert&eacute; - it was actually more like egalit&eacute;, libert&eacute;, and brutality.&nbsp;

The 14 Darkest Moments Of The French Revolution

The 14 Bloodiest, Most Horrific Moments of the French Revolution

Setareh Janda

Lists about how people had, judged, and treated intimacy around the world throughout recorded history.

The History of Doing It

Ancient History

Rarely have women in history played a more deliciously mysterious role than that of&nbsp;the 600 years of the Ottoman Empire, when what is modern-day Turkey and lands from the Balkans to Syria&nbsp;sat at the center of a great Empire. These were the days of the harem, when women - and girls as young as seven years old - were held in a secret world where they could be governed, educated, and primarily&nbsp;enjoyed by the sultan and his court.

But as slaves or subjects? Given as gifts or claimed as spoils of war, these women represented the caliphate&#39;s&nbsp;power, wealth, and sexual prowess. Just like a scene from Arabian Nights, daily life in an Ottoman harem&nbsp;was a life suspended in a secret paradise full of sensual delights - as well as endless rules, expectations, and boundaries. Derived from the Arabic word haram meaning sacred or forbidden, the harem was part of a legendary patriarchy that tried to bottle&nbsp;the essence of woman, capture it in all its glory, and use it solely for its own felicity.&nbsp;

A Glimpse Of Life In An Ottoman Sultan's Harem

What It Was Like To Be In An Ottoman Sultan's Harem

Jen Jeffers

A look behind the beautiful velvet robes, gold threads, marble statues, intoxicating incense, tasty body of Christ, and sinfully unforgiving dogma of the Catholic church.

The Dark Side of the Church

It&#39;s hard out here for a pope. See, when it comes to religious history, the list of Catholic Church transgressions makes for pretty uncomfortable reading. Despite exalting virtue&nbsp;and kindness in its&nbsp;teaching, church leadership has spearheaded a&nbsp;long history of outright unforgivable Catholic actions.

You might remember some of these improprieties&nbsp;from school -&nbsp;the Inquisition, Joan of Arc, and the trial of Galileo should all ring a bell. But not everything here is medieval. Though Vatican violence goes&nbsp;way back, a number&nbsp;of disturbing episodes are from recent history.&nbsp;Some of this repugnant behavior&nbsp;comes from popes, some was church-endorsed, and some, most unsettlingly, was&nbsp;just straight-up regular church practice.

Dark church history contains scandal after scandal rife with&nbsp;every vice and taboo you can imagine. When the church was at the&nbsp;<a href="http://reformedperspectives.org/newfiles/jac_arnold/CH.Arnold.CH.19.html">height of its power</a> (at which point it was the most powerful organization in the Western world), it&#39;s safe to say everything went to its&nbsp;head. Combine that with church leaders&nbsp;seeming to stubbornly resist adapting to changing&nbsp;morality and you&#39;ve&nbsp;got a whole lot of unforgivable moments on your hands.&nbsp;

15 Of The Most Absurd And Unforgivable Things The Catholic Church Has Ever Done

15 Absurd and Unforgivable Things the Catholic Church Has Done

Lea Rose Emery

Familial Relations

The chaos of&nbsp;the Habsburg&nbsp;family tree&nbsp;brought down the&nbsp;dynasty&nbsp;and is one of the most famous cases of royal inbreeding throughout history. The Habsburg&nbsp;line traces its&nbsp;roots&nbsp;to the Middle Ages&nbsp;and extended its influence through the early 20th&nbsp;century. Some of the most famous names in European history had links to the family: <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/marie-antoinette" target="_blank">Marie Antoinette</a>&nbsp;was a Habusburg, as was <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/royal-assassinations-that-changed-the-world/setareh-janda" target="_blank">Archduke Franz&nbsp;Ferdinand</a>, the man whose death triggered the start of World War I.Habsburg&nbsp;dynastic power reached its height in the 16th and 17th centuries. As the Spanish and Austrian lines of the House of Habsburg&nbsp;dominated Europe, they married one another and kept&nbsp;bloodlines pure. Cousins married cousins and&nbsp;uncles married nieces;&nbsp;keeping track of who was related to who in the complex matrix of the House of Habsburg inbreeding - not to mention how they were related -&nbsp;is mind-boggling to the modern observer.Habsburg&nbsp;inbreeding and intermarriage brought together bloodlines in a way that caused physical and mental <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/mutations-and-birth-defects-caused-by-royal-inbreeding/peterdugre" target="_blank">illnesses</a>, ultimately resulting in&nbsp;infertility on a <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/weird-royals-in-history/danielle-ownbey" target="_blank">royal</a> scale. Confusing and fascinating, the Habsburg&nbsp;dynasty inbred itself into oblivion.

How One Of The Most Powerful Families In History Destroyed Itself Through Inbreeding

The Saga Of The Habsburg Dynasty, A Royal House That Destroyed Itself Through Inbreeding

Melissa Sartore

Lists of fascinating facts and lesser-known details about the lives of people whose names you learned in History class (or should have).

Down in History

People Trivia

Mary, Queen of Scots (AKA Mary Stuart) is one of history’s most disastrous queens. From the time she became an <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/babies-who-took-the-throne/nida-sea">infant monarch</a>&nbsp;to her tragic demise, Mary attracted attention. And she still does. For centuries, novels, television shows (see the CW's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/all-reign-characters/reference">Reign</a> for an example), and even songs have reviled and romanticized her. So behind all the legends and mythology surrounding her, what are the important facts about Mary Stuart?Born in 1542 and killed in 1587, Mary’s four-and-a-half decades on Earth were as dramatic as they were tumultuous. She was a Scottish queen reared in France, a Catholic ruler to an increasingly Protestant kingdom, and a terrible judge of men&nbsp;–&nbsp;it seemed the deck was stacked against Mary at every turn.But if she had problems holding onto her throne, her cousin Elizabeth Tudor didn't&nbsp;make things any easier. Mary, Queen of Scots’s family tree revealed that she was a direct descendant of Henry VII and thus a claimant to Elizabeth I’s English throne. That fact loomed over their relationship:&nbsp;Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth were the original cousin frenemies. Their rivalry would end in death for the ill-fated Scottish queen.The biography of Mary, Queen of Scots is heartbreaking. She was a queen who only actually ruled Scotland for just shy of six&nbsp;years. But in those six&nbsp;years, enough drama and trauma ensued to ensure that she would go down in history as one of the most storied queens of all time.

14 Tragic Facts About Mary, Queen of Scots, The Most Unlucky Queen In History

14 Tragic Facts About Mary, Queen of Scots

Lists about real practices of witchcraft and the occult and their pointy-hatted, warty-nosed, buckle-shod, broom-ridin', high-pitched cacklin' depictions in media.

Witches Get Stitches

Most people have&nbsp;heard of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/salem-witch-trials" target="_blank">Salem Witch Trials</a> and know that in many cultures&nbsp;people have been sentenced to <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/people-executed-by-burning/wavy-gravey">death&nbsp;for heresy</a>. But what you might not know is that this is a practice that has been committed throughout human history and across the globe -&nbsp;it is even still practiced in some cultures today. But who were these witches? <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/weird-witch-tests/tamar-altebarmakian">Why were they killed</a>? The answers to these questions may be a bit morbid, but it&#39;s also hard to deny that they&#39;re downright fascinating.

If you&#39;ve looked into witch trials before, you might&#39;ve learned that the majority of these&nbsp;cases were pure hogwash -&nbsp;mass hysteria, political motives, and plain&nbsp;old hatred have all been used as reasons for&nbsp;an individual to be executed as a witch. However, in some rare cases, people killed as witches really did confess proudly to their crimes,&nbsp;and a&nbsp;few even committed acts so terrible, people assumed that they had to be supernatural.&nbsp;

So, keep in mind that a few of these stories are a little graphic, and climb aboard your boomstick&nbsp;as we look at the various souls who were killed for their witchy tendencies.

People Who Were Actually Killed For Being 'Witches'

Person

13 People Who Were Actually Killed for Being "Witches"

Laura Allan

Trending on Ranker

Like pretty much everything else ever, history&nbsp;is&nbsp;driven by two things: love and procreation. And as we all know, when more than two people are involved things can get complicated. Some of the most famous romances in history were love triangles between powerful individuals, creating tons of complicated dinners at home and awkward personal conversations.&nbsp;

From ancient Rome, where the many loves&nbsp;of Mark Antony (including his liaison with Cleopatra VII of Egypt) caused him to lose control over Rome to his brother-in-law, to seventeenth-century France, where&nbsp;notorious lothario Louis XIV pitted two of his best-known&nbsp;mistresses against one another, there are some deeply messed up love triangles throughout&nbsp;history. Ever wonder how much of the modern world has been shaped by people wanting to bone multiple partners? Of course you have.&nbsp;

9 Love Triangles That Drastically Changed World History

9 Love Triangles Throughout History That Greatly Impacted the World

Carly Silver

Lists about some of the most extraordinary women who made history, forever changing the world and how we see it.

Well-Behaved Women

You&#39;ve likely heard tales of Anne Boleyn, the alluring woman who convinced King <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-battles-of-henry-viii-of-england/reference?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Henry VIII of England</a> to give up his wife and child, break from the Catholic Church, and marry her. And she was the mother of one of the most renowned monarchs in British history, Elizabeth I.&nbsp;But there&#39;s a lot more to Anne than just her personal affairs, many of which were magnified or inaccurately portrayed by those with a political agenda after her death. So,&nbsp;who was Anne Boleyn really?

The life of Anne Boleyn was anything but boring.&nbsp;Anne was a brilliant, engaging young woman with the best education her family&#39;s position at court could provide. She served under many of the royal women in Europe, was&nbsp;known for her wit, and loved all things French. And once she married <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/violent-medieval-monarchs/carly-silver" target="_blank">King Henry VIII</a>, Anne did anything - absolutely anything - to keep her marriage intact. An Anne Boleyn biography might also mention her family&#39;s affairs with her husband, her religious fervor, and rumors that her ghost&nbsp;still haunts people. All in all, there are some weird Anne Boleyn facts.

18 Facts About The Dramatic Life Of Anne Boleyn

Strange Facts About Anne Boleyn

As long as men have been making history, women have been walking right beside them.

Herstory: Women of the Past

History often remembers women who seduced their way to power as so-called &quot;bad girls.&quot; These intriguing women disregarded the rules of respectable behavior, benefited from&nbsp;private relationships, and amassed everything from material goods to social standing to&nbsp;political influence. Critics and naysayers often vilified them as dangerous, sly sirens who relied on the power of seduction to manipulate and control the men in their lives. After all, power and influence were, more often than not, considered unbecoming for proper ladies, and those who achieved such goals were automatically suspect. Their private affairs were anything but private, forcing them to endure&nbsp;constant scrutiny&nbsp;and ridicule. To cope with this overexposure and vilification, they became femme fatales and were branded &quot;scarlet women&quot; for what people saw as their&nbsp;scandalous lives.

These scandalous ladies of yesteryear are more than historical seductresses &ndash;&nbsp;rather than&nbsp;bad girls, they were actually determined, innovative women who used one of the few tools they were allowed which&nbsp;afforded&nbsp;them any power &ndash; their sexuality&nbsp;&ndash; to gain advantages from relationships to influential men. For their affections, they received wealth, gifts, protections, privileges, and diverse roles. Though they were labeled scandalous&nbsp;during their lives and even in moder-day&nbsp;history books, they are examples of powerful women who were unwilling to play by the restrictive rules pushed upon them.

16 Bold Women In History Who Seduced Their Way To Power

16 Scandalous Women in History Who Seduced Their Way to Power

World War II&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/photos-of-concentration-camps-in-the-holocaust/philgibbons" target="_blank">concentration camp</a> liberation began on July 23, 1944, when Soviet soldiers entered the&nbsp;Majdanek&nbsp;camp in Poland. Efforts by multiple nations to find and free prisoners continued into 1945. However, the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/everyday-life-in-concentration-camps/philgibbons&nbsp;" target="_blank">story of the Holocaust</a> doesn't end with the liberation.Many recall the haunting pictures of prisoners in the camps, but&nbsp;there is more to these people's stories&nbsp;after the war. Sadly, many of the survivors who were found in places like Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz died shortly after being rescued&nbsp;due to disease, starvation, or suicide. Others survived and faced the long and difficult process of rebuilding their lives from scratch. For anyone who's ever wondered about the experiences these astonishing survivors went on to have, here are a few of the things concentration camp prisoners went on to do after the war.

What Happened To Concentration Camp Prisoners Immediately After Liberation?

What Happened To Prisoners Right After Concentration Camps Were Liberated?

Anna Lindwasser

Japanese History

The <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-famous-samurais/reference">samurai</a> were some of the most awe-inspiring warriors the world has ever known. Fiercely loyal to their lords, they would rather kill themselves than face dishonor. These men were highly trained, battle-hardened&nbsp;career soldiers who would fight to the death in an instant.

Or at least they were during the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-games-set-in-feudal-japan/ranker-games" target="_blank">Sengoku Period</a> (1467-1603). By the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867), a lot of them had become less militaristic and more bureaucratic. But they were still a powerful and formidable social class, so what force could take down these aristocratic warriors who had ruled Japan for over 700 years?

The decline and fall of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/awesome-samurai-stories/justin-andress">samurai</a>&nbsp;came slowly, and as the result of many smaller moves that transitioned feudal Japan into a more modern country. Gradual modernization, and major events like the Satsuma Rebellion and the establishment of Meiji Japan, ultimately signaled the last days of warrior culture and&nbsp;the end of the samurai way of life.

How The Samurai Went Extinct

How The Samurai Were Wiped Out In Japan

Christopher Myers

World History lists at Ranker - The ultimate source for hundreds of world history lists and rankings

World History lists on Ranker

Saving Private Ryan

Band of Brothers

Schindler's List

Looking closer at some of the best, most realistic, most brutal depictions of war in the history of entertainment.

Wars on Screen

Looking closer at films, TV shows, docs, and miniseries that explore, recreate, and occasionally flub up real historical events.

Watching History

Entertainment

The best World War 2 movies remind us that perhaps no single event has had a greater impact on the future of filmmaking than World War II. It arrived at the dawn of a new era in glossy, professional mainstream filmmaking, and it affected literally every facet of daily life in North America, Europe, and Asia, where most of the world&#39;s films were being produced. World War 2 has remained a constant subject of fascination for filmmakers from the 1940s to the present day. A few of these WW2 films are even based on a true stories.

Though &quot;WWII Films&quot; could be classified as a separate genre from the general heading of &quot;War Movies,&quot; they take on a lot of different styles, forms and tones. There are authentic WWII recreations, epic takes on the history of the entire period, personal stories about the soldiers, spies, revolutionaries and resistance fighters who fought the war and, naturally, sagas about the civilians of the time whose lives were forever changed by the conflict.

Many of the WW2 films on this list - from &quot;Patton&quot; to &quot;Casablanca&quot; to &quot;Saving Private Ryan&quot; - have secured their place among the most famous films of all time. Which of these good films are the best? Rerank your own list to nominate your favorites for this CrowdRanked collection of the best <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/all-world-war-2-movies-or-list-of-world-war-2-movies/all-genre-movies-lists">WWII films</a>, and then be sure to vote on your favorites. Also check out this list of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/top-war-movies">best war movies ever</a>&nbsp;and the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-war-movies-on-netflix/ranker-streaming" target="_blank">best war movies on Netflix</a>.