War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Key Battles of World War II in Europe, our 10,000-foot survey of the

Second World War in Europe and the areas around it.

I'm your host, James Early, as always, and my co-host, as always, is Sean McIver.

Now, in our last four episodes, we've been in the Western Front. We took the war all the way

from the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, through the breakout, through the first quick, and then

slowed down advance of the Western allies

toward Germany.

And then with last episode, of course, we talked about the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's

last gambit, which didn't really pay off for him.

Now we are going to go back to the east.

We haven't been in the Eastern Front in quite a while, and we're going to look at the

collapse of the Reich, but we're not

going to actually talk about the Soviet advance into Germany just yet. We're going to save that for

next time. This time, we're going to talk about Soviet campaigns and other parts of Eastern Europe,

including Finland, Poland, and the Balkans, and then we are going to look at the Yalta Conference.

All right. Sean, you're ready to go? I'm ready to go. Sean is always ready. Yeah, always

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