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 to another episode of 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, I'm sure you remember, we are in the midst of a four-part mini-series of

epilogue episodes, and this is actually the last one. We're going to talk about how each side

won when they were winning. So we're going to reflect on the military

history of the war as a whole, and a lot of this material is review, basically. We've already

touched on some, if not all, the topics that we're going to discuss in this episode, but

our discussions, as you know, were scattered over several episodes. Today, we're going to put them all together.

We are going to attempt to answer the key questions of the war to help you understand how each side won the key battles and the campaigns of the war.

So, Sean, you ready for this?

Let's do it.

This is your tour to force.

This is your opportunity to really shine here.

So in this episode, at least for part of it, I'm going to kind of sit back and ask the questions, and Sean's going to provide the answer.

So it's almost like I'm interviewing Sean.

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