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.

Music James Early. Welcome back to Key Battles at the Pacific Theater of World War II.

This is your host, James Early.

And folks, we have reached the final episode in the series, at least the final regular episode.

Hint, hint.

I'll let you read between the lines on what I mean by that.

But this is the final episode in the actual series.

This is episode 35.

And this is one of our famous meta episodes where we're going to look back over the war and see what was the

legacy of it. As you may know, Scott and I did a series on the key battles of World War I some

time ago. And one thing we spoke about at the end of that series was how revolutionary the war was in that the world completely

changed. The world of 1914 and the world of, say, 1919, were completely different. So much

changed. With World War II, you could argue that even more changed. And that would be an interesting episode

to do. Scott, you're here with me, right, Scott? I am, yes. Okay, good. But maybe,

maybe that, that would be a great thing for history and plug, hint, hint, you know, maybe

comparing which one changed the world more, World War I or World War II.

...