In the spring of 1940, the war raging in Europe showed no signs of lessening. The German blitzkrieg (“lightening war”) had torn through Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and, finally, France. Mussolini declared war against France and Britain in June, while Japan negotiated a formal alliance with Germany and Italy. In the face of a truly world war, the United States, convinced of its safety (guaranteed by an ocean’s separation from the fighting to the east and west) and terrified at the prospect of a repeat of World War I, maintained a precarious position of neutrality. Fresh from a remarkable reelection to a third term as president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced a daunting challenge: responding to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s requests for aid without involving America in the conflict. His solution was the Lend-Lease Act, which would allow Britain to borrow war materials from the United States with the understanding that they would be returned (or replaced with other goods) after the war. In his Four Freedoms Message to Congress on January 6, 1941, Roosevelt not only made the case for American aid to Britain but also equated Lend-Lease with preserving “four essential human freedoms” that were universal to humankind.