With nothing major on the national and international scene that hasn’t been covered already, allow to me answer the critics who whine that the Daily doesn’t do enough to educate its readers.

A survey done a few years ago indicated that 60 percent of high school seniors didn’t know who fought on which side during World War II.

Since all students here were at one time seniors in high school, permit me to provide a brief overview of World War II by condensing six years of bloody warfare into one short column.

First off, we have the major players.

The good guys were called the Allies, and they included England, France, Russia and the United States. The bad guys were made up of Germany, Italy and Japan, and they were called the Axis powers. If you can remember this, then you’re ahead of most high school seniors.

Officially, the war started when Germany invaded Poland in September of 1939 and France declared war on Germany in return. After ensuring a long legacy of “Polack” jokes, Hitler went after France.

Now, historians conclude that Hitler attacked France for making Germany pay for all the damage done during World War I, but I believe that Hitler just got pissed off at a snobbish French waiter during his last trip to Paris and decided to teach the froggie a lesson.

So Hitler attacked France and steamrolled the entire French army, which consisted of nothing more than snooty waiters armed with bottles of expensive wine. The German blitzkrieg (lightning war) was devastating.

In today’s terms, just imagine Desert Storm, except that instead of Stormin’ Norman you had a really short guy with a funny little mustache.

In record time, the Germans took Paris and imprisoned all the waiters. France was like Kuwait: They existed only on paper.

The only forces still fighting in France were the British, and they finally ran with their tails between their legs at the coastal city of Dunkirk.

This was mistake No. 1 for Hitler. Instead of kicking the Brits when they were down, he let them run away to fight another day.

After this, Adolf made THE colossal blunder, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d seen “The Princess Bride”: He started a land war in Asia.

Russia had been sitting out the war with a non-aggression pact they had signed with Hitler. They found themselves stabbed in the back in 1941. But the Russian Bear woke up from its hibernation and slowly wore down the German forces.

Not too long after that, Japan decided that Hawaii would make a great summer resort and bombed our Pacific fleet early one Sunday morning when everyone was either hungover or at church. The day was Dec. 7th, 1941.

The next day we declared war on Japan, and the other Axis Powers declared war on us in return. So we resolved to kick their asses as well and let our Navy deal with Japan until we finished off Hitler.

After chasing the Germans through Africa in what would later become the Baja 5,000, we used Africa as a staging base to invade Italy. Deprived of pasta, the Italians soon gave up.

Our forces then stormed the beach at Normandy in a major bloodbath called D-Day.

From there, we marched through France on our way to Berlin, happily shooting anything with a swastika. Our kick-ass Air Force embarked on a plan of strategic bombing against German breweries.

By the time we reached Berlin and linked up with the Soviets, Eva Braun had already complained of a headache and overdosed on aspirin. With no beer to console him, Adolf took his own life and Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.

In the Pacific, our Navy successfully sank anything that floated and then turned its attention to the Japanese islands. Determined to retake those beach-front resorts, we engaged in a policy of island hopping in which we moved from island to island, shooting everything that moved.

When we finally got close to Japan, we realized how costly it would be to retake the home islands. So we forced them to surrender by introducing them to the wonders of nuclear energy.

The Japanese surrendered less than a month later on Sept. 2, 1945.

Now, I realize I glossed over a whole lot of fine points and ignored some important events, but now you can at least consider yourself smarter now than you were five minutes ago. And maybe all those whiners will leave me alone now.

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Aaron Woell is a junior in political science from Bolingbrook, Ill.