place_of_death michael dertouzos
World War II ( often abbreviated to WWII or WW2 ), also known as the Second World War , was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945 , although related conflicts began earlier . It involved the vast majority of the world ' s nations  including all of the great powers  eventually forming two opposing military alliances : the Allies and the Axis . It was the ___MASK90___ widespread war in history , and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries . In a state of " total war ", the major participants threw their entire economic , industrial , and scientific capabilities behind the war effort , erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources . Marked by mass deaths of civilians , including the Holocaust ( in which approximately 11 million people were killed ) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres ( in which approximately one million were killed , and which included the atomic bombings of ___MASK13___ and Nagasaki ), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities . These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history . Michael Leonidas Dertouzos ( Greek :    ) ( November 5 , 1936 - August 27 , 2001 ) was a Professor at the ___MASK32___ Institute of Technology and Director of the M . I . T . Laboratory for Computer Science ( LCS ) from 1974 to 2001 . During Dertouzos ' s term , LCS innovated in a variety of areas , including RSA encryption , the spreadsheet , the NuBus , the X Window System , and the Internet . Dertouzos was instrumental in defining the World Wide Web Consortium and bringing it to MIT . He was a firm supporter of the GNU Project , Richard Stallman , and the FSF , and their continued presence at MIT . In 1968 , he co - founded Computek , Inc . , a manufacturer of graphics and intelligent terminals with Marvin C . Lewis and Dr . Huber Graham . Dertouzos was a graduate of Athens College and attended the University of Arkansas on a Fulbright Scholarship . He received his Ph . D . from M . I . T . in 1964 and joined the M . I . T . faculty . He was buried at the First Cemetery of Athens . ___MASK56___ is a city in ___MASK20___ County , Massachusetts , United States , in the ___MASK70___ metropolitan area . The ___MASK32___ Institute of Technology ( MIT ) is a private research university in ___MASK56___ , ___MASK32___ . Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States , MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering . Researchers worked on computers , radar , and inertial guidance during World War II and the Cold War . Post - war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian . The current campus opened in 1916 and extends over along the northern bank of the Charles River basin . A research university is a university that expects all its tenured and tenure - track faculty to continuously engage in research , as opposed to merely requiring it as a condition of an initial appointment or tenure . Such universities can be recognized by their strong focus on innovative research and the prestige of their brand names . On the one hand , research universities strive to recruit faculty who are the ___MASK90___ brilliant minds in their disciplines in the world , and their students enjoy the opportunity to learn from such experts . On the other hand , new students are often disappointed to realize their undergraduate courses at research universities are overly academic and fail to provide vocational training with immediate " real world " applications ; but many employers value degrees from research universities because they know that such coursework develops fundamental skills like critical thinking . The ___MASK12___ ( sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles ) is an long river in eastern Massachusetts . From its source in Hopkinton the river flows in a northeasterly direction ( after first coursing due south through Milford ), traveling through 23 cities and towns before reaching the ___MASK25___ at ___MASK70___ . The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the Soviet ___MASK76___ and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ). Historians do not fully agree on the dates , but a common timeframe is the period ( the second half of the 20th century ) between 1947 , the year the Truman Doctrine ( a U . S . policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism ) was announced , and 1991 , the year the Soviet ___MASK76___ collapsed .