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In 1937 Japan attacked Chinese cities without declaring war. In the midst of the fighting the Japanese sank the American gunboat Panay when their warplanes were over the Chang river. The U.S saw this as a horrible act of cruelty.
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Congress passes the Neutrality Act of 1939 which allowed all other nations to buy goods and weapons. The consumers had to pay in cash and carry their merchandise on their own ships. Because Britain had much control of the seas, this was a benefit to the allies.
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Congress passed the selective service act. this allowed for the training of about 1.2 million soldiers and 800,000 reserves annually.
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President Roosevelt gave 50 battleships to Britain in exchange for 8 British defense bases. Britain needed the ships to carry goods across the Atlantic but President Roosevelt explained he believed it was an emergency measure, and made the deal without congress.
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Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in 1776 which allowed Roosevelt to exchange, sell, lend,lease, or dispose of to any items that could help any government that they saw fit to benefit the defense of the United states.
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America and Britain signed the Atlantic Charter in 1941 which provided a set of goals for after the war was over and provided an image of a world that these countries wanted without Hitler. This showed how the alliance between America and Britain had strengthened.
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Hitler ordered German submarines to attack American ships. Germans shot at many ships and sunk the USS Reuben James, killing hundreds of people. This brought America closer to declaring war.
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Germany declared war on the Soviet Union who were allied with the U.S. President Roosevelt had given orders to attack German submarines on sight. War between the Axis powers and the Allied powers was unavoidable.
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In the Four Freedoms speech President Roosevelt stressed the importance of fighting for freedom of speech, freedom to worship god however you like, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. this speech changed many American mindsets out of strictly Isolationism.
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Four years after the Lend-Lease Act was passed 40 billion dollars of Aid funds had been given to the Allies, bringing America closer to not being a neutral nation.
