1930s - 1960s

  • J.Edgar Hoover Becomes Head of the FBI

    J. Edgar Hoover is named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI) on May 10, 1924. By the end of the year he was officially promoted to director. This began his 48-year tenure in power, during which time he personally shaped American criminal justice in the 20th century.
  • Mein Kampf is Published

    Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926
  • Kristallnacht

    Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening.
  • Stock Market Crash Begins Great Depression

    The stock market crash of 1929 – considered the worst economic event in world history – began on Thursday, October 24, 1929, with skittish investors trading a record 12.9 million shares. On October 28, dubbed “Black Monday,” the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 13 percent.
  • The Dust Bowl Begins

    The Dust Bowl, also known as “the Dirty Thirties,” started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer. Severe drought hit the Midwest and Southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931.
  • Adolf Hitler Become Chancellor of Germany

    Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945.
  • Franklin Roosevelt is Elected President (1st Time)

    n the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide. Roosevelt took office in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in U.S. history.
  • CCC is Created

    Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, with an executive order on April 5, 1933. The CCC was part of his New Deal legislation, combating high unemployment during the Great Depression by putting hundreds of thousands of young men to work on environmental conservation projects.
  • WPA is Created

    Roosevelt on April 8, 1935. On May 6, 1935, FDR issued executive order 7034, establishing the Works Progress Administration. The WPA superseded the work of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which was dissolved.
  • J.J. Braddock Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title

    Image result for J.J. Braddock Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title
    Instead, on June 13, 1935, at Madison Square Garden Bowl, Braddock won the Heavyweight Championship of the World as the 10-to-1 underdog in what was called "the greatest fistic upset since the defeat of John L. Sullivan by Jim Corbett"
  • Olympic Games in Berlin

    The Summer Olympic Games open in Berlin, attended by athletes and spectators from countries around the world. The Olympic Games were a propaganda success for the Nazi government, as German officials made every effort to portray Germany as a respectable member of the international community.
  • Grapes of Wrath is Published

    the Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962
  • Wizard of Oz Premiers in Movie Theaters

    When a tornado rips through Kansas, Dorothy (Judy Garland) and her dog, Toto, are whisked away in their house to the magical land of Oz. They follow the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wizard, and en route they meet a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) that needs a brain, a Tin Man (Jack Haley) missing a heart, and a Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) who wants courage. The wizard asks the group to bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) to earn his help.
  • Germany Invades Poland

    Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe. German forces broke through Polish defenses along the border and quickly advanced on Warsaw, the Polish capital.
  • The Four Freedoms Speech

    The four freedoms he outlined were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.