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Oil Discovery
The city of Galveston had a rough entrance to the 20th century. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 ripped apart the whole city, killing several thousand. In 2001, an oil rig on a hill called Spindletop had great success. After a while, they had so much oil that a barrel of oil was cheaper than a cup of coffee. This oil discovery caused boomtowns and great population increase, causing the boom and bust cycle, with boomtowns becoming rich and poor and rich again over and over -
Oil Discovery, part 2
During the boom and bust cycles, petrochemicals became more popular. These were chemicals made out of oil. These are common throughout everyday life, actually. With all of these economic advances, population grew quickly. A lot of other stuff also happened, but these are some of the basics -
WWI
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. This started WWI for the rest of the world. We in the USA didn't join yet. We had our own issues. Poncho Villo was going around killing Texans because he was mad at us. This was part of why we joined the war -
WWI part 2
On May 7th, 1915, German u-boats sunk the Lusitania. This angered us even more. After that, Germany sent the Zimmerman Telegram, which sent us into the war. Eventually, Europe split apart. The Allied powers against the Triple Alliance, which was actually more than 3 countries. These two sides fought, and the war ended on November 11, 1918. -
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era was a time of great change. We went through lots of change and reforms. The Prohibition movement was started because people believed alcohol to lead to bad decisions, crime and other things. This led to the 18th amendment, which banned all alcohol, and is now ineffective. We also had the movement for women's suffrage, which led up to the 19th amendment. -
Progressive Era Part 2
We had many other movements in this time. Segregation was a problem, so that was addressed. We also had the Grange, an organization meant to keep railroad companies from being rude to farmers and helping farmers in general. The populist party was also going around, doing things that the public wanted. James Hogg was the leader. -
The Great Depression
The Stock Markett Crash of 1929 was a blow to the economy. The market crashed, starting the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl took out the agricultural industry. This was a lot of dust storms caused by a drought killing plants, which loosened the soil. -
Great Depression part 2
IN 1932, FDR was elected president through promise of a way out of the depression. These "New Deal" programs were meant to give jobs to the unemployed. There were multiple assosciations built to stopping the Dust Bowl and oulling us out of the depresstion. In 1936, Mount Rushmore was finished. This magnificent monument has the faces of 4 of our old presidents on it -
WWII
ON December 7th, 1941, Japan suddenly bombed a military base known as Pearl Harbor. They suddenly bombed us and killed many. This Threw us into WWII. After several years, we reached a turning point. On D-Day, we changed the entire war. -
WWII Part 2
Germany eventually surrenderd in 1945. On August 6, 1945, we dropped a nuke on Hiroshima. 2 days later, we dropped a second nuke on Nagasaki. These caused Japan to surrender. On September 2nd, 1945, Japan surrendered, ending the war.
