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U.S. Stock Market Crash
U.S. corporations and banks plus millions of Americans had invested and borrowed all theri money into the stock market, and at the end of the decade, the Federal Reserve Bank tried to slow speculation by tightening credit. Brokers had to demand money immediately from clients, and as everyone went to re-claim their money, the stock market crashed from $87 billion to $30 billion. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression caused the governments to institute budget cuts and high tariffs which only discouraged further spending and international trade. Creditors confiscated farms and equipment, 700,000 Polish landowners fell into debt, and all countries of the world were somehow effected. It endangered Japanese economy as the need for raw materials went way down, and colonil farmers and workers protested by withholding services and products. However, modernization still proceeded in many ways. -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
It started when Japanese officers blew up a railroad train in Manchuria and made it look like a Chinese plot. The army used this explosion as an excuse to entirely take over the territory and to attack and expand further into China. This angered the U.S., on who Japan relied for natural resources and markets, yet they justified it because of unequal distribution of land and resources. -
Hitler comes to power
Hitler's regime put an end to democracy in Germany, and with the strike of the Great Depression, the Nazi Party began to outstrip rivals in elections due to financial support from big business. The Weimar republic was relentlessly bashed by people such as Alfred Hugenberg, which also boosted Hitler. Nazi supporters attacked young Communist groups and almost every age/class of people supported Hitler, who embraced media techniques to influence supporters. In the 1932 Reichstag elections=chancell -
Enabling Act
The Nazi state was in place within a month of Hitler taking power. Intimidated Reichstag delegates let the Enabling Act pass, which suspended the constitution for four years and allowed Nazi laws to take effect withoug parliamentary approval. This allowed the advancement of the creation of a Volksgemeinschaft (people's community) of ARyans. Heinrich Himmler headed the SS, an organization that progected Hitler, and commanded the Reich's political police system. -
Nuremberg Laws
Nazi's considered Aryans to be the most racially pure type of German, and believed they could be determined by physical characteristics such as the shape of the nose. THese laws deprived Jews of citizenship and prohibited marriage between Jews and other Germans. Birth-control was readily available for non-Aryans, including Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and mentally/physically disabled people. In the name of this act, doctors helped to organize the T4 project, which used CO to poison and kill 200,000 -
The Ethiopian War
Mussoline decided to invade Ethiopia, one of the few African states not overwhelmed by Europian imperialism. He was trying to demonstrate youth and vigor and to raise Italy's standing in the world. Addis Adaba, their capital, fell in spring 1936 which strenghened the resolve of African nationalists. -
Japanese Expansion
This situation of expansionism affected international politics. Military success in Japan added to the threat, and the League of Nations condemned the invasion of Manchuria. In 1937, Japan attacked China again in the Rape of Nanjing. -
Remilitarized Rhineland
Inspired by the Italian Ethiopian campaign, Hitler sent his troops into the Rhineland bordering France, which was a permanently demilitarized zone. Inhabitants greeted Germans with enthusiasm, and the French protested to the League of Nations, who did nothing. -
Spanish Civil War
In 1936 a group of officers, led by Francisco Franco, staged an uprising against the Madrid republican government. The rebels had the help of the fascists in other parts of Europe and citizens both male and female took up arms and formed volunteer fighting units. Spain turned into a training ground for World War II, and both Hitler and Mussolini sent military personnel to support Franco and test new weapons. Stalin supported the republic, but withdrew kn 1938. Troops were defeated in 1939 -
Rape of Nanjing
The Rape of Nanjing was an atrocity that massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese, and included brutality towards girls and women and other acts of torture perpetrated by the Japanese. The Japanese justified this offensive as a first step toward liberating the region from Western imperialism, and the Japanese allied with Hitler and Mussolini. This attack caused President Roosevelt to immediatelly announce an embargo on the U.S. export of airplane parts to Japan and drastically cut raw material -
Anschluss
This was the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany. Many Austrians acutally desired theis merger, so Hitler's troops entered Austria and annexed it, and began the unification of Aryan peoples into one greater German nation. The Nazis solved the problem of unemployment, and Hitler targeted Czechoslovakia next. -
Munich Confernece
This agreement allowed the appeasement of Czechoslovakia, or the Sudetenland, to Nazi Germany and Hitler. It was orchestrated by Chamberlain and he announced that he had secured "peace in our time". Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy were involved. It was agreed to in order to pacify Hitler and was justified by the accusation that Czechoslovakia persecuted the German minority residing there. -
Appeasement
Hitler targeted Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland) and its rich resources, even though conquering such a democracy looked difficult. They accused Czechoslovokia of persecuting the German minority, and Hitler warned that it would have to grant autonomy or face invasion. The other Western powers did not wish to interfere, and Chamberlain decided that an appeasement, making concessions for greivances, would be appropriate. Hitler invaded in March 1939, and Mussolini and Hitler sighed the Pact of Steel. -
Mein Kampf
A book that Adolf Hitler wrote that outlined his political philosophy and events such as his quest for global conquest and the holocaust. "Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes today, is almost exclusively the product of Aryan creative power."wrote about his rule and the Holocaust.