-
Period: to
Transforming the West
-
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States, allowing any American, including freed slaves, to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. By the end of the Civil War, 15,000 homestead claims had been established, and more followed in the postwar years. Eventually, 1.6 million individual claims would be approved; nearly ten percent of all government held property for a total of 420,000 square miles of territory. -
Morill Land Grant College Act
United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds of federal land sales. Donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. Under the act, each eligible state received a total of 30,000 acres of federal land. -
Robber Barons
A derogatory metaphor of social criticism originally applied to certain late 19th-century American businessmen who used unscrupulous methods to get rich. The metaphor appeared as early as February 9, 1859, when The New York Times used it to characterize the unethical business practices by Cornelius Vanderbilt. Hal Bridges said that the term represented the idea that "business leaders in the United States from about 1865 to 1900...". -
Period: to
Becoming An Industrial Power
-
Cattle Drives
A major economic activity in the 19th century American West, particularly between 1866 and 1886. In this period, 20 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in Chicago and points east. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier. -
Transcontinental Railroad
A train route across the United States, finished in 1869. It was the project of two railroad companies: the Union Pacific starting from Omaha, Nebraska built from the east, and the Central Pacific starting from Sacramento, California built from the west. The two lines met in Promontory, Utah. It was 1,912-miles long taking 7 years to complete. -
Knights of Labor
The largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leaders were Terence V. Powderly and step-brother Joseph Bath. The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected socialism and anarchism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. It was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion it suddenly lost its new members. -
John D. Rockefeller
an American oil industry business magnate, industrialist, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time, and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller formally founded his most famous company, the Standard Oil Company, Inc., in 1870. As kerosene and gasoline grew in importance, Rockefeller's wealth soared and he became the richest person in the country, controlling 90% of all oil in the United States at his peak. -
Bessemer Process
The first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The Bessemer process revolutionized steel manufacture by decreasing its cost, from £40 per long ton to £6–7 per long ton, along with greatly increasing the scale and speed of production of this vital raw material. Used by Carnegie. -
Battle of Little Big Horn
An armed engagement between the forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of US forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. A force of 700 men led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, suffered defeat due to Custer's incompetence. Custer and his troops came to be considered heroic figures in American history, a status that lasted into the 1960s. -
Period: to
The Gilded Age
-
Cornelius Vanderbilt
An American business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. Born poor and having only a mediocre education, Vanderbilt used perseverance, intelligence, and luck to work his way into leadership positions in the inland water trade and invest in the rapidly growing railroad industry. He is known for owning the New York Central Railroad. Vanderbilt provided the initial gift to found Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. -
Boss Tweed
An American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century New York City and State. At the height of his influence, Tweed was the third-largest landowner in New York City and a director of the Erie Railroad, the Tenth National Bank, and the New-York Printing Company, as well as proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel. -
Assassination of President Garfield
A drifter named Charles Guiteau shot newly inaugurated President James A. Garfield in the back at a downtown train station. Garfield would cling to life for 80 agonizing days, but a severe infection—most likely brought on by unsanitary medical practices—eventually led to his death. For weeks, the 39-year-old had stalked the president across Washington, patiently waiting for a chance to gun him down. Claiming it was a sad necessity. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The act was a law signed by President Chester A. Arthur made to stop Chinese immigrants from entering the US. The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 with the Geary Act and made permanent in 1902. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States. It was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. -
Buffalo Bill's Wild Wild West Show
Buffalo Bill Cody turned his real life adventure into the first outdoor western show.The show's publicist Arizona John Burke employed innovating techniques at the time, such as celebrity endorsements, press kits, publicity stunts, op-ed articles, billboards and product licensing, that contributed to the success and popularity of the show. Finally, in 1913 the show was declared bankrupt. -
Pendleton Act
A United States federal law which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. The act provided selection of government employees by competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons and prohibited soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property thus ending the spoil system. -
Haymarket Riot
On May 4, 1886, a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. -
American Federation of Labor
A national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. The AFL was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president at its founding convention and reelected every year, except one, until his death in 1924. -
Interstate Commerce Commision
A regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including interstate bus lines and telephone companies. -
Dawes Severalty Act
The Act was named for its creator, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts. The objectives of the Dawes Act were to abolish tribal and communal rights of Native Americans in order to stimulate assimilation of them into mainstream American society, to transfer lands under Indian control to white settlers, and thereby lift Native Americans out of poverty. Signed by President Glover Cleveland. -
Period: to
Imperialism
-
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
A landmark federal statute in the history of United States antitrust law (or "competition law") passed by Congress in 1890 under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. It allowed certain business activities that federal government regulators deem to be competitive, and recommended the federal government to investigate and pursue trusts. The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply. -
Wounded Knee
An old man was performing a ritual called the Ghost Dance. Black Coyote's rifle went off at that point, and the U.S. army began shooting at the Native Americans. The disarmed Lakota warriors did their best to fight back. By the time the massacre was over, more than 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota had been killed and 51 were wounded -
Populist Party
An agrarian-populist political party in the United States. It played a major role as a left-wing force in American politics. It was merged into the Democratic Party in 1896; a small independent remnant survived until 1908. It drew support from angry farmers in the West and South. It was highly critical of banks and railroads, and allied itself with the labor movement. -
Andrew Carnagie
A Scottish-American industrialist, business magnate, and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and is often identified as one of the richest people (and richest Americans). He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy. -
Depression of 1893
A serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the realigning election of 1896 and the presidency of William McKinley. The credit crunch rippled through the economy. A financial panic in London combined with a drop in continental European trade caused foreign investors to sell American stocks to obtain American funds backed by gold. -
World's Columbian Exposition
A world's fair held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, the large water pool, represented the long voyage Columbus took to the New World. The Exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on architecture, sanitation, the arts, Chicago's self-image, and American industrial optimism. -
Coxey's Army
A protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington, and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march. -
Pullman Strike
A nationwide railroad strike and a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages. -
Period: to
Progressive Era
-
Cross of Gold Speech
Delivered by William Jennings Bryan, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The issue was whether to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. (This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of money in circulation and aided cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers.) After speeches on the subject by several U.S. Senators, Bryan rose to speak. The speech concludes: ... You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” -
Klondike Gold Rush
A migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896, and, when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It was the last major Gold Rush in North America -
Election of 1896
Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican candidate, defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. The 1896 campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a realigning election that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System. Bryan galvanized support with his Cross of Gold speech, which called for a reform of the monetary system and attacked business leaders as the cause of ongoing economic depression. -
Spanish-American War
Fought between the United States and Spain. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine–American War. The main issue was Cuban independence and America interfering. -
Battle of Manila Bay
The American Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey engaged and destroyed the Spanish Pacific Squadron under Contraalmirante (Rear admiral) Patricio Montojo. The battle took place in Manila Bay in the Philippines, and was the first major engagement of the Spanish–American War. The battle was one of the most decisive naval battles in history and marked the end of the Spanish colonial period in Philippine history. -
Siege of Santiago
The last major operation of the Spanish–American War on the island of Cuba. The siege effectively ended the major fighting on Cuba, but the war was not yet over. This is because Yellow fever had spread through the U.S. Army before the surrender had taken place. The primary objective of the American Fifth Army Corps' invasion of Cuba was the capture of the city of Santiago de Cuba. -
Treaty of Paris (1898)
An agreement that involved Spain relinquishing nearly all of the remaining Spanish Empire, especially Cuba, and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. The cession of the Philippines involved a payment of $20 million from the United States to Spain and ended the Spanish–American War. The Treaty of Paris marked the end of the Spanish Empire (apart from some small holdings in North Africa). It marked the beginning of the age of the United States as a world power. -
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in, after the assassination of William McKinley. Young and physically robust, he brought a new energy to the White House, and won a second term on his own merits in 1904. Roosevelt confronted the bitter struggle between management and labor head-on and became known as the great “trust buster” for his strenuous efforts to break up industrial combinations under the Sherman Antitrust Act. -
Platt Amendment
It stipulated seven conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Spanish–American War, and an eighth condition that Cuba sign a treaty accepting these seven conditions. It defined the terms of Cuban–U.S. relations to essentially be an unequal one of U.S. dominance over Cuba. Part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill. -
Square Deal
President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program. It reflected three basic goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. hese three demands are often referred to as the "three C's" of Roosevelt's Square Deal. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking plutocracy and bad trusts while at the same time protecting business from the most extreme demands of organized labor. -
Roosevelt Corollary
An addition to the Monroe Doctrine articulated by President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of the Union address in 1904 after the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03. The corollary states that the United States will intervene in conflicts between European countries and Latin American countries to enforce legitimate claims of the European powers, rather than having the Europeans press their claims directly. -
Dollar Diplomacy
A form of American foreign policy to further its aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of its economic power by guaranteeing loans made to foreign countries. Under Taft, the State Department was more active than ever in encouraging and supporting American bankers and industrialists in securing new opportunities abroad. The term was originally coined by previous President Theodore Roosevelt, who did not want to intervene between Taft and Taft's secretary of state. -
Meat Inspection Act
An American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. These requirements also apply to imported meat products, which must be inspected under equivalent foreign standards. The original 1906 Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to inspect and condemn any meat product found unfit for human consumption. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The first of a series of significant consumer protection laws which was enacted by Congress in the 20th century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Its main purpose was to ban foreign and interstate traffic in adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products, and it directed the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry to inspect products and refer offenders to prosecutors. -
Gentleman's Agreement
An informal agreement between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan whereby the United States would not impose restrictions on Japanese immigration, and Japan would not allow further emigration to the United States. The goal was to reduce tensions between the two powerful Pacific nations. The agreement was never ratified by Congress and was ended by the Immigration Act of 1924. -
Great White Fleet
The popular nickname for the powerful United States Navy battle fleet that completed a journey around the globe by order of United States President Theodore Roosevelt. Its mission was to make friendly courtesy visits to numerous countries, while displaying America's new naval power to the world. It consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with various escorts. Roosevelt sought to demonstrate growing American martial power and blue-water navy capability. -
Muller vs Oregon
A landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. Women were provided by state mandate, lesser work-hours than allotted to men. The posed question was whether women's liberty to negotiate a contract with an employer should be equal to a man's. The test was not under the equal protections clause, but a test based on the general police powers of the state to protect the welfare of women when it infringed on her fundamental right to negotiate contracts. -
Election of 1912
Democratic Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey unseated incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft and defeated Former President Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party ("Bull Moose") nominee. Roosevelt remains the only third party presidential candidate in U.S. history to finish better than third in the popular or electoral vote. Due to the split of the Republican vote Woodrow was able to win. -
Woodrow Wilson
An American statesman and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party. As president, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. He also led the United States during World War I, establishing an activist foreign policy known as "Wilsonianism." He was one the three key leaders at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where he championed a new League of Nations. -
Federal Reserve Act
An Act of Congress that created and established the Federal Reserve System (the central banking system of the United States), and which created the authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes (commonly known as the US Dollar) as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. A system of private and public entities. There were to be at least eight and no more than twelve private regional Federal Reserve banks. -
Trench Warfare
A type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict. Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility. -
Period: to
World War I
-
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
An event that is widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is shot to death along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand set off a chain of events: Austria-Hungary, countries around the world, blamed the Serbia for the attack and hoped to use the incident to settle the question of Slav nationalism once and for all. -
Schlieffen Plan
The name given after World War I to the thinking behind the German invasion of France and Belgium. Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the Imperial Army German General Staff, devised a deployment plan for a war-winning offensive, in a one-front war against the French Third Republic from 1905–06. German historians claimed that the plan had been ruined by (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, the Commander-in-Chief of the German army after Schlieffen retired in 1906. -
Panama Canal
A waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit for maritime trade. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. One of the most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut reduced the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, enabling them to avoid the Cape Horn route around the southern tip of South America. -
Zimmerman Telegram
A secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The proposal was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Revelation of this enraged Americans, especially after the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann admitted the telegram was genuine, and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany. -
Russian Revolution
A pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917 which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolsheviks(led by Vladimir Lenin) led an armed insurrection by workers and soldiers in Petrograd that successfully overthrew the Provisional Government, transferring all its authority to the soviets with the capital being relocated to Moscow shortly thereafter. -
18th Amendment
The prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol (though not the consumption or private possession) illegal. The first to set a time delay before it would take effect following ratification, and the first to set a time limit for its ratification by the states. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the bill, but the House of Representatives overrode the veto, and the Senate did so as well the next day. -
Spanish Flu
An unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people around the world, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world's population), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. In the first year of the pandemic, life expectancy in the United States dropped by about 12 years. -
Wilson's 14 points
A statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The speech made by Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination). Europeans generally welcomed Wilson's points, but his main Allied colleagues were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism. -
Battle of Argonne Forest
A major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was the largest in United States military history, involving 1.2 million American soldiers. It was one of a series of Allied attacks known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which brought the war to an end. The battle cost 28,000 German lives, 26,277 American lives and an unknown number of French lives. -
The Lost Generation
The generation that came of age during World War I. Demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe outlined their Strauss–Howe generational theory using 1883–1900 as birth years for this generation. This means that they were the main generation at the time that made up most of the adults. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into a settled life. -
Harlem Renaissance
An intellectual, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York, spanning the 1920s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. The Movement also included the new African-American cultural expressions across the urban areas by those affected by the African-American Great Migration. The Harlem Renaissance was considered to be a rebirth of African-American arts. -
Al Capone
An American mobster, crime boss, and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33. Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, but his mutually profitable relationships with mayor William Hale Thompson and the city's police meant he seemed safe from law enforcement. -
Period: to
1920's
-
League of Nations
An intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. -
Treaty of Versailles
The most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. Signed exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties. one of the most important and controversial required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage". -
19th Ammendment
The United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. The amendment was the culmination of the women's suffrage movement in the United States, which fought at both state and national levels to achieve the vote. The Nineteenth Amendment is identical to the Fifteenth Amendment, except one prohibits the denial of suffrage because of sex and the other of race. -
First Red Scare
A period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included those such as the Russian Revolution and anarchist bombings. At its height concerns over the alleged spread of communism and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern if not paranoia. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
A bribery incident that took place in the United States during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison. -
Marcus Garvey
A proponent of Black nationalism in Jamaica and especially the United States. He was a leader of a mass movement called Pan-Africanism and he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). Garvey was imprisoned for mail fraud in the selling of its stock. His movement then rapidly collapsed. Although most American Black leaders condemned his methods Garvey attracted a large following. -
Immigration Act of 1924
A United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States. The law was primarily aimed at further restricting immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans, especially Italians, Slavs and Eastern European Jews. -
Scopes Monkey Trial
An American legal case in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he purposely incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant. -
Charles Lindberg
An American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, explorer, and environmental activist. He went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize–making a nonstop flight from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. He covered the 33 1⁄2-hour, 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km) alone in a single-engine purpose-built Ryan monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. -
Herbert Hoover
An American engineer, businessman and politician who served as the 31st president of the United States during the Great Depression. This downward spiral, plus his support for prohibition policies that had lost favor, set the stage for Hoover's overwhelming defeat in 1932 by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal. Caused primarily by the downward economic spiral, although his strong support for prohibition was also significant. -
Period: to
The Great Depression
-
Valentine's Day Massacre
As chief gangster Al Capone sought to consolidate control by eliminating his rivals in the illegal trades of bootlegging, gambling and prostitution. This rash of gang violence reached its bloody climax in a garage when seven men associated with the Irish gangster George “Bugs” Moran, one of Capone’s longtime enemies, were shot to death by several men dressed as policemen. It was never officially linked to Capone, but he was generally considered to have been responsible for the murders. -
Black Tuesday
The most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States (acting as the most significant predicting indicator of the Great Depression), when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its after effects. The crash, which followed the London Stock Exchange's crash of September, signalled the beginning of the 12-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries. -
Bonus March
The name for an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 U.S. World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C. to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the "Bonus Expeditionary Force", to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the "Bonus Army" or "Bonus Marchers". The contingent was led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant. -
Election of 1932
The election took place against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover was defeated in a landslide by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Governor of New York. The election marked the effective end of the Fourth Party System, which had been dominated by Republicans. Subsequent landslides in the 1934 mid-term elections and the 1936 presidential election confirmed the commencement of the Fifth Party System. -
Eleanor Roosevelt
An American politician, diplomat and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady at the time for her outspokenness, particularly her stance on racial issues. She was the first lady to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, write a monthly magazine column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention. -
The New Deal
A series of federal programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted in the United States during the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. Some of these federal programs included the Civilian Conservation Corps for example. These programs included support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly as well as new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and changes to the monetary system. -
Weimar Republic
An unofficial, historical designation for the German state as it existed between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written. In its fourteen years, it faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism as well as contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. -
Adolf Hitler
A German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer ("Leader") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator, Hitler initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and was central to the Holocaust. Hitler was born in Austria—then part of Austria-Hungary—and was raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. -
20th Amendment
The United States Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. Reducing by about six weeks the time when the incumbent president and vice president would be serving as lame ducks. This removed the requirement for a lame duck session, but Congress still normally meets in December of election years. -
21st Amendment
the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment and to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions. It is the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions, specially selected for the purpose. -
The Dust Bowl
A period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. -
FIAT Currency
A currency without intrinsic value established as money, often by government regulation. It has an assigned value only because the government uses its power to enforce the value of a fiat currency or because the exchanging parties agree to its value. It was introduced as an alternative to commodity money and representative money. Since the change of the US dollar to gold, a system of national fiat currencies has been used globally, with freely floating exchange rates between national currencies. -
Maginot Line
A line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications. Constructed on the French side of its borders with Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Luxembourg, the line did not extend to the English Channel due to French strategy that envisioned a move into Belgium to counter a German assault. -
Allied Powers
The countries that together opposed the Axis powers during WW2. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese and Italian aggression. The Allies consisted of France, USSR and the United Kingdom. The United States provided war materiel and money all along, and officially joined in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations. -
Period: to
WW2
-
Invasion of Poland
A joint invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, the Free City of Danzig, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion commenced on 17 September following the Molotov-Tōgō agreement that terminated the Soviet and Japanese hostilities in the east on 16 September. -
Axis Powers
The nations that fought in World War II against the Allied forces. The Axis powers agreed on their opposition to the Allies, but did not completely coordinate their activity. The Axis grew out of the diplomatic efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. Benito Mussolini declared on 1 November that all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome–Berlin axis, thus creating the term "Axis". -
The Holocaust
A genocide during World War II in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event involving the persecution and murder of other groups, including in particular the Roma and "incurably sick". -
D-Day
The landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard. -
The NAZI party
A far-right political party in Germany that was active between 1920 and 1945 and practised the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party. The Nazi Party emerged from the German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against the communist uprisings in post-World War I Germany. The party was created as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. -
Little Boy Bomb
The codename for the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II by the Boeing B-29. It was the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare. The Hiroshima bombing was the second artificial nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and the first uranium-based detonation. It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ). The bomb caused significant destruction to the city of Hiroshima and its occupants.
