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The outbreak of the Russian Civil War and the growing prominence of the Soviet Union prompted Vladimir Lenin, then leader of the Soviet Union to call together a Third Communist International (Comintern). This International would consist of many different socialist organizations throughout the world, including some parties in the United States. The Comintern would direct many American leftist organizations throughout the 1930's, most notably CPUSA (Communist Party U.S.A.). -
For the first time in the history of the United States up to that point, the United States senate would vote down the Treaty of Versailles that would ultimately conclude the First World War. They would do so in order to prevent U.S. involvement in future European conflicts. This would prevent the United States from participating in the League of Nations organization outlined by Wilson in the plan, thus mainly rendering the organization useless for most of it's existence. -
The Eighteenth Amendment to the constitution would mark the beginning of the Prohibition Era in the United States. This amendment would ban the sale of alcoholic beverages within the United States, which would have profound ripple effects for the decade to come, including a large increase in American organized crime, as well as a minor causation to the Great Depression nine years later. -
The 19th Amendment would prohibit the denial of the right to vote on the basis of sex, meaning that for the first time in the history of the United States, women were able to vote. This would come in the wake of the passage of the 18th Amendment, institution of Prohibition, and a vast amount of suffragette movements pushing for the extension of the franchise to women as well. -
The Immigration Act of 1924 was another act that would work towards putting limits on the number of immigrants that were able to be admitted into the United States. The Immigration Act of 1924 would completely ban all immigration from the Asian continent and put a large quota on immigrants that weren't from the Western Hemisphere, as well as increasing measures that would crack down on Asian immigration. -
After 33.5 hours, Charles Lindbergh and his plane the "Spirit of Saint Louis" touched down in France, ending the first solo transatlantic flight in world history. Lindbergh would become an immediate celebrity from this event, even receiving the Medal of Honor from Congress even though he had completed no military act of bravery. This event would also largely popularize aviation, and make Lindbergh a national figure that millions of people both domestically and worldwide would look up to. -
The Agricultural Marketing Act was an initial attempt by President Herbert Hoover to stop the downward spiraling crop prices in the United States. However, in Hoover's efforts to prevent farmers from relying fully on the government, he would not go sufficiently far enough to remedy the situation. Thus, the act would ultimately be a failure, and the situation would continue to devolve into dismal proportions at the advent of the Great Depression. -
Black Tuesday would signal the beginning of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, with over 16 million stock market shares being sold off, and billions of dollars being lost across the market. This stock market crash would go on to be one of the leading factors into existence of the economically horrific Great Depression. -
As a result of a nasty combination of severe drought and poor farming practices in the center of the United States, horrendous dust storms would grab hold of this region for roughly a decade. These dust storms would make it extremely hard for crops to grow in the area, leaving many farmers in the region impoverished, with very little to fall back on, for the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression. The situation would finally come to an end in 1939 after nearly a decade of dust. -
The 1932 President Election would see Franklin Roosevelt beat incumbent Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, and immediately begin to introduce changes and policy to the United States that would work quickly to reverse the adverse effects that the Great Depression had already had on the economy and the nation. These policies would include the introduction of the "New Deal" programs, which would be one of the most effective methods of pulling the U.S. out of it's economic depression. -
The Civilian Conservation Corps would be an organization established by the policies of Franklin Roosevelt and his "New Deal" plans, as a way to provide jobs to those who were unable to find any in the harsh conditions of the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands of people would be employed in the Corps during it's existence, and it was used to improve and build new National Parks in the United States, quickly becoming the most popular "New Deal" program. -
Reversal of the wild deflation that had been caused by the Great Depression was one of the most pressing issues that Roosevelt believed should be addressed in order to pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression. In order to do this, Roosevelt pulled the U.S. Dollar off the Gold Standard, allowing the government to regulate the value of a dollar, meaning that prices could be stabilized, and the economy could heal. -
Shortly after Franklin Roosevelt would take the office of Presidency, the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution would come into effect, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, and ending the Prohibition Era. This was in the wake of Roosevelts Keynesian policies focused on large deficit spending, and reintroducing the large influx of cash into the federal reserve that the Alcohol tax brings was deemed advantageous by the Roosevelt Administration. -
Following the trend of New Deal programs that Franklin Roosevelt would put out during his presidency as a way to dampen the negative effects of the Great Depression, the Social Security Administration would work as a way to coerce older people to retire from their jobs, to clear up jobs for younger people, in order to bring down unemployment. This would be a successful administration, and would even outlive the Great Depression, and still exist today. -
A war between the Nationalist Spanish forces and the Republicans loyal to the government broke out in the summer of 1936. This war would last over two years until the Nationalists would come out victorious in 1939. It would truly be a testing ground for all the equipment that was to come into play in the looming second world war, with Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union sending aid to sides directly, and other nations, including the United States, sending willing volunteers to fight. -
In 1936, the incumbent candidate Franklin Roosevelt would beat out Republican nominee Alf Landon for the Presidency, in nothing short of a landslide. This would mean that the New Deal programs that Roosevelt had put in place to dampen the negative effects of the Great Depression could be continued and expanded upon in the latter half of the 1930's. He would focus heavily on conservation and the environment as a job creation tool during this term, and create organizations like the C.C.C. -
The Fair Labor Standards Act would be one of the bills passed as a part of the Roosevelt "New Deal" Program in an effort to remedy the effects of the Great Depression. This act would introduce a federal minimum wage, the banning of "oppressive child labor," and time-and-a-half overtime pay for people who work over 40 hours in a single week, just to name a few. -
On the 1st of September 1939, the Third German Reich invaded Poland, sparking British and French involvement, and ultimately setting the spark to begin the Second World War. This conflict would encompass the entire globe and include roughly 132 nations worldwide. This single war would also be the push the U.S. would need to begin ramping up war production and pull itself out of the Great Depression that had ravaged the economy and the nation for years. -
In response to the various Japanese invasions around Asia and the Pacific, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order that would cut off all oil and gasoline exports to the Empire of Japan. This would be a crushing blow to the resource scarce Japanese, and would be one of the main reasons for the Japanese surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii just a few short months later, bringing the U.S. into the Second World War. -
The Empire of Japan would launch a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii in late 1941, in which several ships would be sunk, even more would be damaged, and hundreds of aircraft would be destroyed. This single event would send the United States over the boiling point and President Franklin Roosevelt would soon declare a state of war and officially mark the entry of the U.S. into the Second World War.