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J. Edgar Hoover became the acting Director of the Bureau of Investigation (later the FBI) on May 10, 1924, and was appointed Director by President Calvin Coolidge later that year. He was appointed to professionalize the bureau, which was then a small organization with only about 650 employees. He was tasked with removing political appointees and implementing merit-based systems. -
Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical and political manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The book outlines many of Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology, and his future plans for Germany and the world. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926. -
The stock market crash that signaled the start of the Great Depression occurred in late October 1929, with the most significant events taking place on "Black Thursday," October 24, 1929, and especially "Black Tuesday," October 29, 1929. -
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected president on November 8, 1932, defeating incumbent Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory. He promised a "New Deal" to address the Great Depression, winning 472 electoral votes and carrying 42 of the 48 states. His inauguration as the 32nd president took place on March 4, 1933. -
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a New Deal program to provide jobs for unemployed young men during the Great Depression. These young men worked on projects focused on conservation, such as reforestation, park construction, and soil erosion control. The program was designed to give these young men a steady income, housing, and food, while also improving America's natural resources. -
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. This event marked the beginning of the end of the democratic Weimar Republic and the start of the Nazi dictatorship. -
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created on May 6, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through an executive order to create jobs during the Great Depression. It was funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1935 and focused on employing millions of people for projects that would benefit the public, such as building roads, schools, and parks. -
James J. Braddock won the heavyweight boxing title on June 13, 1935, by defeating the reigning champion, Max Baer, in a 15-round unanimous decision. The victory was considered a major upset, earning Braddock the nickname "The Cinderella Man" from columnist Damon Runyon -
Berlin has hosted the Olympic Games once, in 1936, during the Nazi regime. The Games were used as a propaganda opportunity by the Nazis to portray a positive image of Germany, though this involved suppressing or temporarily removing antisemitic signs and activities. The 1936 Games are also notable for the athletic success of Jesse Owens, an African-American athlete who won four gold medals, and for being the first Olympics to be televised -
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. -
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 Literature in 1962. -
The Wizard of Oz had its world premiere on August 15, 1939, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, with an East Coast premiere in New York City on August 17, 1939, and a nationwide release on August 25, 1939. However, it was screened earlier in some smaller test markets, with the first-ever public showings in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on August 11, 1939. -
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939, was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. -
The "Four Freedoms" speech, delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941, outlined four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The speech aimed to build support for Great Britain and its allies against the Axis powers and to define America's war aims as the defense of these universal principles.