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J.Edgar Hoover Becomes Head of the FBI
J. Hoover first became involved in law enforcement as a special assistant to the attorney general, overseeing the mass roundups and deportations of suspected communists during the Red Scare abuses of the late 1910s. He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation (the FBI's predecessor) in 1924 and was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director for another 37 years until his death in 1972 at the age of 77. -
Mein Kampf is Published
Volume One of Adolf Hitler’s philosophical autobiography, Mein Kampf, was published in July 1925. It was a blueprint of his agenda for a Third Reich. Hitler began composing his tome while sitting in Landsberg prison, convicted of treason for his role in the infamous Beer Hall Putsch in which he and his minions attempted to stage a coup and grasp control of the government in Bavaria. -
Stock Market Crash Begins Great Depression
1929 saw the start of the slide in stock values in early October after they started to plummet in September. By purchasing large blocks of shares, investment firms and top bankers tried to stabilize the market, resulting in a modest gain on Friday. The Great Depression officially began with the stock market crash. In 1933, there were 5,000 or more closed banks and a 25% unemployment rate. -
Dust bowl begins
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; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon. The dust bowl was caused by farmers' poorly managing their crop rotations, causing the ground to dry up and turn into dust. The drought that helped cause the dust bowl lasted seven years, from 1933 to 1940. -
Franklin Roosevelt is Elected President (1st Time)
After McKinley was killed in September 1901, Roosevelt became president at the age of 42. He continues to hold the record for being the nation's youngest president. Herbert Hoover, the incumbent Republican, was soundly defeated by Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt was the only president to win four consecutive elections. -
Adolf Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany
President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler, leader or führer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. -
CCC is Created
Roosevelt issued an executive order on April 5, 1933, creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). His New Deal legislation included the CCC, which employed hundreds of thousands of young men on environmental conservation projects to counteract the Great Depression's high unemployment rate. The CCC made significant contributions to the establishment of state and national parks, forests, and historic sites as well as to the management of forests, flood control, and conservation programs. -
WPA is created
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the WPA with an executive order on May 6, 1935. It was part of his New Deal plan to lift the country out of the Great Depression by reforming the financial system and restoring the economy to pre-Depression levels. The Works Progress Administration was an American New Deal agency, that employed millions of job-seekers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. -
J.J. Braddock Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title
Braddock won the Heavyweight Championship of the World as the 10-to-1 underdog in what was called "the greatest fistic upset since the defeat of John L. Sullivan by Jim Corbett" at Madison Square Garden Bowl. He outpointed Max Baer in 15 rounds at the Long Island City Bowl in New York City. Braddock called it a career in 1938 after defeating England's Tommy Farr. He spent most of the rest of his life operating heavy equipment for a New Jersey contractor. -
Olympic Games in Berlin
The Olympic competition took place in Berlin for the tenth time in modern times. There was a heated, political environment during the 1936 Olympics. Two years after Berlin was chosen to host the Games, the Nazi Party came to power, and its racial policies sparked discussion of a boycott of the Games on a global scale. Before the Nazis took control, Berlin had been chosen to host the 1936 Olympic Games. Germany was intended to be portrayed by the Nazis as a tolerant and welcoming country. -
Kristallnacht
The Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung paramilitary elements and German people participated in the pogrom against Jews known as Kristallnacht. The German government did nothing except observe. Nazis slaughtered almost 100 Jews while burning synagogues, and breaking into Jewish residences, schools, and places of business. Following Kristallnacht, often known as the "Night of Broken Glass," some 30,000 Jewish men were detained and deported to Nazi extermination camps. -
Grapes of Wrath is Published
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 1962. The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. -
Germany invades Poland
The attack on Denmark was a breach of the non-aggression pact Denmark had signed with Germany less than a year earlier. The initial plan was to push Denmark to accept that German land, naval, and air forces could use Danish bases, but Adolf Hitler subsequently demanded that both Norway and Denmark be invaded. France and Britain declared war, and Germany and the Soviet Union sent their troops into eastern Poland as a result. -
Wizard of Oz Premiers in Movie Theaters
When a tornado rips through Kansas, Dorothy and her dog, Toto, are whisked away from their house to the magical land of Oz. They follow the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wizard, and en route, they meet a Scarecrow that needs a brain, a Tin Man missing a heart, and a Cowardly Lion who wants courage. The wizard asks the group to bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West to earn his help. This movie premiered in -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was also known as the Air Battle for England. It was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. Germany bombed Great Britain in order to try and destroy their air force and prepare for invasion. It lasted many months as the Germans continued to bomb Britain, but the Royal Air Force defeated the Germans. -
The Four Freedoms Speech
The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The four freedoms he outlined were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. As America became engaged in World War II, painter Norman Rockwell did a series of paintings illustrating the four freedoms as international war goals that went beyond just defeating the Axis powers. -
The Bombing of Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku spent months planning an attack that aimed to destroy the Pacific Fleet and destroy morale in the U.S. Navy so that it would not be able to fight back as Japanese forces began to advance on targets across the South Pacific. -
The Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place in June of 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Battle of Midway became one of the most important American naval victories of World War II. Code-breakers were able to decipher Japanese naval code, allowing American leaders to anticipate Japanese maneuvers and launch a surprise attack on the larger Japanese fleet in the area. -
The Battle of Stalingrad
In the Battle of Stalingrad, Germany, and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. The Battle of Stalingrad was won by the Soviet Union against a German offensive that attempted to take the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd, Russia) during World War II. -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Operation Torch was the first time the British and Americans had jointly worked on an invasion plan together. The invasion forces had to overcome French opposition in territories controlled by the Vichy Regime under Marshall Philippe Pétain. Jan. The Allies won the battle. -
Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program under the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies was established in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. Together the Monuments Men worked to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from the destruction of World War II. -
The Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a Second World War engagement between German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk in the Soviet Union, during July and August 1943. The battle was an unsuccessful German assault on the Soviet salient around the city of Kursk, in western Russia, during World War II. The Germans refrained from trying to mount another counter-attack on the Eastern Front and never again emerged victorious against Soviet forces. -
D-Day (June 6th, 1944)
On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The 'D' in D-Day stands simply for 'day' and the term was used to describe the first day of any large military operation. -
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was a major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. During the fighting, captured American soldiers and Belgian prisoners were murdered by Waffen SS units. The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge, resulting in significantly higher casualties on the German side despite their surprise attack on Allied forces. -
The Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and Navy landed and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was some of the bloodiest fightings of World War II, and it's believed that all but 200 or so of the 21,000 Japanese forces on the island were killed, as were almost 7,000 Marines. -
The Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies. It was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army and United States Marine Corps forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
The Death of FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR died on April 12, 1945. He was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death. FDR died from a hemorrhage stroke at the age of 63. -
The Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. He was holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin. He committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler's dreams of a “1,000-year” Reich. -
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. obliterating the cities, and contributing to the end of World War II. The National Archives maintains the documents that trace the evolution of the project to develop the bombs, their use in 1945, and the aftermath. -
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a 7-year-old event. Resulting in a riot. -
Nixon-Kennedy Debates (1st on Television)
For the first time in American history, a live television debate between major party presidential candidates is shown on September 26, 1960. The Democratic senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, and the American vice president, Richard M. Nixon, met in a Chicago studio to talk about domestic issues. -
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
The 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was shot and killed while he was traveling in a motorcade on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had embraced Marxism and briefly defected to the Soviet Union, is the man who is suspected of killing him. -
The Beatles Appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show
This was the Beatle's first live US TV appearance. Over 70 million Americans gathered around their televisions to watch the four men make history. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
President Johnson is given carte blanche to take whatever actions he thought were required to react and stop future violence. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
The US launched Operation Rolling Thunder, a campaign of airstrikes, to lessen the danger posed by the Northern Vietnamese. -
March on the Pentagon
The March on the Pentagon was a massive demonstration against the Vietnam War on October 21, 1967. The protest involved more than 100,000 attendees at a rally by the Lincoln Memorial. -
Chicago 8 Trial
The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with inciting violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention. -
Mai Lai Massacre
Most of the victims were ruthlessly murdered by a company of American soldiers, including women, children, and elderly individuals. In the My Lai massacre, more than 500 individuals were slain, including young girls and women who had been raped and then tortured before being executed. -
Riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention
This was a riot that occurred because troops were not allowed to draft at the drafting age. -
Woodstock
Three-day musical fest promising "peace, love, and music." This took place in Bethel, New York. -
Kent State Protest
school shooting killing four and wounding nine unarmed college students by the Ohio national guard. -
Roe vs. Wade
The Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that the right to privacy implied by the 14th Amendment protected abortion as a fundamental right. The government does, however, maintain the authority to control or restrict abortion access based on the stage of pregnancy