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a. In the Democratic campaign of 1932, Roosevelt attacked the Republican Old Deal and concentrated on preaching a New Deal for the "forgotten man." He promised to balance the nation's budget and decrease the heavy Hooverian deficits.
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President Roosevelt declared a national banking holiday as a prelude to opening the banks on a sounder basis. The Hundred DaysCongress/Emergency Congress (March 9-June 16, 1933) passed a series laws in order to cope with the national emergency (The Great Depression).
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b. Congress's first major effort to deal with the massive unemployment was to pass the Federal Emergency Relief Act. The resulting Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was headed by Harry L. Hopkins. Hopkins's agency granted about $3 billion to the states for direct relief payments or for wages on work projects. Created in 1933, the Civil Works Administration (CWA),
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b. Congress then passed the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). A reform program, the FDIC insured individual bank deposits up to $5,000, ending the epidemic of bank failures.
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a. Ratified in 1933, the 20th Amendment shortened the period from election to inauguration by 6 weeks. FDR took the presidential oath on January 20, 1937, instead of the traditional March 4.
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b. Congress's first major effort to deal with the massive unemployment was to pass the Federal Emergency Relief Act. The resulting Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was headed by Harry L. Hopkins. Hopkins's agency granted about $3 billion to the states for direct relief payments or for wages on work projects. Created in 1933, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), a branch of the FERA, was designed to provide temporary jobs during the winter emergency.
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c. In order to protect the shrinking gold reserve, President Roosevelt ordered all private holdings of gold to be given to the Treasury in exchange for paper currency and then the nation to be taken off the gold standard-Congress passed laws providing for these measures.
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b. Congress passed the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935, with the objective of employment on useful projects (i.e. the construction of buildings, roads, etc.). Taxpayers criticized the agency for paying people to do "useless" jobs such as painting murals.
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). This law created a powerful National Labor Relations Board for administrative purposes and reasserted the rights of labor to engage in self-organization and to bargain collectively through representatives of its own choice.
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b. The stride for unskilled workers to organize was lead by John L. Lewis, boss of the United Mine Workers. He formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) in 1935. The CIO led a series of strikes including the sit-down strike at the General Motors automobile factory in 1936.
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c. The New Deal Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936. The reduction of crop acreage was now achieved by paying farmers to plant soil-conserving crops.
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b. To strengthen the FHA, Congress created the United States Housing Authority (USHA) in 1937. It was designed to lend money to states or communities for low-cost construction.
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c. Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (Wages and Hours Bill) in 1938. Industries involved in interstate commerce were to set up minimum-wage and maximum-hour levels. Labor by children under the age of 16 was forbidden.
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d. Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939, barring federal administrative officials from active political campaigning and soliciting. It also forbade the use of government funds for political purposes as well as the collection of campaign contributions from people receiving relief payments.
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- Philip Randolph, leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a “Negro March to Washington” in 1941 to get better rights and treatment.
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- The president also established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to discourage racism and oppression in the workplace, and while Blacks in the army still suffered degrading discrimination (i.e. separate blood banks), they still used the war as a rallying cry against dictators abroad and racism at home—overall gaining power and strength.
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• Unfortunately, on the Pacific coast, 110,000 Japanese-Americans
were taken from their homes and herded into internment camps where
their properties and freedoms were taken away. -
- The Japanese overran the lands that they descended upon, winning more land with less losses than ever before and conquering Guam, Wake, the Philippines, Hong Kong, British Malaya, Burma (in the process cutting the famed Burma Road), the Dutch East Indies, and even pushing into China.
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• Instead of a frontal European assault, the British devised an
invasion through North Africa, so that the Allies could cut
Hitler’s forces through the “soft underbelly” of the
Mediterranean Sea. -
- At the Casablanca Conference, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met and agreed on the term of “unconditional surrender.”
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- The point of attack was French Normandy, and on June 6, 1944, D-Day began—the amphibious assault on Normandy. After heavy resistance, Allied troops, some led by General George S. Patton, finally clawed their way onto land, across the landscape, and deeper into France.
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- In the end, Roosevelt stomped Dewey, 432 to 99, the fourth term issue wasn’t even that big of a deal, since the precedent had already been broken three years before.
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- On the retreat and losing, Hitler concentrated his forces and threw them in the Ardennes forest on December 16, 1944, starting the Battle of “the Bulge.” He nearly succeeded in his gamble, but the ten-day penetration was finally stopped by the 101st Airborne Division that had stood firm at the vital bastion of Bastogne, which was commanded by Brigadier General A.C. McAuliffe.
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- The first atomic bomb had been tested on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and when Japan refused to surrender, Americans dropped A-bombs onto Hiroshima (on August 6, 1945), killing 180,000 and Nagasaki (on August 9, 1945), killing 80,000.
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