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Warren G. Harding Takes Oath of Office
He had won a landslide election by promising a “return to normalcy.” “Our supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way,” he declared in his inaugural address. Two months later, he said, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration.” -
Congress Passes the Emergency Immigration Act
Congress passed the Emergency Immigration Act as a stopgap immigration measure and then, three years later, permanently established country-of-origin quotas through the National Origins Act -
Dixie to Broadway becomes the first all-Black show with mainstream showings
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Congress Passes the National Origins Act
The number of immigrants annually admitted to the United States from each nation was restricted to 2 percent of the population who had come from that country and resided in the United States in 1890 -
Calvin Coolidge Wins the Presidential Election
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Alain Locke Publishes, "The New Negro"
Locke proclaimed that the generation of subservience was no more—“we are achieving something like a spiritual emancipation.” -
Henry Fords Assembly Lines are Making A Model-T Every 10 Seconds
Henry Ford’s assembly line, which advanced production strategies practiced within countless industries, brought automobiles within the reach of middle-income Americans and further drove the spirit of consumerism. By 1925, Ford’s factories were turning out a Model-T every ten seconds. The number of registered cars ballooned from just over nine million in 1920 to nearly twenty-seven million by the decade’s end. Americans owned more cars than Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy combined. -
The Scopes Monkey Trial Begins
fundamentalists gathered to tackle the issues of creation and evolution. A young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, was being tried for teaching his students evolutionary theory in violation of the Butler Act, a state law preventing evolutionary theory or any theory that denied “the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible” from being taught in publicly funded Tennessee classrooms. -
Hitler Publishes "Mein Kampf"
1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. -
Hiram Evans Publishes, "The Klan's Fight for Americanism"
The “Second” Ku Klux Klan rose to prominence in the 1920s and, at its peak, claimed millions of Americans as members. Klansmen wrapped themselves in the flag and the cross and proclaimed themselves the moral guardians of America. The organization appealed to many “respectable,” middle-class Americans. Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans, a dentist from Dallas, Texas, outlined the Second Klan’s potent mix of Americanism, Protestantism, and white supremacy. -
Charles Lindbergh Completes the First Ever Solo Nonstop Flight Across the Atlantic
Lindbergh concluded the first ever nonstop solo flight from New York to Paris. Armed with only a few sandwiches, some bottles of water, paper maps, and a flashlight, Lindbergh successfully navigated over the Atlantic Ocean in thirty-three hours. -
Radicals Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are Executed after 7 Years of Appeals
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Christine Frederick Publishes "Selling Mrs. Consumer"
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Herbert Hoover Wins the Presidential Election
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The Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across the world; in most countries, it started in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s. -
Stock Market Crashes
On Thursday, October 24, 1929, stock market prices suddenly plummeted. Ten billion dollars in investments (roughly equivalent to about $100 billion today) disappeared in a matter of hours. Panicked selling set in, stock values sank to sudden lows, and stunned investors crowded the New York Stock Exchange demanding answers. -
Herbert Hoover Signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Spurred by the ongoing agricultural depression, Hoover signed into law the highest tariff in American history, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, just as global markets began to crumble. Other countries responded in kind, tariff walls rose across the globe, and international trade ground to a halt. -
The September 18 Incident / Manchurian Incident
small explosion tore up railroad tracks controlled by the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway near the city of Shenyang (Mukden) in the Chinese province of Manchuria. The railway company condemned the bombing as the work of anti-Japanese Chinese dissidents -
Unemployment Peaks at 25%
he crisis, far from relenting, deepened each year. Unemployment peaked at 25 percent in 1932. With no end in sight, and with private firms crippled and charities overwhelmed by the crisis, Americans looked to their government as the last barrier against starvation, hopelessness, and perpetual poverty. -
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Severe Droughts Hit from Texas to the Dakotas
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Franklin D. Roosevelt Wins the Presidential Election
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The National Recovery Administration is Created
This suspended antitrust laws to allow businesses to establish “codes” that would coordinate prices, regulate production levels, and establish conditions of employment to curtail “cutthroat competition.” In exchange for these exemptions, businesses agreed to provide reasonable wages and hours, end child labor, and allow workers the right to unionize. -
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration is Created
The AAA, created in May 1933, aimed to raise the prices of agricultural commodities (and hence farmers’ income) by offering cash incentives to voluntarily limit farm production (decreasing supply, thereby raising prices). -
Japan Withdraws from League of Nations
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Adolf Hitler Becomes German Chancellor
Championing German racial supremacy, fascist government, and military expansionism, Hitler rose to power and the Nazis conquered German institutions. Democratic traditions were smashed. Leftist groups were purged. Hitler repudiated the punitive damages and strict military limitations of the Treaty of Versailles. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt Conducts His First Fireside Chat
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Huey P. Long Publishes "Every Man a King" and "Share our Wealth"
Amid the economic indignities of the Great Depression, Huey P. Long of Louisiana championed an aggressive program of public spending and wealth redistribution. Critics denounced Long, who served as both governor and a senator from Louisiana, as a corrupt demagogue, but “the Kingfish” appealed to impoverished Louisianans and Americans wracked by joblessness and resentful of American economic inequality. -
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California, Florida, and Colorado Establish Border Blockades
California, Florida, and Colorado established “border blockades” to block poor migrants from their states and reduce competition with local residents for jobs. A billboard outside Tulsa, Oklahoma, informed potential migrants that there were “NO JOBS in California” and warned them to “KEEP Out.” -
The National Labor Relations Act is Signed into Law
also known as the Wagner Act, guaranteed the rights of most workers to unionize and bargain collectively. And so unionized workers, backed by the support of the federal government and determined to enforce the reforms of the New Deal, pushed for higher wages, shorter hours, and better conditions. -
The Social Security Act is Enacted
The Social Security Act provided for old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and economic aid, based on means, to assist both the elderly and dependent children. -
Dorothea Lange Takes Her Famous Picture, "Migrant Mother"
Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother became one of the most enduring images of the Dust Bowl and the ensuing westward exodus. Lange, a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, captured the image at a migrant farmworker camp in Nipomo, California, in 1936. In the photograph a young mother stares out with a worried, weary expression. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt Wins the Presidential Election Again
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The Fair Labor Standards Act is Signed into Law
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppressive child labor" -
John Steinbeck Publishes, "The Grapes of Wrath"
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and turned into a hit movie a year later, captured the Depression’s dislocated populations. -
World War II Begins
Germany invades Poland, inciting Poland’s allies Britain and France to declare war on Germany. -
Soviet Union Invades Poland
Working in concert with Hitler, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin orders the invasion of Poland, securing a share of Polish territory. -
United Kingdom Wins WWII First Sea Battle
British cruisers defeat a German pocket battleship at the Battle of the River Plate, the first major naval engagement of World War II. -
Germany Invades Norway
Germany invades Norway, ending a 6-month period of limited land operations called the “Phony War.” -
Winston Churchill Becomes UK Prime Minister/ Germany Invades Belgium
Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister. The same day, Germany invades Belgium. -
Paris Falls to Germany
Paris falls to German forces. France capitulates 11 days later. -
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The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain pits German bombers against British fighters in a thwarted German prelude to invasion. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt Wins the Presidential Election Again for the Third Time
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Hitler Breaks Non-Aggression Act with the Soviet Union and Invades Russia
Hoping to capture agricultural lands, seize oil fields, and break the military threat of Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler broke the two powers’ 1939 nonaggression pact and, on June 22, invaded the Soviet Union. It was the largest land invasion in history. -
Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, starting war with the US. Sensing weakness, Hitler declares war on America 4 days later.