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Interwar Foreign Policy
Due to the disillusionment of America's participation in World War I, the US adopted an isolationist ideology. The main factor for this disillusionment was Gerald P. Nye's congressional investigation. His committee concluded that war profiteers maneuvered the nation into the First World War for financial gain. These war profiteers were dubbed "merchants of death" by the media. -
Munich Conference
Britain and France agreed to let Germany annex Sudetenland, the German-speaking border areas of Czechoslovakia, with the promise that they would not seek any additional territory. This attempt at a "peace treaty" was incredibly ineffective. Within six months of this conference, Hitler's troops had overrun the rest of Czechoslovakia and threatened to invade Poland. -
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Mobilization
War is an expensive thing so in order to participate in a war the magnitude of World War II, money has to be raised. The US did this in two ways. The first was through the Revenue Act of 1942 which expanded the number of people paying income taxes. This financed half of the entire war. The second was through the sale of war bonds which offered a rate of return below the market rate, appealing to Americans' desire for wealth as well as their patriotism. -
National Defense Advisory Commission
Roosevelt created the commission in order to put the US economy and government on defense footing. America gave World War I destroyers to Britain in return for access to their overseas possessions. Roosevelt also convinced Congress to increase defense spending and institute the first peacetime draft. All these additions by Roosevelt was an isolationist attempt to be prepared for when the war inevitably came to affect the United States. -
America First Committee
The America First Committee was a United States isolationist pressure group. They were directly against entrance into the Second World War though the reason behind their isolationist views varied for each individual. AFC was one of the largest antiwar organizations in America's history, peaking at eight hundred thousand members. Three days after Pearl Harbor, on December 10, 1941, the America First Committee was dissolved. -
Land-Lease Act
It allowed the United States to sell and lease firearms/other equipment to nations at war. This was only permitted to nations whose victory was labeled vital to national security with the stipulation that they picked up the merchandise via their own ships. Eventually, this Act was extended to the Soviet Union which had become part of the Allied coalition following an invasion by Germany. Thus this Act was an indirect, direct entrance into the war. -
Sinking of the USS Reuben James
In March of 1941, the USS Reuben James, a naval destroyer, was tasked with escorting convoys sailing to Great Britain as far as Iceland. On October 23, it set sail with four other destroyers and the convoy. On the 31, it was torpedoed near Iceland by the German submarine U-552. A hundred men were killed. Though not the first American naval ship to be torpedoed, it was the first one lost and thus had a spiraling effect as the US and Germany fought a naval war, unbeknownst to the American public. -
Pearl Harbor
Japan had begun making military advances in the 1930s. The US, despite an increasing death toll, refused to take a strong stand. When Japan occupied French Indochina, the US implemented trade restrictions, embargoes, and froze Japanese assets. The Japanese Navy Air Service launched a surprise military strike on the Pearl Harbor naval base. A day later, Congress declared war on Japan, and then on December 11, Germany and Italy declared war, marking America's entrance into the war. -
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Military
Following the declaration of war on Japan, the United States rapidly expanded its armed forces. By the end of the war, they numbered 15 million men and women. Though black Americans accounted for nearly one million, they were segregated and given the most menial jobs. 350,000 women enlisted and achieved permanent military status but were barred from combat and assigned to stereotypical jobs. America's armed forces resembled the nation, united in the war effort but fractured in everything else. -
Bracero Program
Thousands of Mexican contract laborers traveled to the US to help during harvest season. Despite their low wages, the employment of foreign farmworkers led to lower wages for US farmers. This competition between workers benefitted Mexico the most economically. This program's reality was the polar opposite of its intention. Instead of increasing production to help everyone during a time of war, the Bracero Program decreased the number of opportunities for American workers. -
Island Hopping
Island Hopping was a practice crucial to the United States' victory in World War II. It was, essentially, just skipping over heavily fortified islands and onto lighter defended locations that could support the next advance. This leapfrogging isolated Japanese strongholds and left their defenders weak from starvation and disease. It truly was the most significant factor in America's war with Japan. -
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 authorized the Secretary of War to label areas as military zones allowing for the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans for the duration of the war. Of those 120,000, two-thirds were US citizens. This order reflected the overall anti-Asian sentiment in America at the time. In 1988, forty-six years later, Congress issued a public apology and awarded $20,000 to the 80,000 remaining internees. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was top-secret research into the development of the first atomic weapons costing more than two billion dollars and employing 120,000 people. This project was headed by the United States with the assistance of the United Kingdom and Canada. It was such a secret research program that even Vice President Harry Truman did not learn of it until he took the presidency after Roosevelt's death. It was in place from August 13, 1942, to 1946. -
Rosie the Riveter
In order to remedy the labor shortage brought on by the war, the government, in combination with corporate recruiters, called upon women's patriotism to urge them into the workforce. At the beginning of the war, only 24% of the labor force was women but by 1945 that percentage rose to 36. The image of Rosie the Riveter was used as a symbol of women's independence and power. Despite this symbol of freedom and patriotism, women faced discrimination, sexual harassment, and inequitable pay. -
Servicemen's Readjustment Act
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act, or the G.I. Bill of Rights, was created to help World War II veterans. It made low-interest mortgages available, established hospitals, and covered some tuition/expenses for those attending college or trade school. It was intended to reduce the risk of a postwar economic depression due to widespread unemployment among veterans. -
D-Day
D-Day was the largest invasion ever assembled in which more than 1.5 million Allied troops landed in Normandy, France. It was the start of operations by the Allies and would be the war's turning point. Ultimately, this single invasion would lead to the liberation of Western Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany.