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Herbert Hoover takes office
Herbert Hoover was the 31st president of the United States. He was blamed for the Great Depression although it was caused by the panic sale of stocks, and bank failures. -
The Dust Bowl
A period of severe dust storms throughout the midwest in American and Canadian prairie lands. These storms caused major agricultural damages and forced many people to move to the cities from either no work or from the terrible conditions. This event occured due to severe drought brought upon from lack of crop rotation. -
RFC
Known as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation gave $2 billion in aid to state and local governments and made loans to banks, railroads, mortgage associations, and other businesses. It played a major role in handling The Great Depression and setting up relief programs that were taken over by the New Deal. -
The Bonus Army
An assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who protested in Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932. This was a march by the verterans of WWI to recieve an early collection of the bonuses given to the for serving in WWI -
FDR Elected
Franklin Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States. He lead the United States through The Great Depression and WWII. -
Hitler Takes Power
Within six months of Hitler taking the chancellor position, the president of Germany died, making Hitler the president also. The Nazi party became the only legal party and Hitler was Germany -
The New Deal
A series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. -
Indian Reorganization Act
A U.S. federal legislation which secured certain rights to Native Americans. These include a reversal of the Dawes Act's privatization of common holdings of American Indians and a return to local self-government on a tribal basis. The Act also restored to Native Americans the management of their assets. -
Father Coughlin attacks FDR, Jews
He expressed sympathy for the fascist policies of Hitler and Mussolini, along with blaming the Depression on an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers, and also claimed they were behind the Russian Revolution. Early in his career he was a strong supporter of Roosevelt, but afterwards became a harsh critic for he was "too friendly to bankers". -
Social Security Act
This act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American life, including old age, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widows and fatherless children. The Act provided benefits to retirees and the unemployed, and a lump-sum benefit at death. -
Social Security
It stressed the government's responsibility to provide for citizens' economic security. Under Social Security, retired workers age 65 and older were assured of a steady income. The law also created the nation's unemployment system, the now-abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children program and an old-age assistance program. It also authorized grants to states to provide medical care. -
Neutrality Acts
Laws that were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and sought to ensure that the U.S. would never again take place in foriegn affairs. -
GM Sit-down strike
In a sit-down strike, the workers physically occupy the plant, keeping management and others out. On December 30, 1936 the Union learned that GM was planning to move the dies out of Fisher # 1. The strike began, and the Union kept up a regular supply of food to the strikers inside while sympathizers marched in support outside. -
Rape of Nanjing
A mass murder and war rape that occured in the Nanjing. During this event hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped by soldiers from the Imperial Japenese Army. -
The Grapes of Wrath
A novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries.
