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Black Thursday
The stock market crashes and almost 13 million shares are sold that day alone. This was a signal (though not the only cause) of the Great Depression. -
Bonus Army Incident
A group of World War I veterans who were victims of the depression. They marched to Washington and tried to intimidate Congress into paying them, but Hoover had them removed by the army. This shed a negative light on Hoover. -
President FDR Elected
FDR won this by a landslide. He refused to uphold any of Hoover's policies with the intent on enacting his own. He pledged a present a "New Deal" to the American public. -
Emergency Banking Act
This was a government legislation passed during the depression that dealt with the bank problem. The act allowed a plan which would close down insolvent banks and reorganize and reopen those banks strong enough to survive. -
FDR's Bombshell
FDR's message that repudiated the orthodox views (of Hoover who wanted to reinforce gold standard) of most of the delegates and rejecting any agreement on currency stabilization. -
Wagner Act Created
It was at this date that FDR signed this into the law. It established the National Labor Relations Board and addressed relations between unions and employers in the private sector. Also, it established defined unjust labor practices and secured workers the right to bargain collectively. -
FDR Makes the "Quarantine" Speech
This speech was an act of condemnation of Japan's invasion of China. FDR wanted Japan to be quarantined by the international community to prevent the contagion of war from spreading. -
America First Committee Founded
This was the leading isolationist group advocating that America focus on continental defense and non-involvement with the European war. It opposed the Fight For Freedom Committee. -
U.S. Makes Destroyers for Bases Deal With Great Britian
This was FDR's compromise to help the U.K. because FDR could not sell the U.K. U.S. destroyers without defying the Neutrality Acts. So Britain received U.S. destroyers in exchange for giving the U.S. the right to build military bases on British Islands. -
U.S. Signs Atlantic Charter With Great Britian
FDR meets with Churchill to sign a document in which the two nations set out "certain common principles" on which to base "a better future for the world". -
Japan Attacks U.S. on Pearl Harbor
The Japanese naval air force made surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Several battleships of the U.S. Pacific fleet were damaged or sunk. This attack resulted in an Amercian declaration of war the following day. FDR called this "a date which will live in infamy". This was when the U.S. entered WW2. -
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Founded
This mobilized mass popular resistance to discrimination in a way that the older, more conservative organizations had never done. It wanted to promote racial equality through peaceful means. -
Battle of Midway
This occured from the 3rd to the 6th. This was a U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet. It happened at Midway Island. The American navy destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one. -
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Battle of Guadalcanal
American forces assaulted Guadalcanal. A struggle of terrible ferocity developed here and continued for six months, inflicting heavy loses on both sides. In end, Japanese were forced to abandon the island, and with it their last chance of launching an effective offensive to the south. -
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Manhattan Project
This was a secret research and development project of the U.S to develop the atomic bomb. Its success granted the U.S the bombs that ended the war with Japan as well as bringing the country into the atomic era. -
D-Day
Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a vast armada into action. Over a million troops stormed the beaches of Normandy. Fighting was very intense. Within a week, the German forces had been dislodged from virtually the entire Normandy coast. -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
This lasted from the 23rd to the 26th. Here, General MacArthur's troops landed on Leyte Island in the Philippines. The Japanese now used virtually their entire fleet against the Allied invaders, but ended up losing their sea power and defense of the Philippines. -
Korematsu v. U.S.
Here, the Supreme Court ruled that the relocation of the Japanese was constitutionally permissible. -
Yalta Conference
FDR, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta. Russia agreed to declare war on Japan after the surrender of Germany and in return FDR and Churchill promised the USSR concession in Manchuria and the territories that it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War. This was also where the United Nations was created. There were disagreements over Germany and Poland. -
U.S. Drops Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki involved the nuclear attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the United States Army Air Forces on August 6, 1945. Three days later by the bomb went on Nagasaki.
