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J.Edgar Hoover Becomes Head of the FBI
Mr. Hoover put into effect a number of institutional changes to correct criticisms made of his predecessor’s administration. Director Hoover fired a number of agents whom he considered to be political appointees and/or unqualified to be special agents. -
Mein Kampf
an autobiographical manifesto by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, in which he outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. -
Stock Market Crash Begins Great Depression
Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression. the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world up to that time. -
Franklin Roosevelt Elected President
A Democrat, he won a record four elections and served from March 1933 to his death in April 1945. He was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. -
adolf hitler
In an election held in July 1932, the Nazis won 230 governmental seats; together with the Communists, the next largest party, they made up over half of the Reichstag. -
CCC is Created
One of the dozens of New Deal programs created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to fight the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was primarily designed to put thousands of unemployed young men to work on useful public projects -
WPA is Created
In April 1935, the WPA was established under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, as a means of creating government jobs for some of the nation's many unemployed. Under the direction of Harry L. Hopkins, the WPA employed more than 8.5 million persons on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943 -
Dust Bowl
also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon. -
J.J. Braddock Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title
On June 13th, 1935, in Long Island City, N.Y., Braddock, as a 10 to 1 underdog, won the heavyweight championship of the world from Max Baer. The general reaction in most quarters was described as, "the greatest fistic upset since the defeat of John L. Sullivan by Jim Corbett" -
Olympic Games in Berlin
For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. -
Kristallnacht
Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, also called the “Night of Broken Glass,” some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. -
Grapes of Wrath is Published
Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future. -
Wizard of Oz Premiers in Movie Theaters
Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home. -
Germany Invades Poland
On this day in 1939, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun.
The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war--what would become the "blitzkrieg" strategy. -
The Four Freedoms Speech
The declaration of the Four Freedoms as a justification for war would resonate through the remainder of the war, and for decades longer as a frame of remembrance.[2] The Freedoms became the staple of America’s war aims, and the center of all attempts to rally public support for the war. With the creation of the Office of War Information (1942), as well as the famous paintings of Norman Rockwell, the Freedoms were advertised as values central to American life and examples of American exceptionali
