-
Ratification of the 20th Amendment
The Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes the beginning and ending of the terms of the elected federal offices. Furthermore, it has provisions that determine what happens when there is no President-elect. -
Ratification of the 21st Amendment
The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 17, 1920. -
Bank Holiday
Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed a Bank Holiday, beginning March 6, 1933, that shut down the banking system after a month-long run on American banks. When the banks reopened on March 13, depositors stood in line to return their hoarded cash; showing that the holiday was successful. -
Good Neighbor Policy
The Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy toward the countries of Latin America. While its rule became effective during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, Herbert Hoover paved the way for it.The policy's main principle was that of non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of Latin America. Furthermore, it reinforced the idea that the United States would be a “good neighbor”. -
Period: to
America: A Superpower & The Cold War
-
Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt
The first inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the 32nd President of the United States marked the landslide victory over Republican official Herbert Hoover. Also, Roosevelt's inauguration was the last inauguration to be held on the set date of March 4; under the terms of the Twentieth Amendment, all following inaugurations have taken place on January 20. -
Emergency Banking Relief Act
This law was created to bring about immediate action towards the banking chaos; it invested the president with power to regulate banking transactions and foreign exchange and to reopen solvent banks. -
Beer and Wine Revenue Act
This law imposed a federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to raise revenue for the federal government and give individual states the option to further regulate the sale and distribution of beer and wine. -
Agricultural Adjustment Act
Roosevelt’s Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933 was designed to correct the imbalance of the long-standing agricultural depression. One section of the Act made availiable many millions of dollars to help farmers meet their mortgages. -
Federal Securities Act
The Federal Securities Act was a federal piece of legislation enacted as a result of the market crash of 1929. The legislation had two main goals: to ensure more transparency in financial statements so investors can make informed decisions about investments, and to establish laws against misrepresentation and fraudulent activities in the securities markets. -
Home Owners' Loan Corporation
The HOLC was designed to refinance mortgages on nonfarm homes. The agency not only bailed out mortgage-holding banks, but also secured the political loyalties of relieved middle-class homeowners to the Democratic party. -
National Recovery Administration
The NRA was a U.S. government agency established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to stimulate business recovery through fair-practice codes during the Great Depression. It authorized the president to institute industry-wide codes to eliminate unfair trade practices, reduce unemployment, and establish minimum wages and maximum hours. -
Public Works Adminstration
The PWA was designed to reduce unemployment and increase purchasing power through the construction of highways and public buildings. The PWA spent about $4 billion in the construction of more than 70 percent of the nations’ new educational buildings; 65 percent of its new courthouses, city halls, and sewage-disposal plants; 35 percent of its new public-health facilities; and 10 percent of all new roads, bridges, and subways. -
The London Conference
The delegates to the London Conference hoped to organize a coordinated international attack on the global depression, and were eager to stabilize the values of the nations' currencies and the rates at which they could be exchanged. Although, Roosevelt began to quetion the conference's agenda; he scolded the conference for attempting to stabilize the currencies and essentially decaring America's withdrawel from the negotiations. -
Civil Works Administration
The CWA was established by the New Deal during the Great Depression to rapidly create manual labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt put Harry L. Hopkins in charge of the short-term agency. -
Gold Reserve Act
The United States Gold Reserve Act required that all gold and gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve be surrendered and put in the title of the United States Department of the Treasury. -
Tidings-McDuffle Act
A United States federal law which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence. -
Securities and Exchange Commission Authorized
The Securities and Exchange Commission was established in 1934 to regulate the commerce in stocks, bonds, and other securities. -
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act was an attempt to secure new rights for Native Americans on reservations. Its main provisions were to restore to Native Americans management of their land, prevent further reduction of resources, and build a stable economic foundation for the people of the reservations. -
Federal Housing Administration Established
The Federal Housing Administration insured loans made by banks and other private lenders for home building and home buying. The goals of this organization were to improve housing standards and conditions, provide an adequate home financing system through insurance of mortgage loans, and to stabilize the mortgage market. -
Resettlement Administration
The Resettlement Administration was a New Deal U.S. federal agency that relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. -
Works Progress Administration Established
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unemployed people to carry out public works projects like the construction of public buildings and roads. -
Wagner Act
The Wagner Act was a New Deal reform passed by President Franklin Roosevelt to prevent employers from interfering with workers’ unions and protests in the private sector. The act established the National Labor Relations Board to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively, and strike. -
Social Security Act
The 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. -
U.S. Neutrality Act of 1935
This act imposed a general embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in war.Also, it declared that American citizens travelling on warring ships travelled at their own risk. This act was set to expire after six months. -
Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act was a United States federal law that allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production in order to "conserve soil" and prevent erosion. -
U.S. Neutrality Act of 1936
The Neutrality Act of 1936 renewed the provisions of the 1935 act for another 14 months. It also forbade all loans or credits to belligerents. -
Roosevelt's Second Inaugural Address
The inauguration marked the commencement of the second four-year term of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President, and the landslide defeat of Alfred M. Landon. -
Roosevelt announces "Court-packing" plan
Roosevelt wanted a more liberal court; therfore, he announced his a controversial plan to expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 judges. Critics immediately charged that Roosevelt was trying to "pack" the court and thus neutralize Supreme Court justices hostile to his New Deal. -
U.S. Neutrality Act of 1937
The Neutrality Act of 1937 included the provisions of the earlier acts, this time without expiration date, and extended them to cover civil wars as well. U.S. ships were prohibited from transporting any passengers or articles to belligerents, and U.S. citizens were forbidden from traveling on ships of belligerent nations. -
Panay Incident
The Panay incident was Japanese attack on the American gunboat Panay while she was anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking, China on. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time, and the Japanese claimed that they did not see the American flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Nevertheless, the attack caused U.S. to turn against the Japanese. -
Second Agricultural Adjustment Act
The Second Agricultural Adjustment Act was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which restricted agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant part of their land and to kill off excess livestock. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus and therefore effectively raise the value of crops. -
Munich Conference
The Munich Agreement permitted Nazi Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia's areas along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was created. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. -
Reoganization Act
The Reorganization Act was an American Act of Congress which gave the President of the United States the authority to hire additional confidential staff and reorganize the executive branch for two years subject to legislative veto. -
Hatch Act
The Hatch Act prevented federal administrative officials, except the highest policy-making officers, from active political campaigning and soliciting. Furthermore, it forbade the use of government funds for policial purposes and the collection of campaign contributions from people receiving relief payments. -
Nazi Soviet Pact
The Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed in Moscow. Under the terms of the agreement, both countries (Soviet Union and Germany) promised to remain neutral if either country became involved in a war. -
World War II begins in Europe
World War II began in Europe on September 1,1939, with Germany's invasion of Poland. The Nazi policy against the Jews, limited to the isolation and forced immigration of German
Jews, now took a new and furious turn. -
U.S. Neutrality Act of 1939
In September 1939, after Germany had invaded Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Roosevelt invoked the provisions of the Neutrality Act, but told Congress and that the Neutrality Acts may give passive aid to an aggressor. -
Havana Conference
As Germany began to take over countries throughout Europe during World War II, many colonies in the New World found themselves orphaned. At the conference, the United States agreed to share with its neighbors the responsibility of protecting the Monroe Doctrine. The Havana Conference marked a dramatic change in the use of the Monroe Doctrine. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force. -
The First Peacetime Draft
The First Peacetime Draft was the first important American policy in response to Hitler's victory in Europe. It marked the effective end of the isolationist tradition in the United States because for the first time while the country remained officially at peace, civilians were drafted into the armed forces to face the possible threat of aggression. -
Third Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt
The inauguration marked the commencement of the third four-year term of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President, and the defeat of Willkie. -
Lend-Lease Act
The Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. The act authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials to Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Brazil, and many other countries. -
Hitler attacks the Soviet Union
Hitler's campaign against the Soviet Union started by sending 7.2 million troops into the Soviet land. They caught the red army off guard and had a quick success. By July 17th, the Germans were less then two miles from Moscow. The attack was postponed due to the winter, which allowed the Red Army get ready and used the snow to begin a counterattack against the Germans. This forced the Germans to retreat. -
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
The attacking planes came in two waves; the first hit its target at 7:53 AM, the second at 8:55. By 9:55 it was all over. By 1:00 PM the carriers that launched the planes from 274 miles off the coast of Oahu were heading back to Japan. -
U.S. declares war on Japan
On December 8, 1941 the United States Congress declared war upon the Empire of Japan in response to that country's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. -
Germany declares war on U.S.
Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict. -
Japanese-Americans sent to Internment Camps
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, some US officials thought the Japanese might have spies hiding among the ethnic Japanese populations in the US so they put them in Internment Camps. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway effectively destroyed Japan’s naval strength when the Americans destroyed four of its aircraft carriers. Japan’s navy never recovered from its mauling at Midway and it was on the defensive after this battle. -
Teheran Conference
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. It was held in the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran and was the first of the World War II conferences held between all of the "Big Three" Allied leaders. It was committed to the opening of a second front against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies. -
Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill)
A law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans. Benefits included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business or farm, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend college, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive campaign launched on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. The surprise attack caught the Allied force soff guard and became the costliest battle in terms of casualties for the United States. It also severely depleted Germany's war-making resources. -
Yalta Conference
The World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. -
Roosevelt Dies
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, and Truman assumed the presidency. -
Germany Surrenders
Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Reims, France, to take effect the following day. -
Potsdam Conference
Stalin, Churchill, and Truman gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of the war. -
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in 1945. The two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date. -
Japan Surrenders
Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II. -
United Nations Established
The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. -
Truman Doctrine
An international-relations policy, set forth by the U.S. President Harry Truman, stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere. -
Taft-Hartley Act
A United States federal law that restricted the activities and power of labor unions. The act was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overcoming U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947. -
Marshall Plan
A joint plan for economic recovery of Western Europe as a result of WW2. The United States would provide substantial financial assistance in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. -
Berlin Crisis
At the end of World War II, the winners divided the capital city of Germany, Berlin. The US and its allies got West Berlin, and the Soviet Union and its allies got East Berlin.The Soviets wanted to take over West Berlin, so that they'd have the whole city. They cut off all roads in and out of West Berlin to keep supplies from going in to the inhabitants and force a surrender. -
NATO Established
The treaty, one of the major Western countermeasures against the threat of aggression by the Soviet Union during the cold war, was aimed at safeguarding the freedom of the North Atlantic community. The treaty provided for collective self-defense, and was also designed to encourage political, economic, and social cooperation. -
Korean War
A war between South Korea and North Korea. It was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. -
Alaska Attains Statehood
On January 3, 1959, Alaska became the 49th state to be admitted to the United States. -
Hawaii Attains Statehood
On August 21, 1959, Hawaii became the 50th state in the United States.
