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Progressive Era
Major areas of economic, social, and moral reform among southern states included prohibition, woman suffrage, the regulation of child labor, campaigns to abolish the convict lease system and reform the penal system, and expansion of educational opportunities and social services for marginalized groups. Paradoxically, the disfranchisement of black voters was considered a reform by white Progressives in southern states who felt that it eliminated a major source of electoral corruption; segregation -
Newlands Reclamation Act
Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his wife Alice about the scarcity of water on the prairie and of the brackish nature of the water there was. Perhaps his experiences there encouraged him to push so hard for the passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act when he became president. The Newlands Reclamation Act, also called the U.S. Reclamation Act, authorized the federal government to commission water diversion, retention and transmission projects in arid land -
Baring Japanese and Korean laborers from the U.S.
Hoping to repair U.S. relationships with Japan, President Theodore Roosevelt persuades the San Francisco school board to reverse its order segregating Asian students. As a result, Roosevelt wins Japan's agreement to a new immigration policy that will bar Japanese and Korean laborers from the United States, thereby effectively extending the Chinese Exclusion Act to all Asian nationals. -
U.S. declares war on Germany
At 8:30 on the evening of April 2, 1917, President Wilson appeared before a joint session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany in order to "make the world safe for democracy." On April 4, Congress granted Wilson's request. America thus joined the carnage that had been ravaging Europe since 1914. Germany's renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare and the revelation of a proposed German plot to ally with Mexico against the US prompted Wilson's action. -
The New Deal
When President Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to try and stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known collectively as the New Deal, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans. More than that, Roosevelt’s New Deal permanently changed the federal government’s relationship to the U.S. populace. -
The Civilian Conservation Corps.
Formed in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, was one of the first New Deal programs. It was a public works project intended to promote environmental conservation and to build good citizens through vigorous, disciplined outdoor labor. Close to the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC combined his interests in conservation and universal service for youth. He believed that this civilian “tree army” would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth “off the city street -
1940-Hitler attacks Denmark and Norway.
The phony war had came to an end as Hitler launched an attack on Denmark and Norway. Then, on May 10, German troops moved around the Maginot Line and launched a blitzkrieg on Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. All three countries were overwhelmed. -
Pearl Harbor Bombing
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. -
U.S. Enters WW11
The United States did not enter the war until after the Japanese bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Between those two events, President Franklin Roosevelt worked hard to prepare Americans for a conflict that he regarded as inevitable. In November 1939, he persuaded Congress to repeal the arms embargo provisions of the neutrality law so that arms could be sold to France and Britain. -
The End of World War II
On August 15, 1945, Japan formally surrendered. World War II was over. A new age of nuclear weapons had begun, and a cold war between the two superpowers that emerged from the war—the United States and the Soviet Union—would result in many "surrogate wars" in the decades to come, wars fought in and between nations backed by one side or the other.
