The Great Depression

By hampuswestanau

  • Herbert Hoover became president

    Herbert Hoover became president
    His laissez-faire economic policies did not do much to stop the Depression. He believed a free-market economy would allow the forces of capitalism to fix any economic downturn.

  • Wall Street Crash

    Wall Street Crash
    The American stock market collapses, signaled the start of the Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaks to a level that it will not reach again until 1954.

  • Congress passes the Smoot-Hawley Tariff,

    Congress passes the Smoot-Hawley Tariff,
    steeply raising import duties in an attempt to protect American manufactures from foreign competition. The tariff increase has little impact on the American economy, but plunges Europe farther into crisis.

  • Hoover Dam

    Hoover Dam
    is a concrete dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  • major bank collapse

    major bank collapse
    New York's Bank of the United States collapses in the largest bank failure to date in American history. $200 million in deposits disappear, and the bank's customers are left holding the bag.

  • Roosevelt Elected

    Roosevelt Elected
    Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide to win the presidency

  • Radio Priest

    Radio Priest
    "Radio Priest" Charles Coughlin's weekly broadcast draws an average of 30 to 45 million listeners.

  • Townsend Proposes Pension Plan

    Townsend Proposes Pension Plan
    Dr. Francis Townsend proposing state-funded pensions for the elderly to boost consumption and employment.

  • Upton Sinclair Publishes Treatise

    Upton Sinclair Publishes Treatise
    Upton Sinclair publishes Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future, a fictionalized political treatise that lays out the agenda of a communitarian movement Sinclair calls EPIC—End Poverty in California.

  • Huey Long Assassinated

    Huey Long Assassinated
    Huey Long is assassinated inside the Louisiana Capitol Building.

  • Roosevelt Reelected

    Roosevelt Reelected
    Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected to a second term as president, winning in a landslide over Republican Alf Landon. Roosevelt wins every state but Maine and Vermont.

  • WW2

    WW2
    Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.