-
J.Edgar Hoover Becomes Head of the FBI
On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the 29-year-old Hoover acting director of the Bureau, and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director. -
Mein Kampf is Published
Mein Kampf, a political manifesto written by Adolf Hitler. It was his only complete book, and the work became the bible of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany’s Third Reich. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1927, and an abridged edition appeared in 1930. By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages. -
Stock Market Crash Begins Great Depression
The stock market crash of October 1929 led directly to the Great Depression in Europe. When stocks plummeted on the New York Stock Exchange, the world noticed immediately. -
The Dust Bowl Begins
The Dust Bowl, also known as “the Dirty Thirties,” started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer. Severe drought hit the Midwest and southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931. -
Franklin Roosevelt is Elected President (1st Time)
He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first “hundred days,” he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. -
Adolf Hitler Become Chancellor of Germany
Hitler was sworn in as the chancellor of Germany on the 30 January 1933. The Nazis were now in power. -
CCC is Created
The Emergency Conservation Work Act of 1933 mandated that the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) recruit unemployed young men from urban areas to perform conservation work throughout the nation's forests, parks, and fields. One of several prongs in the New Deal's attack on economic stagnation, President Franklin D. -
WPA is Created
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the WPA with an executive order on May 6, 1935. It was part of his New Deal plan to lift the country out of the Great Depression by reforming the financial system and restoring the economy to pre-Depression levels. The unemployment rate in 1935 was at a staggering 20 percent. -
J.J. Braddock Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title
Braddock (born June 7, 1905, New York, New York, U.S.—died November 29, 1974, North Bergen, New Jersey) was an American world heavyweight boxing champion from June 13, 1935, when he outpointed Max Baer in 15 rounds at the Long Island City Bowl in New York City, until June 22, 1937, when he was knocked out by Joe Louis. -
Olympic Games in Berlin
The 1936 Olympic Games were fraught with controversy. Berlin was chosen as the site for the Olympics before the Nazi party had risen to power, and the Nazi's persecution of Jews sparked a widespread movement in the U.S. to boycott the Olympics. This movement pressured high-profile American athletes to join the boycott. -
Kristallnacht
On November 9–10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes. -
Grapes of Wrath is Published
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. -
Wizard of Oz Premiers in Movie Theaters
“The Wizard of Oz officially premiered in Hollywood on August 15, 1939, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre,” Jay said. “The film opened in wide release on August 25; however, as is often the case with major motion pictures, there are test, promotional, press and other types of screenings prior to the wide release.” -
Germany Invades Poland
The invasion lasted from September 1 to October 5, 1939. As dawn broke on September 1, 1939, German forces launched a surprise attack on Poland. The attack was sounded with the predawn shelling, by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, of Polish fortifications at the Baltic port of Danzig (modern Dansk). -
The Four Freedoms Speech
This speech, delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt on January 6, 1941, became known as his "Four Freedoms Speech" due to a short closing portion in which he described his vision for extending American ideals throughout the world.