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Temperance Movement
The temperance movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries was an organized effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of intoxicating liquors or press for complete abstinence. The movement's ranks were mostly filled by women who, with their children, had endured the effects of unbridled drinking by many of their menfolk. In fact, alcohol was blamed for many of society's demerits, among them severe health problems, destitution and crime. -
Spoils System
In politics and government, a spoils system is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government civil service jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the part unlike a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity. -
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. It lowered the cost of producing steel, leading to steel being widely substituted for cast iron. -
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Transforming the West
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Homestead Act
The Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States, allowing any American, including freed slaves, to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. It set in motion a program of public land grants to small farmers. -
Standard Oil Trust
The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller. He built up the company through 1868 to become the largest oil refinery firm in the world. In 1870, the company was renamed Standard Oil Company, after which Rockefeller decided to buy up all the other competition and form them into one large company. -
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. he Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected socialism and anarchism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. -
Transcontinental Railroad
At Promontory, Utah, California Governor Leland Stanford pounds in a ceremonial golden spike that completes the nation’s first transcontinental railway. The railroad had 2 sections the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. By 1860, the number had risen to over 30,000 miles, more miles of rail than the rest of the world altogether. -
Laissez Faire
Laissez Faire is a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering. The belief that the economy would take care of itself and the people should be allowed to have their own businesses -
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The Gilded Age
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Imperialism
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Indian Appropriations Acts
The Indian Appropriation Acts declared that “no Indian nation or tribe” would be recognized “as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.” -
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is the name of two historically distinct American retail enterprises. It can refer either to the defunct mail order and department store retailer. Montgomery Ward was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872. He observed that rural customers often wanted "city" goods, but their only access to them was through rural retailers who had little competition and did not offer any guarantee of quality. -
Women's Temperance Christian Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio. After Frances Willard took over leadership in 1879, the WCTU became one of the largest and most influential women's groups of the 19th century by expanding its platform to campaign for labor laws, prison reform and suffrage. -
Battle of Little Big Horn
The battle of Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory took federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer against Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriorsTensions between the two groups had been rising since the discovery of gold on Native American lands. The Battle of the Little Bighorn also called Custer’s Last Stand, marked the most impacting Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the Plains Indian War. -
Exodusters
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879. It was the first general migration of black people following the Civil War. -
Assassination of President Garfield
A drifter named Charles Guiteau shot newly inaugurated President James A. Garfield in the back at a downtown train station. Garfield would cling to life for 80 agonizing days, but a severe infection—most likely brought on by unsanitary medical practices—eventually led to his death. He had been president for just 200 days. -
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. The AFL was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 with the Geary Act and made permanent in 1902. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Act which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons and prohibited soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property. To enforce the merit system and the judicial system, the law also created the United States Civil Service Commission -
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody opened Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in Omaha, Nebraska. The show featured American Indians with the native dress and live animals to romanticise life in the West. He entertained the people by having various scenes that had cowboys and native americans and various typers of animals. -
Cocaine Toothache Drops
A cheery vintage advertisement depicting kids playing in a yard promotes “cocaine toothache drops” sold at an Albany, New York, pharmacy in March 1885. The ad, which touts its 15-cent drops, promises “instantaneous cure.” In the late 1800s, cocaine was considered a possibility for local anesthesia. -
Coca Cola
Coca-Cola history began in 1886 when the curiosity of an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, led him to create a distinctive tasting soft drink that could be sold at soda fountains. He created a flavored syrup, took it to his neighborhood pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed “excellent” by those who sampled it. -
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Becoming an Industrial Power
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Haymarket Riot
The Haymarket riot was a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed as a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. -
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers. -
Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, was the site of conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government. In 1890 massacre left some 150 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. -
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The Progressive Era
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. It was named after Senator John Sherman of the state of Ohio. -
Depression of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year. This panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures. Compounding market overbuilding and the railroad bubble, was a run on the gold
supply, because of the long-established American policy of bimetallism, which used both silver and gold metals at a fixed 16:1 rate for pegging the value of the US Dollar. -
American Railway Union
The American Railway Union (ARU) was briefly among the largest labor unions of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States. The union was launched at a meeting held in Chicago in February 1893 and won an early victory in a strike on the Great Northern Railroad in the summer of 1893. -
World's Colombian Exposition 1893
The World's Columbian Exposition was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The Exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on architecture, sanitation, the arts, Chicago's self-image, and American industrial optimism. -
President Cleveland's Intervention
President Grover Cleveland justified federal intervention on the grounds that mail travelled on the trains and since the postal service was a federally run operation, the strike was jeopardizing the operation of a branch of the central government. -
Cross of Gold Speech
The Cross of Gold speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former United States Representative from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or "free silver", which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold" -
Klondike Gold Rush
Native Americans found gold in the Yukon region of Canada. Gold was literally found all over the place, and most of these early stakeholders became wealthy.Within six months, approximately 100,000 gold-seekers set off for the Yukon. Only 30,000 completed the trip. -
Election of 1896
Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by historians to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history. The 1896 campaign is often considered by political scientists to be a realigning election that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System. McKinley was strongest in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. Byran was strongest in the South, rural Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states. -
Yellow Journalism
Yellow journalism and the yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion. -
Battle of Manilla Bay
The Battle of Manila Bay took place on 1 May 1898, during the Spanish–American War. The American Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey engaged and destroyed the Spanish Pacific Squadron under Contraalmirante Patricio Montojo. The battle took place in Manila Bay in the Philippines, and was the first major engagement of the Spanish–American War. The battle was one of the most decisive naval battles in history and marked the end of the Spanish colonial period in Philippine history. -
Siege of Santiago
The Siege of Santiago also known as the Siege of Santiago de Cuba was the last major operation of the Spanish–American War on the island of Cuba. This action should not be confused with the naval battle of Santiago de Cuba. The primary objective of the American Fifth Army Corps' invasion of Cuba was the capture of the city of Santiago de Cuba. U.S. forces had driven back the Spaniards' first line of defense at the Battle of Las Guasimas. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was an agreement made in 1898 that involved Spain relinquishing nearly all of the remaining Spanish Empire, especially Cuba, and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. The cession of the Philippines involved a payment of $20 million from the United States to Spain. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The policy proposed to keep China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, keeping anyone power from total control of the country, and calling upon all powers, within their spheres of influence, to refrain from interfering with any treaty port or any vested interest. -
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion was a violent anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901, toward the end of the Qing dynasty. Many of their members had been practitioners of Chinese martial arts, also referred to in the west as "Chinese Boxing." They were motivated by proto-nationalist sentiments, and by opposition to Western colonialism and the Christian missionary activity that was associated with it -
Northern Securities Trust
In 1901, the Northern Securities Company was formed as a holding company in the business-friendly state of New Jersey. The new venture brought together the talents and wealth of J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill on one side and E.H. Harriman on the other. Hill controlled the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways, Harriman the Union Pacific. -
Platt Amendment
The Platt Amendment was passed as part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill. It stipulated seven conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Spanish–American War, and an eighth condition that Cuba signs a treaty accepting these seven conditions. It defined the terms of Cuban–U.S. relations to essentially be an unequal one of U.S. dominance over Cuba. -
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes created by the Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. Since March 1901, it has been awarded annually to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". -
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo–Japanese War was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan and the Yellow Sea. -
Square Deal
Square Deal was a description by U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt of his personal approach to current social problems and the individual. It embraced Roosevelt’s idealistic view of labour, citizenship, parenthood, and Christian ethics. The Square Deal concept was later largely incorporated into the platform of the Progressive Party when Roosevelt was its candidate in the 1912 presidential election. -
Meat Inspection Act
The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (FMIA) is an American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. -
RMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was in operation during the early 20th century. The ship was a holder of the Blue Riband, and briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of her sister ship Mauretania. The Cunard Line launched Lusitania in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. She made a total of 202 trans-Atlantic crossings. -
Gentleman's Agreement
The Gentlemen’s Agreement between the United States and Japan in 1907-1908 represented an effort by President Theodore Roosevelt to calm growing tension between the two countries over the immigration of Japanese workers. A treaty with Japan in 1894 had assured free immigration, but as the number of Japanese workers in California increased, they were met with growing hostility. -
Great White Fleet
The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the powerful United States Navy battle fleet that completed a journey around the globe from December 16, 1907, to February 1909, by order of United States President Theodore Roosevelt. Its mission was to make friendly courtesy visits to numerous countries, while displaying America's new naval power to the world. -
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle radically transforming Mexican culture and government. Although recent research has focused on local and regional aspects of the Revolution, it was a "genuinely national revolution". Its outbreak in 1910 resulted from the failure of the 35-year-long regime of Porfirio Díaz to find a managed solution to the presidential succession. This meant there was a political crisis among competing elites and the opportunity for agrarian insurrection. -
Election of 1912
The United States presidential election of 1912 was fought among three major candidates. President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican Party. It nominated Roosevelt and ran candidates for other offices in major states. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was nominated on the 46th ballot of a contentious convention, thanks to the support of William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate who still had a large and loyal following in 1912. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act is an Act of Congress that created and established the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States, and which created the authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes (commonly known as the US Dollar) as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. -
Trench War Fare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict. -
Universal Negro Improvement Association
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), primarily in the United States, organization founded by Marcus Garvey , dedicated to racial pride, economic self-sufficiency, and the formation of an independent black nation in Africa. Though Garvey had founded the UNIA in Jamaica in 1914, its main influence was felt in the principal urban black neighbourhoods of the U.S. North after his arrival in Harlem, in New York City, in 1916. -
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World War 1
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Ludlow Massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. About two dozen people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely criticized for the incident. -
Schieffen Plan
Shcieffen Plan was the name given after World War I to the thinking behind the German invasion of France and Belgium on 4 August 1914. Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the Imperial Army German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, devised in 1905 and 1906 a deployment plan for a war-winning offensive, in a one-front war against the French Third Republic. -
Sussex Pledge
The Sussex Pledge was a promise made by Germany to the United States in 1916, during World War I before the latter entered the war. Early in 1915, Germany had instituted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, allowing armed merchant ships, but not passenger ships, to be torpedoed without warning. Despite this avowed restriction, a French cross-channel passenger ferry, the Sussex, was torpedoed without warning on March 24, 1916; the ship was severely damaged and about 50 people died. -
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan is three distinct movements in the United States that have advocated extremist reactionary positions such as white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-immigration and—especially in later iterations—Nordicism and anti-Catholicism . Historically, the KKK used terrorism—both physical assault and murder—against groups or individuals whom they opposed. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society and all are considered right-wing extremist organizations. -
Great Migration
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the First World War. -
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were the fighting men of the United States Army during World War I. It was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. During the United States campaigns in World War 1 it fought alongside the French Army, British Army, Canadian Army and Australian Army on the Western Front, against the German Empire. -
Jazz
The birth of jazz music is credited to African Americans, but both black and white Americans alike are responsible for its immense rise in popularity. The rise of jazz coincided with the rise of radio broadcast and recording technology, which spawned the popular “potter palm” shows that included big-band jazz performances.
Female singers such as Bessie Smith emerged during this period of postwar equality and open sexuality, paving the way for future female artists. -
14 Points
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. Europeans generally welcomed Wilson's points, but his main Allied colleagues were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism. -
Espionage Act
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime. In 1919, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that the act did not violate the freedom of speech of those convicted under its provisions. -
World Christian Fundamentals Association
World Christian Fundamentals Association, was an interdenominational organization founded in 1919 by the Baptist minister William Bell Riley of the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was originally formed to launch "a new Protestantism" based upon premillennial interpretations of biblical prophecy, but soon turned its focus more towards opposition to evolution. -
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1920s
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Treaty of Versailles
World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts, and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. After strict enforcement for five years, the French assented to the modification of important provisions. Germany agreed to pay reparations under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, but those plans were canceled in 1932. -
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was enacted to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States. The Anti-Saloon League's Wayne Wheeler conceived and drafted the bill, which was named for Andrew Volstead, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who managed the legislation. -
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." Officially nonpartisan, the organization has been supported and criticized by liberal and conservative organizations alike. The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying, and it has over 1,200,000 members and an annual budget of over $100 million. -
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the period is considered a golden age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance and art. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded on January 10th 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. -
19th Ammendment
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women’s suffrage, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest. In 1848 the movement for women’s rights launched on a national level with the Seneca Falls Convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Following the convention, the demand for the vote became a centerpiece of the women’s rights movement. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
Teapot Dome Scandal, a scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, Albert Bacon Fall. After Pres. Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the Navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome reserves. -
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. -
American Indian Citizenship Act
The government of the United States gives citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the country.Before the Civil War, citizenship was often limited to Native Americans of one-half or less Indian blood.The Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to about 125,000 of 300,000 indigenous people in the United States -
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The Great Depression
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Black Tuesday
Black Tuesday hits Wall Street as investors trade 16,410,030 shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors, and stock tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not handle the tremendous volume of trading. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression. -
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl refers to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions. -
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is an unofficial, historical designation for the German state as it existed between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. The official name of the state remained Deutsches Reich, unchanged since 1871. In English, the country was usually known simply as Germany. -
The Brain Turst
Brain trust began as a term for a group of close advisers, often academics, to a political candidate or incumbent, prized for their expertise in particular fields. The term is most associated with the group of advisers to Franklin Roosevelt during his presidential administration. More recently the use of the term has expanded to encompass any group of advisers to a decision maker, whether or not in politics. -
Emergency Relief Act
Emergency Relief Administration (ERA) which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had created in 1933. FERA was established as a result of the Federal Emergency Relief Act and was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA)Prior to 1933, the federal government gave loans to the states to operate relief programs. One of these, the New York state program TERA (Temporary Emergency Relief Administration), was set up in 1931. -
20th Amendment
The Twentieth Amendment (Amendment XX) to the United States Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. The Twentieth Amendment was adopted on January 23, 1933. -
Federal Housing Authority (FHA)
The Federal Housing Administration, generally known as "FHA", provides mortgage insurance on loans made by FHA-approved lenders throughout the United States and its territories. FHA insures mortgages on single family and multifamily homes including manufactured homes and hospitals. It is the largest insurer of mortgages in the world, insuring over 47.5 million properties since its inception in 1934. -
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government. The SEC holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws, proposing securities rules, and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other activities and organizations, including the electronic securities markets in the United States. -
New Deal
In the spring of 1935, Roosevelt launched a second, more aggressive series of federal programs, sometimes called the Second New Deal. In April, he created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide jobs for unemployed people. WPA projects weren’t allowed to compete with private industry, so they focused on building things like post offices, bridges, schools, highways and parks. The WPA also gave work to artists, writers, theater directors and musicians. -
Supreme Court Packing
The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 (frequently called the "court-packing plan") was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roosevelt's purpose was to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that the court had ruled unconstitutional. -
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia from the time of the Austrian Empire. The word "Sudetenland" did not come into existence until the early 20th century and did not come to prominence until after the First World War. -
Munich Conference
The Munich Conference was held in Munich in 1938. There, Neville Chamberlin, the British Prime Minister; Edouard Daladier, the French Premiere, Benito Mussolini, the Italian Dictator, and Adolph Hitler, the German Fuhrer met to discuss terms that would satisfy Germany and avoid a second world war. Hitler told Chamberlain that war could be avoided if Sudetenland were unified with Germany. -
Period: to
World War 2
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German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. With Europe on the brink of another major war, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military. -
Invasion of Poland
1.5 million German troops invade Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler claimed the massive invasion was a defensive action, but Britain and France were not convinced. Later, they declared war on Germany, initiating World War II. -
Operation Sealion
Operation Sea Lion was Nazi Germany's code name for the plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. Following the Fall of France, Adolf Hitler, the German Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, hoped the British government would seek a peace agreement and he reluctantly considered invasion only as a last resort if all other options failed. -
Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. As the Germans drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. -
Battle of Montecasino
This multi-faceted battle marked one of the longest and bloodiest engagements of the Italian campaign during World War II. After attempts to overcome the Germans in the Liri Valley and at Anzio ended in stalemate, the Allies struggled to capture the western anchor of the Gustav Line and the Roman Catholic abbey of Monte Cassino. Two more offensives, which resulted in the destruction of the abbey and aerial bombardment of the region, again failed to produce the desired result. -
D-Day
D-Day was when 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. -
National Socialist-German Workers’ Party (NAZI)
The National Socialist-German Workers’ Party (NAZI) was a far-right political party in Germany that was active between 1920 and 1945 and practiced the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against the communist uprisings in post-World War I Germany. -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century.
