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Otto Van Bismarck forms the Dual Alliance between GErmany and Austria--Hungary. Italy joins this alliance in 1881, forming the Triple Alliance.
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Russia forms a military alliance with France in 1892 and 1894. England, alarmed by Germany's naval fleet, joins the alliance forming the Triple Entente in 1907.
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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot and killed by 19 year-old Gavrilo Princip while visiting Saravejo, Bosnia. Princip was a member of the Serbian terrorist group Black Hand.
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Austria, after rejecting Serbia's offer of appeasement, declares war on Serbia. Russia begins to mobilize it's army.
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Germany declares war on Russia and implements the Schlieffen Plan.
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Germany invades Belgium on their way to France, prompting Great Britain to join the war.
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The United States declares war on Germany due to unrestricted submarine warfare, the Zimmerman Telegram, and the Russian Revolution.
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Russia signs a separate peace treaty with Germany
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Fearing an Aliied invasion of Germany, an armistice is signed, ending hostilities.
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The U.S retreats into Isolationism. Germany's economy is in ruins. Their military is halved, and they must pay steep war reperations.
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America was overdependent on production. Theree was a great divide between the rich and the poor.
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After WWI, most of Europe fell into economic decline.
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The Stock Market crashes.
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Once the stock market crashed, millions of Americans began to withdraw their money.They put thousands of banks in peril.
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Congress passes the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, steeply raising import duties in an attempt to protect American manufactures from foreign competition.
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The Committee for Unemployment Relief releases a report on unemployment showing that 4 to 5 million Americans are out of work.
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2,293 banks have closed.
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Adolf Hitler named Chancellor of Germany
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Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated into office as 32nd President of the United States. He immediately begins reforms to end the Great Depression.
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Strict trading and banking regulations were put in place. THe government had an increased role in people's lives. The population shifted from rural areas to urban cities and towns.
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British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler
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Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.
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France signs an armistice with Germany, agreeing to German occupation.
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Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa, a 2000-mile invasion of the Soviet Union
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Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
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December 8th: U.S. declares war on Japan
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December 11th: Germany and Italy declare war on U.S
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Allied forces launch an invasion of Normandy.
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FDR dies. VP Harry Truman takes office.
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Germany surrenders unconditionally
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The Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb onn Hiroshima, Japan. This resulted in 140,000 deaths
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Nagasaki, Japan, is bombed, resulting in 70,000 deaths.
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Emperor Hirohito surrenders. America wins the Pacific Theatre of War.
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Tensions had heightened between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet union would later disband.
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United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13, in favor of a Partition Plan that created the State of Israel for the tormented Jewish people.
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President Truman signs the Marshall Plan, agreeing to give aid to European nations to help them recover from the triple blow of 2 world wars, and the Great Depression.