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1929: |
Stock Market Crash |
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Robert and Helen Lynd publish Middletown |
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1930: |
Midwestern drought begins |
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Hawley-Smoot Tariff |
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1931: |
Great Britain abandons gold standard |
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Hoover declares moratorium on Allied war debts |
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Miners strike in Harlan County, Kentucky |
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1932: |
Reconstruction Finance Corporation |
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Bonus Army marches on Washington |
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Lindbergh kidnapping |
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Revenue Act of 1933 |
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Height of deportation of Mexican migrant workers |
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Farm Holiday Association founded |
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Strike at Ford’s River Rouge plant in Michigan |
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Communist-led hunger marches |
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1933: |
Unemployment rises to highest level |
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Banking crisis |
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes president |
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Birth rate drops to lowest level |
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FDR’s first fireside chat |
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Emergency Banking Act |
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Glass-Steagall Act establishes FDIC |
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Agricultural Adjustment Act |
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National Industrial Recovery Act |
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Tennessee Valley Authority |
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Prohibition ends with repeal of 21st Amendment |
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United States abandons the gold standard |
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Townsend Clubs |
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1934: |
Securities and Exchange Commission |
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Indian Reorganization Act |
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Southern Tenant Farmers Union founded |
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It Happened One Night wins Oscars |
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Resettlement Administration |
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Conservatives create American Liberty League |
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Upton Sinclair loses California governor race |
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1935: |
National Union for Social Justice (Father Charles Coughlin) |
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National Youth Administration |
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Harlem Race Riot |
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Resettlement Administration |
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National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act |
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Social Security Act |
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Works Progress Administration |
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Huey Long assassinated |
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CIO formed |
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1935-1939: |
Communists at height of influence |
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1936: |
Student strike against War |
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Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind |
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Supreme Court finds Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional |
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Black cabinet |
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Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at Berlin Olympics |
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Birth control legalized |
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Roosevelt reelected |
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Life magazine founded |
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John Maynard Keynes publishes The General Theory |
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1936-1939: |
Spanish Civil War |
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1937: |
Hindenberg crash |
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Amelia Earhart disappears |
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Sit-down strikes |
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Memorial Day Massacre |
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Supreme Court Reorganization fails |
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National Housing Act |
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1937-1938: |
"Roosevelt Recession" |
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1938: |
Fair Labor Standards Act |
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Temporary National Economic Committee established |
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Munich Agreement |
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1939: |
John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath |
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Federal Theater Project terminated |
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Nazi-Soviet pact |
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Executive Reorganization Act |
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Marion Anderson sings at Lincoln Memorial |
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World War II breaks out in Europe |
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1940: |
Conscription reinstated |
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American First movement |
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Roosevelt wins reelection against Wendell Wilkie |
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1941: |
Lend-Lease Act passed |
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Roosevelt declares Four Freedoms |
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Fair Employment Practices Commission |
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Atlantic Charter signed |
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Japanese attack Pearl Harbor |
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1942: |
Civil rights activists establish Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) |
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U.S. Navy wins Battle of Midway |
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Roosevelt authorized Manhattan Project |
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U.S. forces invade North Africa |
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Roosevelt authorizes internment of Japanese Americans |
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Women recruited for war industries |
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Revenue Act of 1942 |
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Office of Price Adminstration created |
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News of Holocaust reaches U.S. |
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Temporary Mexican workers allowed entrance into US |
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1943: |
Allies launch invasion of Italy |
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Smith-Connally Act passed |
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Race riot breaks out in Detroit |
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"Zoot-Suit" riot in Los Angeles |
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Chinese Exclusion Act repealed |
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Fascism falls in Italy |
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Teheran Conference |
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1944: |
Gunnar Myrdal publishes An American Dilemma |
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D-Day |
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GI Bill of Rights |
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Roosevelt wins reelection against Thomas Dewey |
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Demonstrators protest segregation in DC restaurant |
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1945: |
Roosevelt dies; Truman becomes president |
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Germany surrenders |
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Yalta and Postdam Conferences |
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United Nation founded |
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Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki |
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Japan surrenders |
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1946: |
Atomic Energy Commission established |
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Employment Act of 1946 passed |
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Churchill’ Iron Curtain speech |
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Postwar inflation |
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Severe labor unrest throughout US |
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Republicans win control of Congress |