World War I
A German military tactic of sinking all ships, including civilian ones, without warning; its resumption was a final trigger for U.S. entry into WWI.
What is Unrestricted Submarine Warfare?
This nationwide ban on alcohol, established by the 18th Amendment, paradoxically led to the rise of illegal speakeasies and a new social morality.
What is Prohibition?
The practice of borrowing money to purchase stocks; it created systemic risk and led to mass selling when "margin calls" were issued during the 1929 crash.
What is Buying on Margin?
An ambitious program that built a series of hydroelectric dams to control floods and provide cheap, government-subsidized electricity to the chronically depressed Tennessee watershed.
What is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)?
The surprise Japanese attack on this Hawaiian military base on December 7, 1941 immediately ended American isolationism and led to a declaration of war.
What is Pearl Harbor?
The 1915 sinking of this British passenger liner by a German U-boat killed 128 Americans and decisively turned U.S. public opinion against Germany.
What is the Lusitania?
These young, middle-class women with short hair and short skirts embodied the era's new emphasis on materialism and a rejection of Victorian values.
Who were the Flappers?
A panic where customers simultaneously try to withdraw all their deposits, causing banks to fail; this crisis was stopped by FDR's "bank holiday."
What is a Bank Run?
A populist Louisiana senator who was FDR's biggest political threat; his "Share Our Wealth" program forced Roosevelt to adopt bolder, more aggressive reforms.
Who was Huey Long?
The popular name for the massive Allied amphibious assault on the beaches of Normandy, France, in June 1944; this operation was a fatal blow to German forces on the Western Front.
What is D-Day?
An intercepted German proposal to Mexico suggesting an alliance to "reconquer" lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona; its revelation inflamed U.S. public opinion.
What is the Zimmerman Telegram?
A vibrant cultural explosion centered in NYC where Black artists, writers, and musicians celebrated their heritage and challenged pervasive stereotypes.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
The name for the 15,000 unemployed WWI veterans who marched on D.C. in 1932 to demand early payment of benefits; Hoover's use of the Army to remove them sealed his reputation as inhumane.
What is the Bonus Army?
A permanent New Deal reform that guarantees individual bank deposits; it restored public confidence in the financial system and eliminated the panic that caused bank runs.
What is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)?
A campaign spearheaded by Black newspapers urging African Americans to fight for victory against fascism abroad and victory against racial discrimination at home.
What is the Double-V Campaign?
Woodrow Wilson's ambitious peace plan based on open diplomacy, free trade, and self-determination; its capstone was the League of Nations, which the U.S. Senate ultimately rejected.
What are the Fourteen Points?
A 1925 legal battle over teaching evolution in Tennessee; it became a national spectacle highlighting the cultural clash between religious fundamentalism and modern science.
What is the Scopes Monkey Trial?
An environmental catastrophe in the plains states caused by severe drought and destructive farming practices, forcing hundreds of thousands of "Okies" to migrate west.
What is the Dust Bowl?
FDR's informal radio addresses used to explain complex legislation directly to the public and restore confidence, most notably during the 1933 banking crisis.
What are Fireside Chats?
This 1941 act bypassed neutrality laws to lend or rent war supplies to Allies, cementing the U.S. role as the "Arsenal of Democracy" before formally entering the war.
What is the Lend-Lease Act?
The 1919 peace settlement that ended WWI; its "war guilt" clause and harsh financial reparations against Germany are seen as setting the stage for World War II.
What is the Treaty of Versailles?
This 1924 immigration law used quotas based on the 1890 census to severely restrict "new" immigrants from Southern/Eastern Europe and explicitly ban all Asians.
What is the National Origins Act?
Passed in 1930, this was the highest tariff in American history; it sparked a global trade war that caused international trade to plummet and deepened the Depression.
What is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff?
FDR's failed 1937 proposal to reorganize the Supreme Court by adding new justices; he attempted this because the conservative Court was striking down his New Deal programs.
What is Court Packing?
This presidential order authorized the forced relocation and detention of over 110,000 people of Japanese descent, including American citizens, to internment camps.
What is Executive Order 9066?