The United States of America & WWII:
1. How did the Treaty of Versailles impact them?
2. What type(s) of government did this country have in the interwar years(1919-1938)?
3. How did their leader, that led them throughout WWII, come to power?
4. How did this leader change their country(for the better and worse) prior to WWII?
5. What were the goals of the leader?
6. What was the military strategy of this country in the inter-war years(1919-1938)?
7. What role did they play in WWII?
8. Who were their allies in WWII?
9. How did WWII impact/effect the country?
(1) The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles. They didn't like it because it had little to do with Wilson's 14 Points. Also, the US was still mostly isolationist and didn't want to get involved with overseas things too often. So we made our own separate treaty with Germany. Eventually,
(2) The United States of America's government has been a democracy since it became independent from Great Britain. But to be specific, we had republican leaders throughout the 20s and democrats throughout the 30s and 40s.
(3) President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to office in 1932. He won the election partially because he was a democrat, and republicans had essentially screwed everything up for America's economy, and Roosevelt had a plan to fix it. Roosevelt had 3 terms and started on a fourth because he was so awesome, but he died, so that's how his vice pres. Harry S. Truman ended up president in 1945.
(4) Pres. Roosevelt introduced both new deals, thus improving the previously ruined economic condition of the USA. (5) Initially, to get America out of the great depression, via stimulus, for businesses and the needy, etc.
(6) The military, during this period in history, was mostly for just-in-case emergencies. The Kellogg-Briant pact had just outlawed war, and most countries were sick of fighting anyway. So, a lot of our strategies were theoretical, and we weren't planning to get involved with anything any time soon.
(7) We entered because Japan bombed us in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii - they provoked us into bombing them in Hiroshima with the atomic bomb, although we didn't get to that for a few years. Once in the war, we went after mainly Germany, as we viewed them as the bigger threat; we were right, naturally. We became one of the main contestants in the war, and eventually choreographed D-Day, the massive attack that turned the tables on Hitler. We also played a large part in dissipating Nazi Germany and rescuing Jews from concentration camps.
Pic1, Jewish men lined up in a concentration camp. Pic2, Suuuper tall cloud, picture taken of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the second Japanese city bombed.
(8) Our allies were The Allies, of course. The Allies included Britain, Canada, Australia, and France out of 50 countries total. China, Great Britian, the Soviet Union, and the United States became known as the "Big Four."
(If you can't tell, red=Axis, blue=Allies, and brown=neutral. June 6th, 1944)
(9) During WW2, the Great Depression ended thanks to the revived demand for industrial products. However, the US's national debt rose a bit more than $200 billion from 1940 to 1946. Scientific technology also improved, thanks to government funding for radars, weapons, medicines, etc.
Sources:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1661.html
http://darbysrangers.tripod.com/id95.htm
http://www.essortment.com/treaty-versailles-15145.html
Right, ok, personal views....I'm really not to good at these you know, it's so much easier to just do the blog.
So, while doing research, I found a forum that talked about how people misunderstand the reason the US joined the war too often. People were saying how we only joined because Japan bombed us, and the Holocaust had absolutely nothing to do with it, so if Japan hadn't attacked us, we would have sat by and done nothing to help the situation in Europe.
Since its all hypothetical, I don't really know if that's what would have happened, but it makes me kinda sad to think about it that way, you know?
Comments
It is quite possible that we would not have gotten in but I think we would have had to eventually. Would we really want Germany, Italy and Japan to dominate the world outside of North and South America?
Great job!!