Semester Test Blog

[2nd/4th Weston]

1. What were the causes of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression?

• buying on margin- When investors would buy a small percentage of the stock as a down payment, and then borrow the rest. With easy money available to investors, the unrestrained buying and selling fueled the market’s upward spiral.
• buying on Credit- many people bought stocks on credit and could not afford to repay their debt
• speculation—they bought stocks and bonds on the chance of a quick profit, while ignoring the risks
• Overproduction of goods --> low profits
• Uneven Distribution of WEalth
• Too much borrowing from banks due to low interest rates
• Stock Prices overpriced
• Lack of gov't regulation
• Fed Reserve hightened interest rates

2. What impact did the stock market crash and Great Depression have on the lives of people in the United States?

• Banks closing
• forced to close when market crashed
• withdrawing money (Bank Run)
• 1933, 9000 banks closed
• Franklin Roosevelt started- Bank Holiday- where the banks closed for a week until they could go back to working
• the impact the banks closing had was people lost all of their money
• City Life
• they lived in unsanitary, unheated, crowded tenements
• soup kitchen sometimes provided free meals
• Farmers started moving to city
• families in cities would catch and eat rats
• many had to sign up for welfare
• suicides increased
• City Life
  • Didn’t have money to buy coal
  • 17 thousand families were put on the street a month
  • Some took work for pennies
  • Men started hunting to provide food for family
  Hoovervilles
  • Shanty houses
  • Named after Hoover cuz they were bad
  • Close to soup kitchens
  • Central Park and Riverside Park- two big ones
  • Garbage cans were important
  • Hoover Hog- eat anything they could and referred to rabbits and armidillos as Hoover hogs
  Women
  • Worked long hard hours
  • Many people thought they took the jobs from men
  • They depended on other women to help take care of their children
  • Their roles changed in this time and it helped advance their equality in society

3. What did the United States government do to help alleviate the problems the Great Depression brought to our country?

• Trickle down theory-help upper class and it will help lower, Laissez-Fare, and rugged individualism

• Government need to stay out of things
• Economy has ups and downs
• Fix itself on its own
• Public works program-people were hired to build highways, schools, dams, and other things
• Prediction of better times to boost morale
• He wanted businesses to help each other
• This failed so the RFC was created
• RFC-Reconstruction Finance Corporation
• Would supply money to places like banks, insurance companies, and railroads
• Keep people in the jobs they still had
• Not enough of an effort too late in the game
New Deal
• Series of economic policies introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt, to provide relief to millions of Americans
• First New Deal- to help businesses, banks, railroads, industry, and farming
• Second new Deal- to help individual people

FDR Presidency-Alphabet soup new deal

• Banks
  • Glass- Steagall Banking Reform Act
    • FDIC
• Unemployed
  • civilian conservation Corps
  • Federal Emergency Relief Administrations (FERA)
• Farming
  • Agriculture Adjustment Act
• General People

Banks

• Emergency Banking Relief Act
  • gave president control over exchange rates and all banking transactions
• Glass-Stealgall Banking Reform Act
  • created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
  • Americans would not lose their savings if a bank collapsed

Unemployed

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
  • program to bring relief to young men who didnt have jobs
  • run by army
  • $30 per month
  • 2 million men took part
• Women provided with jobs and educations
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
  • purpose to work with state government
  • provide federal grants for relief purposes

Farming and General People

Farming-

• Agriculture Adjustment Act (AAA)
  • raised prices of crops to stimulate the economy

General People-

• Social Security Act- (SSA; 1935)
  • privide federal cash assistance for widows, orphans, children without fathers in the home, and the disabled
  • started minimum wage

4. What long lasting impact did the Great Depression have on the US and world?

World War 2

• The US was providing loans to Germany through the Dawes plan to get Germany back on its feer
• but the depression caused the US to reduce the payments
• That led to the collapse of the German economic system. Which allowed Hitler to rise to power
• Japan came to power from invading China because of no resources from US

FDIC

• During the Great depression many people were withdrawing their money from banks becaue they were in fear of banks failing and losing their money like many other banks had
• the Banking Act of 1933 was created under FDR
• this act created the FDIC which is a corporation that provides deposit insurance for people using banks covered by the FCIC
• Still around today

FHA

• Federal Housing Administration was established in 1934
• it was created to insure loans given to people building or buying houses
• the FHA also helped improve living conditions and to ive people a straight forward payment plan for their house'

Lasting Agencies of the New Deal

• Social Security Act-1935- response to critics , it provided pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid to blind, deaf, disabled, and dependent children
• Wagner Act- NLRB- 1935- Allowed workers to join unions and outlawed union busting tactics by management
• Tennessee Valley Authority- TVA- 1933- Federal government build series of dams to prevent flooding and sell electricity. First public competition with private power industries
• Securities and Exchange Commission- SEC- 1934- Regulated stock market and restricted margin buying

• Deficit Spending

  • Government spending, in excess of revenue, of funds raised by borrowing rather than from taxation
  • helped stimulate the economy and get us out of the depression
  • by 1939 the Public debt had increased to 39.7 billion or 43% of the GDP

  Today

  • Today 110 million Americans are on the Welfare system
  • The US Deficit is over 16 trillion dollars
  • Agencies created are still around today

5. What were the causes of WWII?

Events before WWII

1. 1918-WWI Ended

2. 1919-Treaty of Versailles

3. 1920's- Peace!

4. 1930- Great Depression Starts

5. 1931- Japan invades Manchuria

6. 1933- Hitler comes to power in Germany

7. 1937- Japan invades China

8. 1939- WWII starts

The Road to WWII 1919-1941
1. Treaty of Versailles

• it didnt work out very good
• map of Europe changed drastically through WWI
• Territorial- germany lost land to France, Belgium, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia
• Military- Germanys army was reduced to 100,000 men; the army was not allowed tanks, they were not allowed an airforce, allowed 6 capital naval ships and no submarines, west of the Rhineland and 50km east of the river rhine was made into a demilitarized zone, Allies keep army of occupation for 15 years
• Financial- loss of vital industrial territory would be a severe blow to Germanys economy. Coal from the Saar and Upper Silesia in particular was a vital economic loss. Had to pay 33 Billion dollars to the Allies(GB/France)
• General- Germany had to admit full responsibility for starting the war (War Guilt Clause). A League of Nations was set up to keep world peace

2. League of Nations

• a group that helps keep world peace
• weaknesses- we didnt join it. it might have drug us into european wars. All it could do is put economic sanctions and say 'we condemn you'

3. Isolationism

• we kind of keep to ourselves
• keep isolated from European problems

4. Washington Naval Conference

• Power Pacts
• 4 Power Pact- treaty signed by U.S., GB, France, and Japan at the Washington Naval Conference in 1921- agreed to respect each others possessions in the Pacific and not seek further territory
• 5 Power Pact- signed by U.S, GB, Japan, France, and Italy- designed to prevent an arms race-limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers- did not restrict subs, destroyers or cruisers
• 9 Power Pact- Guaranteed Chinese independence and upheld the Open Door Policy(free trade)- signed by the US, China, Japan, France, GB, Italy, Belguim, Netherlands, and Portugal

5. Kellog Briand Pact

• signed the document to outlaw war

6. Great Depression

• Japan needed resources
• world trade dropped considerably
• many coutries turned to Naziism

1931-Invasion of Manchuria

• solved all of Japans problems
• they need natural resources and Manchuria had them
• they would invade them, steal resources, and then sell product made back to Manchuria
• League of Nations only condemned them

1936- Italy invaded by Mussolini

• Italy lost its Ethiopia colony in Africa at the 1896 Battle of Adua
• one of the worst colonial disasters of modern history
• Feb 23, 1935, Italy sends large forces into Ethiopia
• Oct 7, 1935, League declared Italy the aggressor
• Nov 18, 1935, league sanctions begin
  • arms embargo, financial embargo, non-importation of Italian goods
• League could not agree on critical oil sanctions mainly because FDR refused- US controlled 50% of world oil trade
• Feb 29th 1936 FDR signed the Neutrality Act

Spanish Civil War- 1936

• Generalisimo Francisco Franco
• Were neutral during WWII

Rome-Berlin Axis- 1936

• Alliance between Italy and Germany

1937- Japan invades China

• invaded china for resources
• Japanese soldiers are ruthless

1938-Sudetenland/Munich Conference

• little area around germany and Czech
• many european leaders were there
• should hitler be able to take sudetenland area
• they screwed Czech
• GB, Germany,Italy, and France were there

1938- Austrian Anchluss

• Hitler wanted to see how much leeway he could get
• was from Austria

1938- Soviet-Germany Non agression Pact

• signed it so they wouldnt fight each other
• Russia gave raw materials to Germany in exchange for money and weapons
• both agreed to stay neutral if the other entered war
• Secretly agreed to invade and split Poland. Germany would get the western half and USSR the eastern half
• Russia would get Finland, Estonia, and Latvia. and Germany would get Lithuania

1939-40 - Blitzkrieg- Lightning War and Sitzkrieg- The Phony War

• airplanes come and bomb airports, highways, and communication lines
• then troops in trucks and other stuff and drop them off as far in as possible
• Sitzkrieg-Phony war
• nothing happens after Germany Invades Poland
• waiting out winter months and prepping

6. What impact did the United States have on WWII?

-The US Homefront

• Women's role
  • Rosie the Riveter - represented women workers in WWII
  • needed as farmers, typist, timekeepers, elevator operators, messangers, teachers, search light operators
  • WASP- Womens Army Service Pilots

• Factories-War Production Board
  • lots of war goods and production
  • more production
• National War Labor Board
  • worker and owner
  • picture of 3 hands
  • no going on strike
  • Together we win
• War bonds
  • How we paid for the war
  • every person has to buy so many war bonds. make money off of interest down the road
• Japanese relocation camps
  • were american citizens who were forced to sell everything and sent to relocation camps in western US
  • wasnt German concentration camps
  • kids went to school and adults had paying jobs
• Propaganda
  • meant to pursuede the american people
  • 1. Buy War Bonds
  • 2. Get people to enlist
  • 3. Make US look good and Germany Bad
  • 4. Do your part today
• War rationing-Office of Price Administration
  • controlled distribution of resources and services
  • War Ration book
  • war rationing was so rich people couldnt buy it all and control it
  • gas, food, and resources
  • had stickers for different amounts of gas
• Hollywood in WWII
• The story of "Kilroy was here"
  • some graffiti

send troops and supplies to Europe

fresh troop with high morale

more men to fight

strong armed forces

7. What were the goals for the US during the Cold War?

• wanted to promote open markets for US goods to prevent another depression
• Promote democracy throughout the world, especially in Asia and Africa
• stop the spread of communism

8. What were some of the major events that took place during the Cold War?

-Berlin Blockade/airlift,

• Stalin tried to cut off Berlin from the western side in June 1948
• We decided to just airlift the supplies in
• In May 1949 Russia admitted defeat and lifted the blockade

-Cuban Missile Crisis

• They just became communist
• Bay of Pigs fail miserably
• worried about 2nd invasion
• ask soviet union for nuclear missiles and are allies
• U2 spy planes find them

Red Scare/McCarthyism,

• senator who had a list of people that were communism
• if convicted you would lose your job and everyone wouldnt like you
• a lot of people were wrongly accused

Space Race

• a race to space between US and USSR
• Launched Sputnik-(Russian)
• NASA-Education = Science and Math
• Yuri Gagarin=first person in space
• JFK- 1960- Moonshot speech
• Apollo 11 first spaceship to moon = Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong
• 1970's used space shuttle
  
  • 1985 challenger explosion
  • International Space Station MIR
  • Hubble telescope

Bay of Pigs

• US trained Cubans to go in and take out Castro
• the cubans failed
• everyone found out it was us and it was a huge embarrisement
• under JFK
• we were supposed to provide air support

Berlin Wall

• Put up to separate East and West Berlin
• Stalin was afraid all of the people of the East would flee to the West side
• very protected and almost impossible to get by

End of the Cold War

• Reagan called the Soviets the Evil Empire; supported any anti-communist movements worldwide
• He opposed detente (worldwide peace); upset the balance of "leave-each-there-alone"
• He spent tons of money on the military; he started the missle defensive set-up to protect us from nuclear bombs
• He had many meetings with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev which helped bring an end to the Cold War

9. Why did the US go to war in Korea and Vietnam and what were outcome of those wars?

Korean War

• War between North and South Korea; China helped the North and United Nations (U.S.(90%), U.K. France) helped the South.
• The North invaded the South first and pushed them all the way down to the Pustan area
• This invasion took place after the U.S. decided they need to worry more about helping Japan rather than South Korea so we pulled out and the North attacked.
• Kimil Sung was the leader of North Korea and got permission from China and the Soviets to invade South Korea
• General Douglas MacArthur was the head leader for South fighters- Truman had to fire him because he kept talking about invading China
• China got nervous when we forced the North back toward them that we would invade; they then entered this war
• The End: Eisenhower campaigned that he would (and did) end this war
• This was never officially a war; we called it a conflict; 35/6,000 Americans died in this war
• DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) = the present day border of North and South Korea- we still have 30,000 troops there
• This war is called the forgotten war because it's between the Vietnam war and the Cold War

Vietnam War

• Goal of North Vietnam

  • United the country under communism

  Ho Chi Minh = communist leader in the North; always dressed like a peasant (dressed like the people)

  Geneve Conference (1954)

  • Vietnam was split into two; north and south at the 17th parrallel line
  • Diem became leader of South Vietnam; the only reason we supported him at first was because he wasn't communist
  • The conference set up elections to unify the country; these elections were never held because neither side wanted to give into the other side

  Who Fought In Vietnam War?

  • United States Armed Forces and South Vietnamese vs. The North Vietnamese and the VIetcong (viet-communists; the villagers of the south that seemed to be on our side but were really on the North's side- regular civilians) This made it hard to determine who the enemy was

  Escalation- Truman through Johsnson

  • Presdient Truman began Us involvement by sending money to help the french to help them in their fight agains the communist
  • Eisenhower continued US support by sending military advisors to give temporary advice to the south on how to fight
  • Kennedy continued sending advisors and money; then started sending the Green Berets (special operation groups)
  • Johnson sent more and more combat forces; he was the guy in 1964 that really got us involved in this war- this continued through 1968
  • We kept sending more troops because the Generals kept saying that the enemy was about to give up but that never happened

  Diem vs. The Buddhists- the picture

  Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

  • Several US ships that were supposedly attacked by North Vietnamese torpedoes in the Gulf of Tonkin
  • After this Congress gave Johnson the power to wage war, do what he wants even though we never declared war; it was kind of like a declaration of war but it wasn't
  • Most experts think that this "attack" was not real that Johnson just needed an excus

  1964-1965 How the war turned Negative

  • President Johnson and General William Westmoreland kept saying that with more troops we will win the war; most Americans believed this at first
  • The Tet Offensive = Jan 30, 1968 American public's faith was shattered when the enemy supposedly on the verge of collapse, attacked nearly every major city in South Vietnam.
  • Tet Offensive = even though it seemed like we lost, one of the biggest victory. They actually came out of the jungle and fought us which is what we wanted. We demolished them militarily, but that's not what people think when they look back on it
  • After this offensive, General said we needed more troops

  US was never given permission to move into the north and invade them so we mostly bombed them; we didn't want to invade them because we didn't want expand the war and so China and Soviets wouldn't get involved

  Anti-War Civilian Reasons

  • Tet Offensive - felt we were being lied too
  • Pentagon Papers- classified documents that proved people were being lied too
  • Press taking pictures of innocent people dieing and being injured (includng women and children)
  • Supporting a bad government
  • The power of the press- showing what was really going on over there

  Kent St. (Ohio) Massacre- 11th worth school shooting in history; people were protesting the war and the Army got trapped and starting firing at large crowds of student killing 4 or 5 students

  My Lai Massacre- US soldiers killed 504 vietnamese civilians; one of the worst massacres

  How people got out of serving?

  • Went to Canada or Sweden
  • Went to college (student deferment-you'd be pushed down the list)
  • Got married (Push you further down the list)
  • Medically unfit for service
  • Joined the National Guard or Peace Corps
  • Claimed to be homosexual
  • Being rich
• Nixon called for the "vietnamization" of the war- this means we did to pull out of Vietnam and allow the Vietnamese people to fight for themselves now
• "Peace with honor" - we want peace to insure and we want honor when we leave so we don't lose
• Gradually pulled US troops out and train the ARVN to take our place in fighting
• He expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia (because he thought he could win this war) leading to college protests (Kent St)
• He expanded it to these two countries because there was a trail that was the North/Vietcong supply line in the jungle so he wanted to bomb it and take out their supply line; this didn't work, the Vietcong would just go around the areas that were bombed
• January 1973 Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam; 13 days later The Paris Peace Accords were signed which officially ended US involvement in the Vietnam conflict

                       1. Fighting stopped

                       2. US would pull out of Vietnam

                       3. North and South Vietnam would recognize each others independence

• The Peace agreement didn't last; about a year or so after (1975) the North invaded the South; the south wasn't strong enough and fell through quickly
• The U.S. did not live up to its promise to come to their aid if the North attacked

10. How did the Cold War come to an end?

Why we won and they lost

• We had close ties with our Allies and the USSR didn’t
• China started siding with us after 1972
• The Soviet economy was in shambles whereas the US was flourishing
  • Huge deficit
  • High inflation
  • Corruption
  • Social problems
  • Shortage or basic needs (food, housing)

• The strong anti-communist presidency of Reagon

• Gorbachev’s willingness for change and reform
  • Glasnost and perestroika
  • Admitted Soviet mistakes
  • Took blame for the Cold War
  • Communist system had failed
  • Allowed Eastern Europe to do what they wanted
  • Arms reduction talks
    • SALT, INF, Reagan-Gorbachev meetings
• Soviet Mistakes
  • invasion of Afghanistan
  • ignoring social concerns
  • spent everything of military

11. Know these major major post-Cold War Events:

-JFK Assassination

Lee Harvey Oswald killed him in Texas

Jack Ruby then killed Oswald while he was in jail

Lee Harvey Oswald -Warren report = Oswald acted alone, no evidence of conspiracy

Conspiracy theories

• Magic Bullet Theory
• Who might have killed him?
  • Cubans (x2) Castro and the anti-Castro Cubans (supposed to give them air support)
  • The KGB (USSR)
  • The US Mafia
  • The CIA (US Gov't)
  • The Zero Game (Since 1840 every president has been shot or got sick and died)
  • Nixon?
  • 3 Tramps

JFK Act

• congress passed it in 1992 mandating the gathering and opening of all records concerned with the death of the president

-Watergate

• Five men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate hotel
• Two Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, investigated the story
• They relied on an FBI informant known as Deep Throat to link the men to the Nixon White house; he said to follow the money
• This became one of a series of scandalous acts involving the Committee to re-elect the president
• Nixon downplayed the scandal and denounced the story as biased and misleading
• FBI eventually confirmed that Nixon aides had attempted to sabotage the Democrats- many began resigning and faced prosecution
• Nixon was involved by trying to cover up the break in (obstruction of justice) and eventually resigned from office

-Iran Hostage Crisis

• Between the U.S. and Iran; on November 4, 1979 the Iran took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
• Before this in 1977, there was an Iran Revolution; they over threw the pro-US government and Ayatollah Khomeini overtook as leader; this was the group that caused problems/dislikes with the United States and took the Americans hostage
• We attempted to rescue them, but it failed miserably with 8 American deaths, one Iran civilian, and a couple planes.
• Purpose: we had "The Shaw" (their previous pro-U.S. leader) in our country so Iran wanted him back, so they wanted a trade. They would give us the hostages if we give them their previous leader (we didn't make this trade)
• We got them back when Iraq invaded Iran and they were desperate and made a trade and we got the hostages back

-Persian Gulf War(1991)

• August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait
  • reason was for oil
• Operation Desert Shield
• Operation Desert Storm
• Results
  • Coalition Force victory, Iraqi withdrawl from Kuwait, destruction of Iraqi/Kuwaiti infrastructure
• Coalition- 482 dead, Iraq- 20,000-35,000
• 1991-2003
  • no fly zone, weapons inspectors, WMD's
• how did it eventually lead to 9-11
  • we were still in Saudi Arabia

-9-11

• Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda
• 4 planes were hijacked and crashed into buildings
• 2 into world trade center
• 1 into pentagon
• 1 into field because of passengers

-War in Afghanistan

• war on terror
• we wanted to get al-queda
• we invaded because they allowed the Taliban to train there
• Taliban wouldnt let us so we invaded
• started by us and allies
• we drove the Taliban out of power

-War in Iraq

• war on terror
• capture, Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein
• we got wind that Hussein had WMD
• they wouldnt let bomb inspectors into Iraq
• we topple Saddam Hussein regime
• sent more troops and ended violence
• became unpopular in 2006