Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
end bus segregation. The work of millions paid off: in 1964, President Johnson
signed the Civil Rights Act, which banned discrimination and racial segregation.
The Great Depression, the New Deal & World War II
In October 1929, investors, worried over a gloomy global economy, started selling stocks
- seeing others selling, everyone panicked until they'd sold everything. The stock market
crashed, and the US economy collapsed like a house of cards.
Thus began the Great Depression. Frightened banks called in their dodgy loans, people
couldn't pay, and the banks folded. Millions lost their homes, farms, businesses and sav-
ings, and as much as 33% of the American workforce became unemployed. Bread lines
and shanty towns sprang up in cities; New York's Central Park held one of the biggest
camps. In 1932, Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt was elected president on the promise of
a 'New Deal' to rescue the US from its crisis, which he did with resounding success.
When war once again broke out in Europe in 1939, the isolationist mood in America was
as strong as ever. However, the extremely popular President Roosevelt, elected to an un-
precedented third term in 1940, understood that the US couldn't sit by and allow victory
for fascist, totalitarian regimes. Roosevelt sent aid to Britain and persuaded a skittish
Congress to go along with it.
Then, on December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Hawaii's Pearl Har-
bor, killing over 2000 Americans and sinking several battleships. US isolationism trans-
formed overnight into outrage, and Roosevelt suddenly had the support he needed. Ger-
many also declared war on the US, and America joined the Allied fight against Hitler and
the Axis powers. From that moment, the US put almost its entire will and industrial
prowess into the war effort.
Fighting went on for over two years in both the Pacific and in Europe. The US finally
dealt the fatal blow to Germany with its massive D-Day invasion of France on June 6,
1944. Germany surrendered in May 1945. Nevertheless, Japan continued fighting. Newly
elected President Harry Truman - ostensibly worried that a US invasion of Japan would
lead to unprecedented carnage - chose to drop experimental atomic bombs, created by
the government's top-secret Manhattan Project, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
1945. The bombs devastated both cities, killing over 200,000 people. Japan surrendered
days later, and the nuclear age was born.
