(Very) Brief History of the

United States (con't)

400+ years.....
.... in 40 minutes

World War I (1917-1918)

Neutrality and Isolationism

Lusitania-sunk on 7 May 1915 by German submarine

Zimmerman note (1917): Germany promised Mexico help

to recover its territory if Mexico aided Germany
Conscription enforced by the Selective Service Act of 1917
WW I was a whole-society effort: rationing, meatless
Mondays, Victory gardens, Daylight Savings time, first
income tax.
Over 14 million soldiers perished in total. 112,000
Americans died and many more were wounded.****
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The Great Depression (1929-1939)

Roaring 20s

Market crashes 1929 (Black Thursday, 29 October)

Unemployment rose from 1.5M to 12M

President Hoover refuses government aid to help get

out of the Depression

Recovery/The New Deal

FDRelected in 1932

Started the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance

Corporationgovernment refunds losses of up to
$2500)

Civilian Conservation Corps/Civil Works Administration

Government paid people to work in construction,

teaching, beautification

Outlaw of child labor and setting of minimum wage

Government subsidies for farmers

Social Security

Racism still exists

Whites get first pick of the jobs, Black get lower

wages, Mexican-Americans deported

World War II

Isolationism (again)

1937 War in Asia, 1939 War in Europe declared

Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

D-Day, Hiroshima/Nagasaki

New technologies

Radar

Atomic bomb (Manhattan Project)

New developments among minorities

Women in the military (WACS, WAVES, WASPS,

SPARS)

New Migration for African-Americans from the South to

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the Industrial North

The Cold War

1946, Winston Churchill: "an iron curtain has

descended across" Europe

NATO forms 1949

Nuclear Arms race (hydrogen bomb US 1953, USSR
1955)

Truman Doctrine: aid to countries that were

threatened by communist takeover.

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

Race to the moon

Sputnik in 1957

1969 US Apollo 11 lands on the moon.

Korean War (1950-1953)

Communist North vs the South

At first the south (and the US) were pushed

back. Then they responded by pushing North,
past the 38th parallel. China sent 300,000
soldier to N. Korea. The border was restored
to the 38th parallel.

Both the US and China were committed to their

ideology

Civil Rights Movement

Emmet Till 1955

14 year old boy kidnapped and beaten to

death, his murderers were acquitted by a white
jury

Rosa Parks 1955

1947-integration of sports teams (baseball and
American football)

Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963 March on Washington

Malcom X

Civil Rights act of 1964

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Viet Nam War (1955-1975)

Longest was in US history

First war to be televised

Northern Viet Nam Communists (Viet Cong) went

South and crushed the French (colony)

Draft instated in 1969

Kent State 1970

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1970s and 1980s

Feminism and Reproductive rights

Women enter the workspace, contraceptives

(legally allowed in 1965), Roe vs. Wade
(abortion legalized 1973)

Watergate 1972impeachment of Pres. Nixon

Pat Robertson and the New Right

Reagan Presidency

Reaganomics: cut taxes and social spending,

rely on trickle-down economy

MTV, ESPN, Nickolodeon, VCRs, personal

computers

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Ending one war... beginning another

1989Collapse of the Iron Curtain

Many American find it difficult to conceive of

no Cold War.

1990beginning of the Gulf War in Kuwait

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The Information Age

Internet

Facebook, Twitter

Online banking

Online dating

Globalization

Spread of English

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