Chapter 33 + 34 - WWII

London Economic Conference

Meeting between world powers figure out Great Depression dilemma, attempt to stabilize values and currencies and rate of exchange, FDR walks out leaving the rest of the world to the dictators

Adolf Hitler

Most dangerous dictator due to tremendous power + impulsiveness, Gained power due to american government raising tariff, pushing debt onto them, crushing german economy, the passage of the Treaty of Versailles. Takes Germany out of the League of Nations, and remilitarizes Germany illegally

Good Neighbor Policy

In order to keep good relations with neighbors, FDR takes out marines from latin america and keeps communications tight, repealing the Platt Amendment, Roosevelt Corollary, in an attempt to not have a Zimmerman Telegram repeat

Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934

Gives the president authority to negotiate tariff rates, aimed at both relief and recovery, designed for individual countries to reciprocate the tariff changings from foreign nations

Tripartite Pact

Agreement between Italy, Germany, and Japan where they just put themselves on the ‘same side’ with the same ideas

Johnson Debt Default Act

Declares that if you owe money to America, you cannot borrow anymore from the states, solidifies American isolationist ideals at the time

Nye Committee

Gerald Nye, irreconcilable, figures that America was only pulled into WWI due to economic purposes, and believes that if Germany wins, America only joins as a result of trying to get money back, which is not a good enough reason for him

Neutrality Acts of ‘35, ‘36, ‘37

When president proclaims existence of war, nobody can sail on a belligerent ship, transport munitions to belligerent nations, or make loans to a belligerent (Belligerent = meaning any nation at war), enacting stellar neutrality

Quarantine Speech of ‘37

FDR says countries can take ‘positive endeavors’ to ‘quarantine’ aggression, gets much public criticism causing FDR to back out of attempts for getting involved

Hitler-Stalin Pact

Agreement between Russia and Germany to not attack each other on August 23, ‘39. War stars Sept. 1st

Neutrality Act of ‘39

You can come into an american port, buy whatever war materials, but you have to pay back in cast and put it on your own ship to take it back, hurts China

War Refugee Board

Created by FDR in ‘42, saving thousands of jews from deportation to Auschwitz, although only 150,000 jews found refuge in the U.S

Committee to Defend America

Group advocating to help britain in WWII, believing we should not let the war reach past the Atlantic Ocean

America First Committee

Isolationists, who say to keep out of the war entirely

Wendell L. Wilkie

Republican candidate for the 1940 election, criticising Roosevelt for attempting to start a dictatorship, although Roosevelt did not want a third (or fourth) term

Lend-Lease Bill

Mainly a way to keep America out of the war, turns america into the “Arsenal of Democracy” meaning we had enough materials, factories, etc to ‘arm the world’ against fascist aggressors, follows slogan “Send guns, not sons”, marks the real end of the Great Depression as factories begin running overtime, producing equipment for the rest of the world, marks an ‘early head start’ for america within the war

Atlantic Conference

Roosevelt and Churchill meet and discuss how they vision the world looking after victory, and agree on 8 ‘points,’ Roosevelt coined all of them from Wilson’s 14, including disarmament, peace, permament protection of general security. Soviet Union is excluded, prompting further aggression leading up to the cold war, results in the Atlantic Charter andfurther on the United Nations

Pearl Harbor

An event in which a small Japanese fleet flies over the Hawaii port of Pearl Harbor, which we survive due to no aircraft carriers being destroyed, oil refineries & whatnot being damaged but not destroyed and there not being a second wave of attacks

ABC-1 Agreement

Agreement between the US and the British that the US enters the war and both allies would coordinate accordingly to “Get Germany first.”

Executive order 9066

Signed by FDR, allowing the secretary of war to designate military zones from which people could be excluded, fueled by historic anti-japanese sentiment + the animosity following Pearl Harbor, led to the improsonment of ~120,000 people from Japanese ancestry on the interior west

War Production Board (WPB)

Builds $100 Billion dollars of wartime material

Office of Price Administration (OoPA)

Wartime agency designed to regulate the customer economy by rationing supplies and curbing inflation by setting price ceilings on goods. Also controls rents.

National War Labor Board (NWLB)

Roosevelt establishes in an attempt to control and mediate problems between labor and management that might have undermined the war effort. Adjusts wages to control inflation.

Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act 

Passed due to the fear of strikes undermining the war effort, allows the federal government to seize and operate plants threatened by labor disputes. Criminalizes action against government run companies.

Bracero Program

Mexico opens border due to America asking for thousands of workers for the farms in the west of the US

A. Philip Randolph

Leader of the ‘Double V campaign’, V for victory against fascism, and the victory against Jim Crow at home, sets in motion the civil rights movements

Fair Employment Practices Emission

Created by FDR saying any factory worker being discriminated against can bring the case to the emission to start an investigation

Rome-Berlin Axis

Officially allies Nazi Germany (Hitler) and Fascist Mussolini, signed after both leaders had helped the fascist leaders during the Spanish Civil war

Appeasement

Policy followed by European leaders at the 1938 conference, the purpose of this policy was to avoid war and allowed Hitler to take both Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia

Kristallnacht

German for ‘night of broken class,’ refers to the systemic destruction of Jewish businesses, Synagouges, sending thousands to concentration camps on the night of November 9th, 1938. Thousands attempted to escape to the US, but were turned away due to immigration laws

Cordell Hull

Secretary of state under Roosevelt, architecht of the United Nations & Reciprocal Trade Agreement, under which trade increases.

WACs (Women’s Army Corps) + WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) + SPARs (U.S Coast Guard Women’s Reserve)

Womens branch of the U.S Army/U.S Navy/Coast Guard to employ women in non-combatant jobs

Manhattan Project

Code name for the American Comission established in 1942 to develop the atomic bomb. Tested on deserts in New Mexico, and would eventually be dropped on Japan cities Hiroshime and Nagisaki. Leads to V-J Day which celebrates the surrendor of Japan following the Manhattan Project.

Chester Nimitz

U.S Naval Commander, commander-in-chief of the Pacific Naval forces for the United States during WWII. Strategizer behind the victores like the battle of Midway and Coral Sea

Douglas MacArthur

Commander of the Phillipines, mastermined behind the ‘Island Hopping’ strategy used to penetrate the strongly defended Japanese Islands

Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower

Supreme Commander of U.S forces in Europe during WWII, war hero who would later on become president of the United States

Harry S. Truman

Predecessor of Roosevelt, issues the command to drop the atomic bomb on Nagisaki and Hiroshima

Fair Employment Practices Comission

Roosevelt is threatened with “Negro March on Washington” who were demanding equal military opportunities, causing Roosevelt to pass an Executive order forbidding Racial discrimination in the military

Congress of Racial Equality (CoRE)

Nonviolent civil rights administration committed to the “Double V”, becomes a major force later on in the civil rights movement.

Code Talkers

Native American Men who served in the military by transmitting radio messages in their native language which could not be deciphered by the Japanese or the Germans

Battle of Midway

Pivitol Naval Battle fought over the island of midway, American victory halts Japanese advancements in the pacific

D-Day

Military operation led by the American forces, lead to the liberation of France and the final phases of the second world war

V-E Day

Frenzied rejoicing marking the official end of the war in Europe following the surrender of the German military after Adolf Hitlers suicide

Postam Conference

Series of meetings between Truman, Stalin, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee to deliver the ultimatum to Japan; surrender or be destroyed