London Economic Conference
66-nation economic conference
Organized to stabilize international currency rates
FDR decided to revoke American participation
Contributed to a deepening world economic crisis
Good Neighbor policy
Departure from Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine
Stressed nonintervention in Latin America
Begun by Herbert Hoover
Associated with FDR
Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
Reversed traditional high-protective-tariff policies
Allowed president to negotiate lower tariffs w/ trade partners
President didn't need Senate approval
Chief architect was Secretary of State Cordell Hull
Hull believed that tariff barriers choked off foreign trade
Rome-Berlin Axis
Nazi Germany (Hitler) & Fascist Italy (Mussolini) allied
Signed after they both had intervened in Spanish Civil War
Intervened on behalf of fascist leader Francisco Franco
Johnson Debt Default Act
Steeped in ugly memories of WWI
Prevented debted nations from borrowing more from U.S.
Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, & 1937
Short-sighted acts passed
Prevented American participation in a European war
Americans couldn't sell munitions to foreign war forces
Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Idealistic American volunteers
Served in the Spanish Civil War
Defended Spanish republican forces from Franco’s coup
3000 Americans served w/ volunteers from other countries
Quarantine Speech
Important speech delivered by FDR
“Positive endeavors” to “quarantine” land-hungry dictators
Presumably through economic embargoes
The speech flew in the face of isolationist politicians
Appeasement
Policy followed by leaders of Britain & France at the 1938 Munich Conference
Purpose was to avoid war
Allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia
Hitler-Stalin pact
Signed on August 23, 1939
Germany & Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other
Paved way for German aggression against Poland & Western democracies
Neutrality Act of 1939
Stipulated that European democracies might buy American munitions
Only if they could pay in cash & transport in their own ships
Policy known as “cash-and-carry”
Represented an effort to avoid war debts
Protected American arms-carriers from torpedo attacks
Kristallnacht
German for “night of broken glass”
Murderous pogrom
Destroyed Jewish businesses & synagogues
Sent thousands to concentration camps
Night of November 9, 1938
Thousands more attempted to find refuge in the U.S.
Were turned away due to restrictive immigration laws
War Refugee Board
U.S. agency
Helped rescue Jews from German-occupied territories
Provided relief to inmates of Nazi concentration camps
Didn't begin operations until very late in the war
Started after millions had already been murdered
America First Committee
Isolationist advocacy group formed in September 1940
Opposed American intervention in WWII
Boasted 800,000 members at its peak
Support for committee dissipated after Pearl Harbor attack
Lend-Lease Bill
Based on the motto “Send guns, not sons”
Abandoned former pretenses of neutrality
Allowed Americans to sell unlimited supplies of arms
Sold to any nation defending itself against the Axis powers
Patriotically numbered 1776
Praised as a device for keeping the nation out of WWII
Atlantic Charter
Meeting on warship off Newfoundland coast in Aug 1941
FDR & British prime minister Churchill signed this covenant
Outlined future path toward disarmament, peace, & permanent system of general security
Spirit animated the founding of the UN
Raised awareness of individual human rights after WWII
Pearl Harbor
American naval base in Hawaii
Japanese warplanes destroyed numerous ships
Caused 3000 casualties
December 7, 1941 ~ “live[d] in infamy” according to FDR
Attack brought the United States into WWII
Benito Mussolini
Lived from 1883-1945
Fascist leader of Italy from 1922-1943
Launched Italy into WWII on the side of the Axis powers
Became a close ally of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Lived from 1889-1945
Nazi dictator of Germany from 1933-1945
Mastermind behind the Holocaust
His rapacious quest for power provoked WWII
Francisco Franco
Lived from 1892-1975
Spanish general
His troops defeated the Loyalists in Spanish Civil War
Stayed head of the Spanish state until he died
Cordell Hull
Lived from 1871-1955
Secretary of state under President FDR
Chief architect of Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
Foreign trade increased under trade pacts he negotiated.
A chief architect behind UN
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945
"Co-initiat[ed] the United Nations"
Wendell L. Willkie
Lived from 1892-1944
Known as the "rich man’s Roosevelt"
Novice politician
Republican businessman
Lost to FDR in the 1940 presidential campaign
Won more votes than any previous GOP candidate
FDR still beat him by a landslide
1933
FDR torpedoes London Economic Conference
1933
United States recognizes Soviet Union
1933
FDR declares Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America
1933
Hitler becomes German chancellor
1933
Germany quits League of Nations
1934
Tydings-McDuffie Act provides for Philippine independence on July 4, 1946
1934
Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
1934
U.S. Marines vacate Haiti
1935
Mussolini invades Ethiopia
1935
U.S. Neutrality Act of ____ (Hint: The first passed in the 1930s)
1935
Japan quits League of Nations
1936
U.S. Neutrality Act of ____ (Hint: The second passed in the 1930s)
1936
Mussolini and Hitler form Rome-Berlin Axis
1936
Stalin begins Great Purge
1936
German troops invade Rhineland
1936-1939
Spanish Civil War
1937
U.S. Neutrality Act of ____ (Hint: The third passed in the 1930s)
1937
Panay incident
1937
Japan invades China
1938
Hitler seizes Austria
1938
Munich Conference
1938
Kristallnacht in Germany
1939
Hitler seizes all of Czechoslovakia
1939
Nazi-Soviet pact
1939
World War II begins in Europe with Hitler's invasion of Poland
1939
U.S. Neutrality Act of ____ (Hint: The fourth passed in the 1930s)
1940
Fall of France
1940
Hitler invades Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, and Belgium
1940
United States invokes first peacetime draft
1940
Havana Conference
1940
Battle of Britain
1940
Bases-for-destroyers deal with Britain
1940
FDR defeats Willkie for presidency
1941
Lend-Lease Act
1941
Hitler attacks Soviet Union
1941
Atlantic Charter
1941
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor