1929-1950 Vocabulary

Great Depression	a severe, world -wide economic disintegration symbolized in the United States by the stock market crash on "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929 .
Black Tuesday	the worst day of plunging stock market prices during the stock market crash that helped initiate the Great Depression.
Buying on Margin	the purchasing of stocks by paying only a small percentage of the price and borrowing the rest.
Shantytown	an area in or near a city in which poor people live in small, badly built houses.
Dust bowl	the drought-affected south central United States in the aftermath of horrific dust storms.
New Deal	a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938 to rescue the U.S. from the Great Depression.
Civilian Conservation corps (CCC)	a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28
WWII	the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six years
Totalitarian	A form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator
Fascism	A system of government characterized by strict social and economic control and a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator
Pearl Harbor	the site of the unprovoked aerial attack on the United States by Japan on December 7, 1941. led US into war.
Lend Lease Act	set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States
Island Hopping	a military strategy of capturing only certain Japanese islands in the Pacific and bypassing others, leading to the Japanese mainland.
Japanese American Internment	Forced relocation and imprisonment of Japanese-Americans away from war zones during the war
D-Day	a military term that referred to the start of the Battle of Normandy in France.
Victory Gardens	vegetable gardens planted during the world wars in order to ensure an adequate food supply for civilians and troops.
Atomic Bomb	weapon with great explosive power that results from the sudden release of energy upon the splitting, or fission, of the nuclei of a heavy element such as plutonium or uranium.
Holocaust	plan orchestrated by Hitler to ensure German supremacy. It called for the elimination of Jews, non-conformists, homosexuals, non-Aryans, and mentally and physically disabled. (mostly Jews)
Marshal Plan	a U.S.-sponsored program that was implemented following the end of World War II.
Berlin Air Lift	Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin.
Iron Curtain	symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991.
Truman Doctrine	established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces.
NATO	an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949.
Warsaw Pact	A military alliance of communist nations in eastern Europe