Perhaps the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States occurred from 1930-1939. The Great Depression led to domestic and international crises effecting the poor and wealthy alike. Many financial experts today continue to debate the cause of The Depression, although most agree that several events led to the economic decline. The famous stock market crash on October 29, 1929 is just one of many causes economists believe led to The Great Depression. Known also as Black Tuesday, October 29th left stockholders shattered with recorded losses reaching $40 billion dollars (Kelly, n.d.).
In the Confederate States, the hope was that the incident would lead to a permanent rupture in Anglo-American relations and even diplomatic recognition by Britain of the Confederacy. Confederates realized their independence potentially depended on a war between Britain and the U.S. In Britain, the public expressed outrage at this violation of neutral rights and insult to their national honor. The British government demanded an apology and the release of the prisoners while it took steps to strengthen its military forces in Canada and the Atlantic. After several weeks of tension and loose talk of war, the crisis was resolved when the Lincoln administration released the envoys and disavowed Captain Wilkes's actions.
The Great Depression was a severe period of poverty and tragedy. It effected many other countries not just America; especially in Europe, where many countries had not fully recovered from the aftermath of World War I. The cost of World War I weakened the ability of the world to respond to a major crisis. America alone had ten billon dollars of debt from the war. In Germany America’s economic failure contributed to the rise of Adolf Hiltler, so the Stock Market Crash had a domino effect on our country and others.
Another cause of WWII was the Great Depression in the 1930s. In October 1929, the world trade and economy suffered a drastic downfall, as it was published on the U.S Wall Street Journal, leading to bankruptcy, huge retrenchment and unemployment, large debts as well as serious political crises (Ross, 2003). To nurse their own economic, financial and political interests, Britain and the U.S started trading only among themselves and this created an overheated enmity and hatred between them and other states worldwide, especially Germany causing conflicts and fighting in the WWII (The editors of the Legacy Publishers, 2007). WWII was increasingly widespread than WWI which was generally restricted to European countries (Ross, 2003). The WWII, which ran from 1939 to 1945, involved more countries outside Europe such as China, the U.S and Japan among others.
Adolf Hitler’s war on the Eastern as well as the Western fronts of Germany forced the Western Allies and Soviet Union to form an alliance to defeat Hitler and hence, banish the threat that he posed. Many call this alliance an unnatural alliance because the US and the USSR had underlying grievances against each other. With the end of the Second World War and the defeat of Nazi Germany, diplomatic relationship between these two countries only worsened because of their prewar grievances and differing ideologies leading to their split and the development of the Cold War. It is a popular belief amongst many historians that the Cold War started with the Bolshevik Movement and the formation of a Communist state in Russia and that it only intensified after the Second World War. Animosity did exist between the US and the USSR even before the war.
The evidence shows that President Roosevelt wanted to make the US apart of the war and took any means necessary. He promised to keep American soldiers out of any foreign wars but also made promises to Britain that America would help them in the war. The secrecy of the attack caused America to lose over 2,000 servicemen, 188 planes to be destroyed, and eighteen naval vessels to be sunk or heavily damaged. The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was known by Washington and FDR, but was kept from the Hawaiian
The crisis also caused a decline in exports and productions as the demand for exports collapsed and the world trade slumped for Germany. This also concluded in huge unemployment and lowering wages. The result of the German industry was they could no longer pay it’s way. Without over sea’s loads and with its export trade falling bankruptcies increased dramatically. This couldn’t have come at a better time for the Nazi’s as because of this crisis the decline in support of the Weimar Republic decreased with the lack of confidence and underlying economic problems within Germany, he
Before we can explore causes, we first need to define what we mean by The Great Depression The Great Depression was a global economic crisis that may have been triggered by political decisions (war reparations post-World War I), protectionism (Congressional tariffs on European goods) or by speculation .Worldwide, there was increased unemployment, decreased government revenue, a drop in international trade. Its kickoff in the U.S. economy was “Black Thursday," October 24, 1929. That's when 12.9 million shares of stock were sold in one day. It was triple the usual amount. At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, more than a quarter of the US labor force was unemployed.
The country was faced with huge losses in manpower and economic destruction after the war, despite being one of the victors. The country was mourning the loss of an entire young male generation. With the onset of the Great Depression, the French people felt the democratic system had failed them and so they looked to extremist organisations to lead them. As the international situation was worsening, it became clear that the instability in France from 1920 to 1940 meant the nation was divided, depressed and in danger of being captured by the Germans in 1940. Immediately after the First World War, there was a period of political instability with the election of four different Prime Ministers in three years.
Many banks declared bankruptcies because they could not get back their money from stock investors. Thousands of banks failed to keep the money from flowing to the market that resulted in a widening circle of bankruptcies and job layoffs.Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election by a landslide over Herbert Hoover in November 1932 and was inaugurated the following March. He had the first presidential speech when “the stock market was down eighty percent from its 1929 high, almost half the banks had failed, the GDP was down fifty percent, and unemployment stood at twenty five percent” (79). Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed the problems that Americans needed to overcome, and gave out the New Deal programs started from1933 to 1939 that were successful in addressing the Great Depression. The first phase of the New Dealwas called relief that helped millions of suffering Americans as soon as possible.