Lecture 6 AMERICA IN THE THE XX-th CENTURY

Lecture 6 AMERICA IN THE THE XX-th CENTURY Lecture plan 1. The First World War (1914 - 1918) 2. Roaring Twenties 3. Crash and Depression America in World War II

1. The First World War In August 1914, a war started on the continent of Europe. Trade between the US and the Allies grew quickly. German leaders were determined to stop this flow of armaments to their enemies. In May, a big British passenger ship called the Lusitania was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine. The main countries fighting the war were: on one side - France, Great Britain and Russia (the Allies), on the other side - Germany and Austria (the Central Powers).

In the autumn of 1916 American voters re-elected Woodrow Wilson as President, mainly because he had kept them out of the war. In the next few weeks German submarines sank five American ships. On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. A full year passed before many American soldiers were available to help the European Allies.

In August 1918, the Allied armies counter-attacked. In October the German government asked for peace. On November 11, 1918, German and Allied leaders signed an armistice, an agreement to stop fighting. After much arguing the Allied leaders agreed on a peace treaty. They called it the Versailles Treaty, it was signed in May 1919.

2. The Roaring Twenties The US was very rich in these years: Because of World War I, other countries owed it a lot of money. It had plenty of raw materials and plenty of factories. The busiest were those making automobiles. The electrical industry also prospered. The growth of industry made many Americans well-off. Thousands invested money in successful firms so that they could share in their profits.

Symbols of the Roaring Twenties

Yet there were lots of poor Americans. A survey in 1929 showed that half the American people had hardly enough money to buy sufficient food and clothing. The main reason for poverty among industrial workers was low wages. In the South many farmers were sharecroppers. For rent, a sharecropper gave the landowner part of what he grew - often so much that he was left with hardly enough to feed his family. By 1924, around 600,000 farmers were bankrupt. In 1928 a new President, Herbert Hoover was elected.

3. Crash and Depression Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, where dealers (stockbrokers) buy and sell valuable pieces of paper (share certificates). By 1929 buying and selling shares - "playing the market"-had become almost a national hobby. Yet some people began to have doubts. If profits were falling, then share prices, too, would soon fall. Slowly people began to sell their shares. On Thursday, October 24, 1929-Black Thursday-13 million shares were sold. On October 29 - Terrifying Tuesday - 16.5 million were sold.

This collapse of American share prices was known as the Wall Street Crash. It marked the end of the prosperity of the 1920s. The most important cause of the Wall Street Crash - too few Americans were earning enough money to buy the goods that they themselves were producing. By the end of 1931 nearly 8 mln Americans were out of work, they received no government unemployment pay. Millions spent hours in "breadlines." By 1932 people of every kind were demanding that President Hoover take stronger action to deal with the Depression.

In 1932 the Democratic Party chose Franklin D. Roosevelt to run against President Hoover in that year's election for a new president. He promised American people a "New Deal." For a hundred days (March 8 - June 16) he sent Congress a flood of proposals for new laws. In 1941 the United States joined the war itself and unemployment disappeared. Roosevelt’s New Deal was over.

4. America in World War II In 1939 a war broke out in Europe. On December 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes roared in over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the American navy's main base in the Pacific Ocean. Their bombs and torpedoes sank or badly damaged eight American battleships, blew up hundreds of aircraft and killed over 2,000 men. The United States declared war on December 8, 1941. Since Germany was Japan's ally, Hitler then declared war on the United States.

Pearl Harbor Attack

Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States (the Allies) were the main countries on one side. Germany and Japan (the Axis) were the main countries on the other. By 1945 scientists working on the scheme had produced and tested the world's first atomic bomb. On April 30, 1945, Hitler shot himself. German soldiers everywhere laid down their weapons and on May 5, 1945, Germany surrendered.

On August 6 an American bomber dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima. A few days later, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Both cities were devastated and nearly 200,000 civilians were killed. On August 14 the Japanese government surrendered. The Second World War was over.

Hiroshima attack