The document provides an overview of World War II and the Great Depression. It discusses how World War II began in 1939 with Germany invading Poland and later involved additional countries. It also describes how the Great Depression originated with the U.S. stock market crash of 1929 and spread globally, resulting in mass unemployment, bank failures, and lowered trade. Drought and dust storms greatly impacted farmers during the Depression era.

1. History 141
By Lukas B
Instructor: Prof. Arguello, M

2. World War II

 World War II or WWII was the global
military conflict began in Europe in 1939 to
1945.
 September 1, 1939, beginning World War
II, Hitler invaded Poland from the west;
two days later, France and Britain declared
war on Germany.
 September 17, Soviet troops invaded
Poland from the east.
 By early 1940 Germany and the Soviet
Union had divided control over the nation,
according to a secret protocol appended to
the Nonaggression Pact.

3. World War II

 Late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties.
 Germany conquered or subdued much of continental Europe
amid Nazi-Soviet agreements, the nominally neutral Soviet Union
fully or partially occupied and annexed territories of its six
European neighbors.
 In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed
the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a frenzy of
worry in London and Paris.
 Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which
Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support if it was
attacked by Germany.
 The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on
two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have Soviet
assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself.

4. World War II

 June 1940 France fell to the German
onslaught.
 June 1940, Roosevelt resolved to save
England at all costs.
 Isolationists in Congress had passed
Neutrality Acts in the mid-1930s that
restricted American trade with belligerents.
 Roosevelt convinced Congress to permit the
sale of arms to England on a "cash-and-
carry" basis.
 American destroyers began escorting
British convoys most of the way across the
Atlantic, and navy ships approached
Ireland to track German submarines for the
British

5. World War II

 1883-1945, Italian Leader of the Fascist
Movement, MUSSOLINI, BENITO, broke
with the Socialist Party during World War I
and became an aggressive nationalist.
 He invaded Ethiopia and Albania and
formed an alliance with Hitler, which
eventually took Italy into World War II.
 April 9, 1940-1941, World War II in the
West, Germany simultaneously invaded
Norway and occupied Denmark, and the
war began in earnest.

6. World War II

 June 10 Benito Mussolini put his Pact of
Steel with Hitler into action, and Italy
declared war against France and Britain.
 Sunday December 7 1941, Japanese planes
bombed the American base, sinking or
immobilizing eight American battleships
and leaving 2,400 dead. It was the most
humiliating military disaster in American
history.
 America declared war on Japan, and Hitler,
in turn, declared war on America.

7. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 World War II in 1939 cause The Great Depression, was the
longest, most widespread, and deepest depression of the
20th century.
 In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used
as an example of how far the world's economy can decline.
 The depression originated in the U.S., starting with the fall
in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929 and
became worldwide news with the stock market crash of
October 29, 1929 from there, it quickly spread to almost
every country in the world.

8. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in
international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression
especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign
trade.
 Most historians and economists partly blame the American
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act for worsening the depression by
seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory
tariffs in other countries.
 While foreign trade was a small part of overall economic
activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses
like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other
countries.

9. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 During the Crash of 1929 preceding the Great Depression,
margin requirements were only 10% Brokerage firms, in other
words, would lend $9 for every $1 an investor had deposited.
 Banks began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors
attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse, triggering
multiple bank runs.
 Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking
regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used.
Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets.
 Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and
incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same
dollar amount.

10. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 After the panic of 1929, and during the
first 10 months of 1930, 744 US banks
failed.
 By April 1933, around $7 billion in
deposits had been frozen in failed
banks or those left unlicensed after the
March Bank Holiday.
 During the Great Depression, the
Great Plains were hit hard with both a
drought and horrendous dust storms.
 The dust storms destroyed everything
in their paths, leaving farmers without
their crops.

11. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 Millions of people were out of work
across the United States unable to find
another job locally, many
unemployed people hit the
road, traveling from place to
place, hoping to find some work.
 A few of these people had cars, but
most hitchhiked. A large portion of
the people who road the rails were
teenagers, but there were also older
men, women, and entire families who
traveled in this manner. . They would
board freight trains and crisscross the
country, hoping to find a job in one of
the towns along the way.

12. Sources

 “Immigrants & Cities” article IX World War II
 “Immigrants & Cities” article VIII The Great
Depression
 Google Image Search