Download The US in the Second World War

The US in the Second World War
Beginning
-U.S. – Japanese relations deteriorated since 1931
-the U.S. cut the supply of products such as oil, scrap, iron in 1940
-Japanese attack on Perl Harbor on December 7, 1941: U.S. entered the war
The European theater of war
-in May 1942, Roosevelt promised to Soviet foreign Minister Molotov a second front by late
1942
-British PM Chruchill urged landing in North Africa and then campaign in the Mediterranean
-Anglo-American forces landed in North Africa in the fall of 1942, invaded sicily
-Churchill suggested opening the second front in the Balkans, but the American leadership
opted for landing in France
-Allied troops landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), while Rome fell two days
before
-the troops liberated France and after the last German counterattack in 1944, they entered
Germany from the West
-the end of the war come on May 8, 1945
The Pacific theater of war
-Japaneses advance was stopped in the Battle of the Coral Sea and in the Battle of Midway in
May-June 1942
-the „island-hopping” tactics paid off and the Japanese defense perimeter shrank int he next 3
years
-retaking the Philippines, capture og such strategical islands like: Iwo Jima, Okinawa
-atomic bombs: Hiroshima: Aug 6, 1945, Nagasaki: three days later
-signing the documents on board the U.S.S. Missouri on Sept 2, 1945.
The diplomacy of the war
-wartime alliance between the Americans and British practically started with the issuance of
the Atlantic Charter in Aug, 1941
-Churchill and Roosevelt met several times: discussed the strategy, plans for the postwar
political settlement
-conferences: Big Three: Therean (Nov, 1943), Yalta (Feb, 1945), Potsdam (July, 1945)
-agreed on the time and location of the opening of the second front in Teheran
-defined the boundaries of Poland and agreed on holding free elections in the liberated
countries and on the division of Germany into zones of occupation in Yalta
-Ptsdam: set up the council of Foreign ministers to discuss the outstanding issues later
Changes in the U.S.
-the war industry offered plenty of opportunities for employment
-social changes: position of women in society
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The Gilded Age
Name: decades between the Civil War and the turn of the century
Big Issues
-technological revolution followed the end of the Civil War
-electricity became important, dramatic changes in telecommumication (transatlantic
telegraph, telefon)
-in the late 1850s oil was discovered in Ohio, oil boom started
-changes in transportation: airplane flight, railroads (1869)
-a group of manufacturers emerged
-people created new forms of business which were aimed at limiting competition and creating
monopolies: pools, trusts, holding companies
-two methods were favored by businessment o establish large organizations
-horizontal integration: bringing together a number of firms in the same business
-vertical integration: comapies at all levels of production were purchased by a single
individual, who thus control over production from the raw material to the finished
product (for example: Andrew Carnegie’s steel corporation)
-economic crises in the last decades of the 19th century strengthened the anti-monopoly
movement in the U.S.
-first antitrust act (Sherman Act)
-President Roosevelt and Wilson adoptd a „trustbusting policy” in 1900s, included court
actions against some of the biggest corporations
-strong farmers movement
-the importance of agriculture declined in the nation’s economy
-the farmers problems were increasingly restricted to certain regions or states
The Political Scene after the Civil War
-balance between the Democratic and the Republican parties
-the southern states were solidly Democratic
-northern and western states predominantly Republican
-rise of the People’s Party (Populist) in the early 1890s: it drew support from among the
farmers
-began to decline and soon disappeared from the political life of the country
-most significant reform movement of the Progressive Era was the fight for women’s
suffrage: 19th Amendment (1920): prohibited the restriction of voting rights on account of sex
-the balance sheet of Progressivism helped improve city cervices
Urbanization
The structure of the cities changed: electric trolleys, trains, automobiles, subways
-ghettoization: immigrants tended to live in close communities: Little Italies, Chinatown, etc.
Problems
-the railroads opened the west: Native Americans continued to shrink
-1870s: government launched new policies toward Indians: it would not negotiate with tribal
chiefs any more concerning land cessions
-white-indian relations determined by the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887
-blacks: to gain equality with the whites in all walks of life
-Supreme Court decision in 1896: „separate but equal” treatment was pronounced
constitutional in the Plessy v. Ferguson case
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