History 204 Test #3

Hoovervilles

A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States of America. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States of America during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for it. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee. There were hundreds of Hoovervilles across the country during the 1930s and hundreds of thousands of people lived in these slums.

Red Scare

A "Red Scare" is promotion of widespread fear by a society or state about a potential rise of communism, anarchism, or radical leftism. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution and political radicalism.

Sick Chicken Case

A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated regulations of the poultry industry according to the nondelegation doctrine and as an invalid use of Congress' power under the commerce clause. This was a unanimous decision that rendered the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, a main component of President Roosevelt's New Deal, unconstitutional.

Al Smith

Alfred Emanuel Smith was an American politician who was elected Governor of New York four times and was the Democratic Party's candidate for President in 1928. Smith was the foremost urban leader of the Efficiency Movement in the United States and was noted for achieving a wide range of reforms as governor in the 1920s. The son of an Irish-American mother and a Civil War veteran father, he was raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge, where he resided for his entire life. Like many other New York politicians of his era, he was also linked to the notorious Tammany Hall political machine that controlled New York City's politics, although he remained personally untarnished by corruption. Smith was a strong opponent of Prohibition, which he did not think could be enforced, and viewed it as an over-extension of the government's constitutional power. He was also the first Catholic nominee for President. His candidacy mobilized Catholic votes, especially from women, who had only recently received federal suffrage. It also brought out the anti-Catholic vote, which was especially strong among white conservative Democrats in the South, although Smith was still successful within the states of the Deep South.

Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel Capone, sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33.

Alvin York

Alvin Cullum York (December 13, 1887 - September 2, 1964), also known as Sergeant York, was one of the most decorated United States Army soldiers of World War I. He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking at least one machine gun, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers and capturing 132. York's Medal of Honor action occurred during the United States-led portion of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France, which was intended to breach the Hindenburg line and force the Germans to surrender. He earned decorations from several allied countries during WWI, including France, Italy and Montenegro.

Francis Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este was a member of the imperial Habsburg dynasty, and from 1896 until his death the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia, which in turn triggered a series of events that resulted in Austria-Hungary's allies and Serbia's declaring war on each other, starting World War I.

Black Tuesday

Black Tuesday was the fourth and last day of the stock market crash of 1929. It took place on October 29, 1929. Investors traded a record 16.4 million shares. They lost $14 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, worth $199 billion in 2017 dollars.

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, explorer, and environmental activist. At age 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize: making a nonstop flight from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. Lindbergh covered the 33 ¹⁄₂-hour, 3,600-statute-mile flight alone in a single-engine purpose-built Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis.

Charles Coughlin

Charles Edward Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower church. Commonly known as Father Coughlin, he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience: during the 1930s, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts. He was forced off the air in 1939 because of his pro-fascist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Charles Evan Hughes

Charles Evans Hughes Sr. was an American statesman, Republican Party politician, and the 11th Chief Justice of the United States. He was also the 36th Governor of New York, the Republican presidential nominee in the 1916 presidential election, and the 44th United States Secretary of State.

Clarence Darrow

Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer, a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. He defended high-profile clients in many famous trials of the early 20th century, including teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks; teacher John T. Scopes in the Scopes "Monkey" Trial, in which he opposed statesman and orator William Jennings Bryan; and Ossian Sweet in a racially charged self-defense case. Called a "sophisticated country lawyer", Darrow's wit and eloquence made him one of the most prominent attorneys and civil libertarians in the nation.

Sedition Act

Congressional measure banning saying "unloyal," things during wartime. It violated 1st amendment rights and convicted many. It made it illegal to obstruct the sale of war bonds and to use nasty language against the government, Constitution, flag, or uniform. It was very vague, and allowed for plenty of government intimidation

Edith Wilson

Edith Wilson second wife of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was the First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921. She married the widower Wilson in December 1915, during his first term as President. President Wilson suffered a severe stroke in October 1919. Edith Wilson began to screen all matters of state and decided which were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. In doing so, she de facto ran the executive branch of the government for the remainder of the president's second term, until March 1921.

Col. Edward House

Edward M. House. Edward Mandell House was an American diplomat, politician, and an adviser to President Woodrow Wilson. He was known by the nickname Colonel House, although he had performed no military service.

Eliot Ness

Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a famous team of law enforcement agents from Chicago, nicknamed The Untouchables. His co-authorship of a popular autobiography, The Untouchables, which was released shortly after his death, launched several television and motion picture portrayals that established Ness's posthumous fame as an incorruptible crime fighter.

Emiliano Zapata

Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, the main leader of the peasant revolution in the state of Morelos, and the inspiration of the agrarian movement called Zapatismo.

Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins was an American sociologist and workers-rights advocate who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet to remain in office for his entire presidency.

Francis Townsend

Francis Everett Townsend was an American physician who was best known for his revolving old-age pension proposal during the Great Depression. Known as the "Townsend Plan", this proposal influenced the establishment of the Roosevelt administration's Social Security system.

Pancho Villa

Francisco "Pancho" Villa was a Mexican revolutionary general and one of the most prominent figures of the Mexican Revolution. As commander of the División del Norte, '(Division of the North)' in the Constitutionalist Army, he was a military-landowner (caudillo) of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Given the area's size and mineral wealth, it provided him with extensive resources. Villa was also provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. Villa can be credited with decisive military victories leading to the ousting of Victoriano Huerta from the presidency in July 1914. Villa then fought his erstwhile leader in the coalition against Huerta, "First Chief" of the Constitutionalists Venustiano Carranza. Villa was in alliance with southern revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who remained fighting in his own region of Morelos. The two revolutionary generals briefly came together to take Mexico City after Carranza's forces retreated from it. Later, Villa's heretofore undefeated División del Norte engaged the military forces of Carranza under Carrancista general Álvaro Obregón and was defeated in the 1915 Battle of Celaya. Villa was again defeated by Carranza, 1 November 1915, at the Second Battle of Agua Prieta, after which Villa's army collapsed as a significant military force. Villa subsequently led a raid against a small U.S.-Mexican border town resulting in the Battle of Columbus on 9 March 1916, and then retreated to escape U.S. retaliation. The U.S. government sent U.S. Army General John J. Pershing on an expedition to capture Villa, but Villa continued to evade his attackers with guerrilla tactics during the unsuccessful, nine-month incursion into Mexican sovereign territory. The mission ended when the United States entered World War I and Pershing was recalled to other duties.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System and defined American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II. Roosevelt is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in American history, as well as among the most influential figures of the 20th century. Though he has also been subject to much criticism, he is generally rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Gabriel Princip

Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb member of Young Bosnia, a Yugoslavist organization seeking an end to Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 at the age of 19 years old, initiating a chain of events that would lead to the outbreak of World War I. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated the Serbian nationalist secret society known as the Black Hand, leading Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum. Princip said the archduke was targeted because "as future Sovereign he would have prevented our union by carrying through certain reforms", an allusion to the archduke's reputed support for structural reforms of the monarchy that would assign more autonomy to the Slavic lands. This was a threat to the Serbian irredentist project.

Harry Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, succeeding upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt after serving as vice president. He implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO.

Henry Wallace

Henry Agard Wallace was an American politician, journalist, and farmer who served as the 11th U.S. secretary of agriculture, the 33rd vice president of the United States under FDR, and the 10th U.S. secretary of commerce. He was also the presidential nominee of the left-wing Progressive Party in the 1948 election.

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American captain of industry and a business magnate, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.

Huey Long

Huey Pierce Long Jr. , nicknamed "The Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and was a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and was willing to take forceful action. He established the long-term political prominence of the Long family. A Democrat and an outspoken left-wing populist, Long denounced the wealthy elites and the banks. Initially a supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first 100 days in office, Long eventually came to believe that Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies did not do enough to alleviate the issues of the poor. In time, he developed his own solution: the "Share Our Wealth" program, which would establish a net asset tax, the earnings of which would be redistributed so as to curb the poverty and homelessness epidemic nationwide during the Great Depression.

Espionage Act

It was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime. In 1919, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled through Schenck v. United States that the act did not violate the freedom of speech of those convicted under its provisions.

Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge Jr. was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. The next year, he was elected vice president of the United States, and he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small government conservative and also as a man who said very little and had a rather dry sense of humor.

John Nance Garner

John Nance Garner III, known among his contemporaries as "Cactus Jack", was an American Democratic politician and lawyer from Texas. He was the 32nd vice president of the United States, serving from 1933 to 1941. He was also the 39th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1931 to 1933. Along with Schuyler Colfax, Garner is one of only two individuals to serve as Vice President of the United States and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Victoriano Huerta

José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a Mexican military officer and 35th President of Mexico. After a military career under President Porfirio Díaz, Huerta became a high-ranking officer under pro-democracy President Francisco I. Madero during the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. In 1913 Huerta led a conspiracy against Madero, who entrusted him to control a minor revolt in Mexico City, deposing and assassinating Madero, his brother and Vice President Pino Suarez. This maneuver is called La Decena Tragica, the Ten Tragic Days. The Huerta regime was immediately opposed by revolutionary forces, plunging the nation into a civil war. He was forced to resign and flee the country in 1914, only 17 months into his presidency, after the federal army collapsed. While attempting to intrigue with German spies in the US during World War I, Huerta was arrested in 1915 and died in U.S. custody.

Porfirio Diaz

José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 1876 to 1880 and from 1884 to 1911. A veteran of the War of the Reform (1858-60) and the French intervention in Mexico (1862-67), Díaz rose to the rank of General, leading republican troops against the French-imposed rule of Emperor Maximilian. Seizing power in a coup in 1876, Díaz and his allies, a group of technocrats known as "Científicos", ruled Mexico for the next thirty-five years, a period known as the Porfiriato.

Newton Baker

Newton Diehl Baker Jr. was an American lawyer, Georgist, politician, and government official. He served as the 37th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio from 1912 to 1915. As U.S. Secretary of War from 1916 to 1921, Baker presided over the United States Army during World War I.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born American anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920 armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were electrocuted in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison. Both men smells adhered to an anarchist movement.

Eugene Debs

Outspoken leader of the labor movement, Eugene Debs opposed Woodrow Wilson as the Socialist Party candidate in the 1912 Presidential Election. Later, he would continue to rally against President Wilson and his decision to take American into war — and be jailed for it under the Espionage Act. After four consecutive losing presidential campaigns, in 1916 Debs decided to run for an Indiana Congressional seat. He campaigned on a pacifist platform of American neutrality in the First World War. Once the United States entered the war, Debs was arrested for violating the Espionage Act after making what the district attorney of Canton, Ohio called an anti-war speech in 1918. Debs in fact only mentioned the war once, but under this repressive new law, was sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary. Nominated for a fifth time as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate in 1920, Debs campaigned from his jail cell and garnered over a million votes. Despite repeated pleas from Debs' supporters, President Wilson refused to release Debs from prison. President Harding finally ordered him set free on Christmas Day 1921

Bank Holiday

President Franklin Roosevelt declared an unscheduled bank holiday in 1933 to allow financial institutions time to consider their options after a number of failures. When banks close for a holiday, they do not offer any banking services.

Lusitania

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner and briefly the world's largest passenger ship. The ship was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 mi (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917.

Robert Lansing

Robert Lansing was an American lawyer and Conservative Democratic politician who served as Legal Advisor to the State Department at the outbreak of World War I, and then as United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson from 1915 to 1920.

No Man's land

Territory between rival Trenches, very dangerous

AAA

The Agricultural Adjustment Act was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The Government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

American Expeditionary Force

The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F., A.E.F. or AEF) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The AEF was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing. It fought alongside French Army, British Army, Canadian Army, and Australian Army units against the German Empire. A minority of the AEF troops also fought alongside Italian Army units in that same year against the Austro-Hungarian Army. The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at the Battle of Château-Thierry and Battle of Belleau Wood) in the summer of 1918, and fought its major actions in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the latter part of 1918.

Battle of the Marne

The Battle of the Marne was a World War I battle fought from 6-12 September 1914. It resulted in an Allied victory against the German armies in the west. The battle was the culmination of the German advance into France and pursuit of the Allied armies which followed the Battle of the Frontiers in August and had reached the eastern outskirts of Paris. A counter-attack by six French armies and the British Expeditionary Force along the Marne River forced the Imperial German Army to retreat northwest, leading to the First Battle of the Aisne and the Race to the Sea. The battle was a victory for the Allied Powers but led to four years of trench warfare stalemate on the Western Front.

Bonus March

The Bonus Army were the 43,000 marchers—17,000 U.S. World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1932 to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the "Bonus Expeditionary Force", to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the "Bonus Army" or "Bonus Marchers". The contingent was led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant.

SaraJevo

The City in Bosnia that Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated.

CCC

The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men. Originally for young men ages 18-25, it was eventually expanded to ages 17-28. Robert Fechner was the first director of the agency, succeeded by James McEntee following Fechner's death. The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States. Maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000. Through the course of its nine years in operation, 3 million young men participated in the CCC, which provided them with shelter, clothing, and food, together with a wage of $30 per month.

Von Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen-Plan) was the name given after World War I to the thinking behind the German invasion of France and Belgium on 4 August 1914. Germany needed to take France out rapidly, and then attend to Russia.

14 points

The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. But his main Allied colleagues were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations; in most countries it started in 1929 and lasted until the late-1930s. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how intensely the world's economy can decline.

Great Migration

The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1910 and 1970. Blacks moved from 14 states of the South, especially Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, to the other three cultural (and census-designated) regions of the United States.

Packing the Supreme Court

The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roosevelt's purpose was to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that the court had ruled unconstitutional. The central provision of the bill would have granted the President power to appoint an additional Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, up to a maximum of six, for every member of the court over the age of 70 years and 6 months.

Meusse-Argonne Offensive

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive (also known as Battles of the Meuse-Argonne and the Meuse-Argonne Campaign) was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. It was fought from September 26, 1918 until the Armistice of November 11, 1918, a total of 47 days. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was the largest in United States military history, involving 1.2 million American soldiers. It was one of a series of Allied attacks known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which brought the war to an end.

NRA

The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was signed by newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 16, 1933. The new law created the National Recovery Administration (NRA). The Blue Eagle of the NRA (NRA) to oversee the drafting and implementation of the codes of fair competition.

NIRA

The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the US Congress to authorize the President to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also established a national public works program known as the Public Works Administration. The National Recovery Administration portion was widely hailed in 1933, but by 1934 business' opinion of the act had soured. By March 1934 the "NRA was engaged chiefly in drawing up these industrial codes for all industries to adopt." However, the NIRA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935 and not replaced.

The New Deal

The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1936. It responded to needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the Great Depression. Major federal programs included the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Civil Works Administration, the Farm Security Administration, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Social Security Administration. They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly. The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Punitive Expedition

The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition,[6] but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army"[1]—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. The expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and was the most remembered event of the Border War. The declared objective of the expedition by the Wilson administration was the capture of Villa.[7] Despite successfully locating and defeating the main body of Villa's command, responsible for the raid on Columbus, U.S. forces were unable to achieve Wilson's stated main objective of preventing Villa's escape.

Scopes Monkey Trial

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he purposely incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant.

Social Security Act

The Social Security Act of 1935, created Social Security in the United States, and is relevant for US labor law. It created a basic right to a pension in old age, and insurance against unemployment.

TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter on May 18, 1933, to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. The enterprise was a result of the efforts of Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska. TVA was envisioned not only as a provider, but also as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and electricity to more quickly modernize the region's economy and society.

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which had directly led to World War I. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919.

Triple alliance

The Triple Alliance was an agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. It was formed on 20 May 1882 and renewed periodically until it expired in 1915 during World War I. Germany and Austria-Hungary had been closely allied since 1879. Italy sought support against France shortly after it lost North African ambitions to the French. Each member promised mutual support in the event of an attack by any other great power. The treaty provided that Germany and Austria-Hungary were to assist Italy if it was attacked by France without provocation. In turn, Italy would assist Germany if attacked by France. In the event of a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia, Italy promised to remain neutral. The existence and membership of the treaty was well known, but its exact provisions were kept secret until 1919.

Election of 1916

The United States presidential election of 1916 was the 33rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1916. Incumbent Democratic President Woodrow Wilson defeated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. Wilson was the only sitting Democratic president to win re-election between 1832 and 1936.

WPA

The Works Progress Administration was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of people to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was established on May 6, 1935, by Executive Order 7034.

Zimmerman Telegram

The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note or Zimmerman Cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. In the event that the United States entered World War I against Germany, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Revelation of the contents enraged Americans, especially after German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted the telegram was genuine on March 3, and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April. The decryption was described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I, and one of the earliest occasions on which a piece of signal intelligence influenced world events.

St. Mihiel Salient

The attack at the St. Mihiel salient was part of a plan by Pershing in which he hoped that the Americans would break through the German lines and capture the fortified city of Metz. It was the first and only offensive launched solely by the United States Army in World War I, and the attack caught the Germans in the process of retreating.[6] This meant that their artillery was out of place and the American attack, coming up against disorganized German forces, proved more successful than expected. The St. Mihiel attack established the stature of the U.S. Army in the eyes of the French and British forces, and again demonstrated the critical role of artillery during World War I and the difficulty of supplying such massive armies while they were on the move

Changing Roles of Women

The changing role of women was a result of the work they did during the war. The number of working women increased by 25 per cent. In 1920, all women were given the right to vote. 'Flappers' smoked in public, danced the new dances, and were sexually liberated.

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American statesman and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the 34th governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. He also led the United States during World War I, establishing an activist foreign policy known as "Wilsonianism."

John J. Pershing

US general who chased Villa over 300 miles into Mexico with the Punitive force but didn't capture him. General of the Armies John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing was a senior United States Army officer. His most famous post was when he served as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front in World War I, 1917-18.

The Black Hand

Unification or Death, popularly known as the Black Hand, was a secret military society formed in 1901 by officers in the Army of the Kingdom of Serbia, best known for the conspiracy to assassinate the Serbian royal couple in 1903, under the aegis of Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević (a.k.a. "Apis"). It was formed with the aim of uniting all of the territories with a South Slavic majority not ruled by either Serbia or Montenegro. Its inspiration was primarily the unification of Italy in 1859-70, but also that of Germany in 1871. Through its connections to the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which was committed by the members of youth movement Young Bosnia, the Black Hand is often viewed as having contributed to the start of World War I by precipitating the July Crisis of 1914, which eventually led to Austria-Hungary's invasion of the Kingdom of Serbia.

German submarine Warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in World War I in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy.

Venustiano Carranza

Venustiano Carranza Garza was one of the main leaders of the Mexican Revolution, whose victorious northern revolutionary Constitutionalist Army defeated the counter-revolutionary regime of Victoriano Huerta and then defeated fellow revolutionaries after Huerta's ouster. He secured power in Mexico, serving as head of state from 1915-1917. With the promulgation of a new revolutionary Mexican Constitution of 1917, he was elected president, serving from 1917 to 1920.

Warren G Harding

Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th president of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular U.S. presidents to that point. After his death a number of scandals, such as Teapot Dome, came to light, as did his extramarital affair with Nan Britton; each eroded his popular regard. He is often rated as one of the worst presidents in historical rankings.

William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan was an American orator and politician from Nebraska. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, standing three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States. He also served in the United States House of Representatives and as the United States Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Just before his death he gained national attention for attacking the teaching of evolution in the Scopes Trial. Because of his faith in the wisdom of the common people, he was often called "The Great Commoner".

Triple Entente

an early-20th-century alliance between Great Britain, France, and Russia. Originally a series of loose agreements, the Triple Entente began to assume the nature of a more formal alliance as the prospect of war with the Central Powers became more likely, and formed the basis of the Allied powers in World War I.

Sabotage Act

most repressive of the acts, expanded the meaning of the Espionage Act to make illegal any public expression to opposition to the war, prosecute anyone who criticizes president or government.