In the period preceding 1920s, all of the U.S market were undergoing a major boost as the stock market expanded reaching its peak in the year 1929, this was occasioned by a period of wild speculation. Stock prices had begun to decline from September all the way to October in the year 1929. On October 24th, panic set in and a record of 12,894,650 shares were traded. The effort to stabilize the market on the same month were futile as on Tuesday (October 29), all the stock prices completely collapsed, and 16,410,030 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange Market on a sole day. The results were that billions of dollars were lost, driving out a lot of investors from the market (Fisher, 1930).
It is undoubted that the stock market crash of the year 1929 was no
...t the only cause of the great depression, but it is credited as the one that accelerated the global economic fall of which it was a sign. And the end of the year 1933, almost half of the America’s bank had become bankruptcy, and secondly the rate of unemployment was approximately 15 million individuals that are 30% of the workforce.
Although the New Deal cannot be credited as the one that aided on the end of Great Depression, it brought tremendous success in the restoration of the public confidence and also in creating the new programs that were aimed at bringing relief to the millions of Americans people. The aim of the New Deal was to solve a sense of despair, collapse of the financial system, cases of high unemployment, and the shrinking economy. To do so man
programs were initiated such as the flurry of economic activities in the “Hundred Days” and most importantly the FDR recovery legislation aimed at reducing the unemployment.
The New Deal changed the society from their point of despair into becoming self-dependence again. To create social security, the FDR adopted policies that would end up preventing suffering in the foreseeable future depressions as quoted in the Social Security Act. New Deal cannot be said to have ended the great depression as the World War II did, it solely aided in the attainment of the solutions (Hobsbawm, 1995).
At the start of the World War II, U.S was not one of the parties despite is key allies fighting in the war. The main causative factor that caused our country to enter the war was the attack on the Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The U.S did not want to enter into the war as it was greatly affected by the Depression. Then the Japanese Air squadrons bombed one of the American Naval base making the Americans furious, and Roosevelt declared war on Japan thus U.S entering the war officially. All the Axis countries led by Japan declared the war on U.S thus getting America fully involved in the World War II.
Some of the effective best strategies that were employed by the U.S in the world war was the usage of the Island Hopping Campaign and also the Blitzkrieg strategies. The later involved all-motorized forces of the tanks, artillery, combat engineers and air force that proceeded to the enemy camp at high speed without regard to its flanks. The reason why our country won the war was that of its
advancement in the military power and might that could not match by the axis power combined (Romer, 1992).
One of the greatly discussed issues in our contemporary world is the impact of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s. This revolution draws its onset from the enslavement and oppression of the black people in U.S. Despite that the civil war had brought the abolition of slavery, the activities of white supremacy continued after that.
The case of Brown where blacks had won a case against the discriminative law proved to be a pivotal era in the American race relations, and this was the beginning of the broad civil rights movement that became full-blown in the 1960s (Weisbrot, 1990)
In December 1995, a grassroots activity in Alabama NAACP members led by Nixon and Rosa Parks started what soon could became a large-scale boycott across the country. The States government relented, and many racist legislations were abolished. Among the chief player in this fight was Martin Luther Jr., who was later assassinated. The American society was divided on the issue of equality with the black community. The reformist supported the push for equality while the reservists wanted the status quo to remain.
References
- Fisher, I. (1930). The stock market crash--and after. The Macmillan Company.
- Hobsbawm, E. J. (1995). The age of extremes: A history of the world, 1914-1991. Pantheon Books.
- Romer, C. D. (1992). What ended the great depression?. The Journal of Economic History, 52(04), 757-784.
- Weisbrot, R. (1990). Freedom bound: A history of America's civil rights movement. EP Dutton.
