The Great Depression
![Picture](/uploads/1/4/2/6/14264032/2454517.jpg)
This iconic picture from the great depression
was taken by photographer Dorothea Lange.
Click to enlarge.
In October of 1929, the United States stock market crashed, and sent the country into the Great Depression. By March of 1930 3.2 million people are unemployed. People were saddened during this time and lost hope. By April of 1932 around 750,000 inhabitants of New York alone were on city relief, with more than 160,000 others on the waiting list. It all began on October 24th. Known as “Black Thursday” on this day hundreds and thousands of brokers and investors, somewhat confused, were completely ruined, along with banks which, due to incredible investments of their own, did not have enough cash for anyone. Five days later, October 29th (“Black Tuesday”) was supposedly the most horrible day of the crash. 16 million shares were put on the market, prices in the country dropped and people were panicked. Prices on Wall Street were lowered by $14 million. 30 billion dollars of the previously 80 billion dollars’ worth of stocks in September, were gone by November. Stocks lowered and lowered until 1932, but because of the fear they had no one dared to invest or buy, and so the economy grew even more awful. By the late 1930’s, early 1940’s, the economy finally began to improve.
World war two
![Picture](/uploads/1/4/2/6/14264032/2241709.jpg)
This picture is of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This event brought the United States into World War two. Click to enlarge.
Only a few years after the Great Depression was over, (and some would say it wasn’t over until this happened) Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and America was again plunged into hard times. Food, clothes, and gas were rationed to everyone. Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps, with all their rights stripped from them. Scrap metal drives were often going on. Radios were relied on to get news on the fighting. People lived in terror. However after the horrible unemployment and horrific economy, the war made job demands skyrocket and the economy boomed. Meanwhile in Europe Hitler and his army was overtaking many countries and sending many Jews to concentration camps, or just killing them. Many of those sent to the concentration camps would have preferred the latter. The war in Europe was over on May 8th, 1945, when, after Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker while the soviets grew ever nearer, the rest of the German forces surrendered. Japan was not defeated until America dropped two atomic bombs on it on August 6th and August 9th of 1945. On August 14th they surrendered, and finally the war was over, though the suffering was not. Through the course of the war more than 400,000 American soldiers were killed, more in countries like Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union.