1929
Stock market crash
1930
135 U.S. banks fail
1932
Reconstruction Finance Corporation established; Federal Home Loan
Bank Act passed; Federal Emergency Relief Act passed; Franklin D.
Roosevelt elected president
1933
Initial New Deal (“Hundred Days”) legislation begins; Adolf Hitler
becomes chancellor of Germany; Public Works Administration
established
1934
Indian Reorganization Act restores self-governing and ownership rights
to tribes; Federal Housing Authority created; unemployment peaks
1935
National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act passed; Committee of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) created; Second New Deal begins; Works Progress
Administration established; Social Security Act passed
1936
United Auto Workers hold sit-down strikes against General Motors;
Roosevelt reelected president
1937
Farm Security Administration established
1939
John Steinbeck publishes The Grapes of Wrath
1940
Roosevelt elected for a third term; Selective Service Act passed
1941
Executive order outlaws discrimination in defense industries; Lend-Lease
Act passed; Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; United States declares war
on Japan
