chapter 33 Flashcards
The London Conference
Aim = to organize a coordinated international attack on the global depression by stabilizing currencies & exchange rates
The Good Neighbor Policy
FDR announced he would renounce armed intervention (the Roosevelt Corollary) in Latin America
The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
This allowed the president to lower tariff rates by as much as 50% (provided that the trade partner was willing to do the same). U.S. foreign trade increased as the traditional high protective tariff policy was reversed
Stalin/Hitler/Mussolini
Totalitarian regimes emerged in Europe: Stalin (U.S.S.R.), Mussolini (Italy), Hitler (Germany)
Nye Committee & Neutrality Acts (1935-37)
The Nye Committee found that munitions makers had made money from the Great War
The Neutrality Acts (1935-37) stated that when the president proclaimed the existence of a foreign war, no American could legally sail on a belligerent shup, sell or transport munitions, or make loans to a belligerent
The Spanish Civil War
Spanish rebels led by fascist Gen. Franco rose against the Loyalist republican govt. Congress applied an arms embargo to both sides
The Quarantine Speech
FDR’s “Quarantine Speech” (Fall 1937) called for endeavors to quarantine aggressive nations (e.g. embargoes)
The Panay Incident
Japanese planes bombed & sank an American gunboat in Chinese waters
Munich Conference
Hitler was allowed to take Sudetenland b/c the allies believed his promise that this was his last territorial claim
Nonaggression Treaty
Hitler & Stalin signed a nonaggression treaty in Aug. 1939
“Cash-and-Carry”
The updated Neutrality Act of 1939 allowed European democracies to buy American war materials on a “cash-and-carry” basis (The U.S. would thus avoid war loans, debts, and the torpedoing of its vessels)
blitzkrieg
The Germans used their blitzkrieg strategy to take Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium
Maginot Line
Germans went around the Maginot Line and took France in June 1940
Kristallnacht
Mobs ransacked Jewish shops and synagogues, 30,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps, the Nazis blamed Jewish people for the German loss in WWI
Resulted in the deaths of at least 91 Jewish people in Germany
The America First Committee
Argued that America had to concentrate on its own defense (Charles Lindbergh was its prominent spokesperson)
The Destroyer Deal
FDR agreed to transfer 50 old destroyers to the British in exchange for a 99-yr. lease on defensive base sites in Newfoundland & the Caribbean
Lend-Lease
Churchill told FDR in Dec. 1940 that the British could no longer afford to pay for war materials. Lend-lease was clearly an economic declaration of war that abandoned any pretense of neutrality.
FDR’s Four Freedoms
FDR’s State of the Union address outlined his beliefs about democracy.
The Atlantic Charter
Churchill and FDR secretly met off the coast of Newfoundland in Aug. 1941. The Atlantic Charter, a broad statement of U.S-British war aims, was similar to Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Churchill wanted the U.S. to join the war; FDR wanted a promise that the Brits had no secret treaties and an assurance of repayment of Lend-Lease.
Pearl Harbor
(Dec. 7, 1941) The State Dept. had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code and knew they had decided to attack, but they did not know exactly where the attack would take place (b/c the naval code hadn’t been cracked yet). While the Japanese prolonged negotiations with Washington, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor.
