chapter 33 // BOLDED

Question 1

London Economic Conference (1933)

Answer 1

A sixty-six-nation economic conference organized to stabilize international currency rates. Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to revoke American participation contributed to a deepening world economic crisis.

Question 2

Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (1934)

Answer 2

This act reversed traditional high-protective-tariff policies by allowing the president to negotiate lower tariffs with trade partners, without Senate approval. Its chief architect was Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who believed that tariff barriers choked off foreign trade

Question 3

Rome-Berlin Axis (1936)

Answer 3

Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, and Fascist Italy, led by Benito Mussolini, allied themselves together under this nefarious treaty. The pact was signed after both countries had intervened on behalf of the fascist leader Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Question 4

Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Answer 4

Idealistic American volunteers who served in the Spanish Civil War, defending Spanish republican forces from the fascist General Francisco Franco’s nationalist coup. Some three thousand Americans served alongside volunteers from other countries.

Question 5

Johnson Debt Default Act (1934)

Answer 5

Steeped in ugly memories of World War I, this spiteful act prevented debt-ridden nations from borrowing further from the United States.

Question 6

Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

Answer 6

Short-sighted acts passed to prevent American participation in a European war. Among other restrictions, they prevented Americans from selling munitions to foreign belligerents.

Question 7

Quarantine Speech (1937)

Answer 7

An important speech delivered by Franklin Roosevelt in which he called for “positive endeavors” to “quarantine” land-hungry dictators, presumably through economic embargoes. The speech flew in the face of isolationist politicians.

Question 8

Hitler-Stalin pact (1939)

Answer 8

Treaty signed on August 23, 1939, in which Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other. The fateful agreement paved the way for German aggression against Poland and the Western democracies.

Question 9

Neutrality Act of 1939

Answer 9

This act stipulated that European democracies might buy American munitions, but only if they could pay in cash and transport them in their own ships, a policy known as “cash-and-carry.” It represented an effort to avoid war debts and protect American arms-carriers from torpedo attacks.

Question 10

Kristallnacht

Answer 10

German for “night of broken glass,” it refers to the murderous pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent thousands to concentration camps on the night of November 9, 1938. Thousands more attempted to find refuge in the United States but were ultimately turned away due to restrictive immigration laws.

Question 11

War Refugee Board (1944-1945)

Answer 11

A U.S. agency formed to help rescue Jews from German-occupied territories and to provide relief to inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The agency performed noble work, but it did not begin operations until very late in the war, after millions had already been murdered.

Question 12

Lend-Lease Bill (1941)

Answer 12

Based on the motto “Send guns, not sons,” this law abandoned former pretenses of neutrality by allowing Americans to sell unlimited supplies of arms to any nation defending itself against the Axis powers. Patriotically numbered 1776, the bill was praised as a device for keeping the nation out of World War II.

Question 13

Pearl Harbor (1941)

Answer 13

An American naval base in Hawaii where Japanese warplanes destroyed numerous ships and caused three thousand casualties on December 7, 1941 - a day that, in President Roosevelt’s words, was to “live in infamy.” The attack brought the United States into World War II.