The Great Depression in the United States

The Great Depression started in the United States because the United States economy held up the rest of the world's economy. The United States went through a patch of overproduction, meaning too many goods were created for the amount of goods people were buying. This caused the goods prices to drop, leaving farmers with less money than they really needed from the goods. The prices on the New York Stock Exchange were exceptionally high and investors acquired their stock through unsafe methods.

This led to a stock market crash and the beginning of The Great Depression. The United States stopped investing in foreign countries, leading them to fall into the depression.

Woodrow Wilson's plans for the League of Nations included peace and establishing treaties. He wanted peace among the countries involved in the League of Nations, although not part of it himself. A factor that supported his desire for peace, treaties, was the other goal for him. Without being allies with his fellow countries, he could never be at peace with them.

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Italy joined the Allies and were promised Austro-Hungarian territories by France and Britain. When the war ended Italy did not receive the territory promised. This caused Italian nationalists to be completely outraged. When Benito Mussolini saw the upset Italian people, he swooped in and promised that he would end corruption, replace turmoil, and revive Roman greatness. These things sounded amazing to the disappointed Italians, so they joined the fascist political party.

The fascist party believed in extreme nationalism, meaning they believed in doing anything for their country.

Today's definition of facism implies an authoritarian government, but in the 1920s and 1930s facism did not imply this directly. The fascists believed that the state was more important than the individuals within the state. The Soviet Union was not affected by The Great Depression as other countries were. Stalin's push for industrialization involved the government taking control of all economic activity. He wanted to achieve high production goals in heavy industry and transportation. His plans did not go as according to plan, and he did not improve the production as he once thought he would. Stalin's policies did not work because he needed an insane amount of death to reach his goals and the standard of living was extremely low.

During The Great Depression, many unemployed people turned to the Nazi party for safety. This caused Hitler to surge in support. Many people feared the rising communist power, so they turned to support Hitler. Hitler quickly became dictator of Germany. As soon as he had complete control he destroyed the communist party and suspended civil rights, creating a totalitarian state. Hitler created the Third Reich to dominate all of Europe for a thousand years. The Gestapo were feared by citizens, leading them away from any idea of rebellion, allowing Hitler to continue as dictator. Anti-semitism and the Nuremberg Laws allowed Hitler the power to completely control whole groups of people in Germany.

The indoctrination of youth in Germany allowed Hitler to brainwash the next generation of citizens into giving into him without opposition, which gave him more lasting, complete power. Britain and France were the two main rulers of colonies in Africa. They exploited mineral products found within Africa. The farmers of Africa were forced to work for the Europeans and lost their ability to be self sufficient. Many Africans put up fights for their colonial rulers. These did not go as planned and the rights and opportunities the Africans wanted were not achieved. The mandate system under the Treaty of Versailles put the territories owned by the Ottoman Empire into the different European nations. France and Britain were in charge of settling disputes between the people of the Ottoman nations. Their ruling was not nearly as effective as it could have been, increasing tensions between Jewish and Arab settlers in the territories.