| A | B |
|---|
| World War I's impact on the U.S. economy | The U.S. went from being a debtor nation to the world's greatest creditor nation |
| World War I | Created an environment that made World War II almost inevitable- a vindictive Treaty of Versailles, a battered Britain and France, and an isolationist U.S. |
| The realization after World War I nations must disarm to prevent conflicts like World War I | The Washington Naval Conference set tonnage ratios (5:5:3) for the battleships for the major powers |
| The U.S retreated into isolationism after World War I | The U.S. was not a member of the League of Nations and did little to stop the growing aggression of the totalitarian states in the 1930s |
| Idealism of the 1920s that future wars could be avoided | The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) and signatories renouncing offensive war as an instrument of national policy |
| The high reparations payments imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles | Germany's economy spiraled downward in the 1920s and hyperinflation spiraled out of control |
| The fear Germany would be unable to pay its reparations to Britain and France | The U.S. implemented the Dawes Plan to reduce and reschedule reparations and make loans to Germany |
| Republican view on tariffs | The Republican administrations of the 1920s (Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover) raised tariffs, including the sky-high Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930) |
| The Hawley-Smoot's sky-high tariffs passed in 1930 | Contracted international trade as other nations retaliated with their own high tariffs |
| Japan's invasion of Manchuria | The Hoover Administration invoked the Stimson Doctrine that the U.S. would not recognize any territorial gains made by force |
| Japanese aggression against China in 1937 | Prompted FDR to make his “Quarantine the Aggressors” Speech proposing strong action against aggressors |
| The people being appalled by the carnage of World War I | Creation of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and popularity of anti-war literature such as All Quiet on the western Front |
| The belief the U.S. became involved in World War I because of banks' loans and the arms manufacturers | The popularity of the "merchants of death" theory put forth by the Nye Committee in 1934 |
| The need to have better relations with Latin America, especially the growing threat of fascism | The Good Neighbor Policy which renounced the right of the U.S. to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin America |
| Japan's limited area and resources on its home islands, and growing militarism | Japanese aggression to conquer the Pacific and Manchuria |
| The harsh provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's horrible economy in the 1920s, and a promise of a return to greatness | The rise in popularity of the Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party |
| Japan, Germany, and Italy's fascist beliefs and fears of the growing communist threat | Creation of the Anti-Cominterm Pact |
| The desire to gain lebensraum and to rid the area of untermenchen | Nazi expansion in Eastern Europe and the Final Solution |
| Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and the Nye Committee's findings | The Neutrality Act of 1935 which prohibited the sale of arms to belligerent nations |
| The Spanish Civil War between the Fascists and Loyalists | The Fascists led by Francisco Franco win with the help of Italy and Germany- in many ways a dress rehearsal for World War II |
| Concerns the U.S. would be dragged into war like during World War I when ships carrying Americans were sunk | The Neutrality Accts of 1936 and 1937 prohibited from sailing on ships of warring nations |
| The U.S. Neutrality Acts of the 1930s | Inadvertently aided Fascist dictators in carrying out their aggressions in Ethiopia, Spain, and China |
| Hitler's conquest of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia | The Munich Conference where Britain and France appeased Germany and Hitler made promises of new more territorial gains |
| The Munich Conference | Only delayed World war II because Hitler realized Britain and France had no backbone to stop him |
| Germany's desire to attack Poland but fear the Soviets would become involved | The Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the USSR |
| Nazi Germany invades Poland on September 1, 1939 | World War II begins in Europe |
| Operation Barbarossa | The surprise attack fails to knock out the USSR and Nazi Germany finds itself bogged down in a two-front war of attrition |
| Germany's blitzkrieg tactics | Germany quickly overwhelms and controls Europe and France is defeated in six weeks |
| Britain's narrow escape at Dunkirk | Britain, unlike France, is able to continue the fight against Nazi Germany |
| Germany's quick victory over France | The U.S. realizes the severity of the threat that Nazi Germany poses and the Burke-Wadsworth peacetime draft is passed |
| Britain being the lone holdout against Nazi Germany but is reeling under U-boat attacks, bombings, and the threat of invasion | The U.S. provides assistance to Britain in the form of bases-for-destroyers deal and Lend-Lease |
| German U-boat attacks on Allied shipping | The U.S. Navy convoys ships as far as Iceland |
| The Lend-Lease Act (1941) | Provided much needed aid to Britain, the U.S. economy was reinvigorated as it became the "arsenal of democracy" but was controversial among isolationists |
| Americans who wanted no assistance to Britain whatsoever | Formation of the American First Committee and a "Fortress America" concept |
| Peacetime draft and Lend-Lease | The economy was reinvigorated and the U.S. was partially prepared for war in December 1941 |
| Few philosophical differences, especially on foreign policy, between Wendell Willkie and FDR in the Election of 1940 | Willkie could only run on FDR breaking the two-term tradition |
| The U.S. embargo on oil and other supplies to Japan | Forced Japan to either accept U.S. demands regarding China or go to war |
| Japan's invasion of China, the Panay Incident, and the U.S oil embargo on Japan | Increasing tensions between the U.S. and Japan that make war inevitable |
| Japan's desire to knock out the U.S. Navy to they can expand unmolested in the Pacific | Surprise attack on Pearl Harbor |
| Attack on Pearl Harbor and the fact U.S. carriers were not present and oil reserves were not destroyed | Worst case scenario for Japan as the U.S. Pacific Fleet was not permanently crippled and the American public was now 100% behind the war effort |
