U.S. Events of the 1930s: What Didn't Happen? Quiz

Answer: The New York Stock Exchange crashes.

In the Wall Street Crash of 1929, not 1930, more than $30 billion were lost from total value of stocks and shares on the New York Stock Exchange (more than the federal budget tenfold at the time). Thus began the Great Depression.

The term "Hooverville" was first used in 1930 by a Democratic Senator, and it caught on. Between 1929 and 1933, more than 100,000 businesses failed. Consequently, Hoovervilles arose throughout the country -- shantytowns made of cardboard, tin, and other materials for the new homeless families. The largest of these was in New York City's Central Park, but nearly every city in the USA had one. They were named after President Hoover, whose policies had failed to provide an economic safety net for these people or even immediate, temporary relief from hunger, homelessness, disease, and despair.

In December 1930, Secretary of Labor Doak began the Mexican Repatriation. Throughout the entire decade were Mexicans and Mexican-American citizens of the U.S. deported en masse from California to Mexico, without due process. Many were asked to leave "voluntarily" or risk being banned for life. The justification, as it were, was that Hispanic migrant workers were taking away agricultural jobs to which white men were entitled. That many who were deported were children and native-born American citizens was not considered.

The London Naval Treaty's full name was the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament. It regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding. Other signatory states were Italy and France.

Answer: Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto, the ninth planet.

Tombaugh discovered Pluto the previous year, in 1930. America was excited to have a planet discovered by one of her own. Seventy-six years later, however, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet, returning the number of planets in our solar system to eight.

The Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world when it was built, and it held that record until 1972, when the World Trade Center (since destroyed) surpassed it.

As Nevada's silver mines were failing, the state legalized casino gambling as an attempt to lift itself out of the Great Depression. The hope was to capitalize on an expected tourist boom thanks to the start of the construction of the Boulder Dam and a new statute granting "quickie" divorces. (It worked.)

The Feds could not convict gangster Alphonse "Scarface" Capone for murder, fraud, bootlegging, bribery, prostitution, gambling, or racketeering. But they could and did give the crime boss 11 years for federal tax evasion.

Answer: Buenos Aires police thwart an assassination attempt on President-elect Hoover.

Actually, the police in Buenos Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Hoover in 1928. (Hoover was elected in 1928, not 1932!) Hoover had undertaken a goodwill tour of Latin America, and whilst in Argentina, anarchists tried to blow up his railroad car.

Pilot Charles Lindbergh's infant son was kidnapped from his home in Hopewell, NJ, and later found murdered. Lindbergh had paid $50,000 in ransom before his son's body was discovered.

The Bonus Army, as it was called, consisted of World War I veterans who had never been paid a promised bonus. Given that this was the depth of the Great Depression, they needed that money. President Hoover's response was to order the Army to forcibly evict the hungry veterans.

Prices of meat, grain, and dairy products plummeted, ruining many farmers, so the Farmers' Holiday Association declared that farmers would hold back their products until prices went up. Farmers dumped their milk into ditches, and throughout the Midwest farmers picketed and interfered with foreclosures.

Answer: Franklin Roosevelt is elected President.

FDR was *elected* in November 1932, defeating incumbent Herbert Hoover. FDR was *inaugurated* in March 1933 as the 32nd President of the United States, whereupon he proclaimed, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He also began his "fireside chats" on the radio within days of taking office.

When Frances Perkins took office as Secretary of Labor, she became the first woman to sit on the Cabinet. (Luckily, she didn't fall off.)

On December 5, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, thereby repealing the 18th Amendment, which had prohibited the transportation, sale, and possession of alcohol within the USA. South Carolina rejected the amendment.

A Century of Progress International Exposition, the official name of the Chicago World's Fair (1933-1934), had many forward-thinking highlights, such as the prototype of a futuristic home. The German airship Graf Zeppelin circled Lake Michigan. The first Major League All-Star baseball game was played in conjunction with the fair.

Answer: The Post Office issues stamps for George Washington's 200th birthday.

George Washington was born in 1732. So in 1932, not 1934, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a set of 12 stamps to commemorate the birth of the USA's first President under the Constitution.

It was a year for killing gangsters. Not only John Dillinger, but also Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, and Pretty Boy Floyd met their Maker at the hands of law enforcement.

The US Marines began occupying Haiti in 1915 to "protect American and foreign" business interests, in the words of the Navy Secretary, although it was presented to the public as a peacekeeping mission to a country marred by civil unrest. The Great Depression made Haiti's exports less profitable, and NAACP President James Weldon Johnson exposed the harsh truths of the occupation after his visit. As part of Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy", withdrawal of troops began in 1932, and in 1934 the Marines transferred full authority to the constabulary, the Garde d'Haïti.

The Motion Picture Production Code was adopted in 1930, but the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America, popularly called the Hays Office after its founder, did not begin enforcing it in earnest until 1934. The Code prohibited explicit sex, profanity, and graphic violence. It also banned endings in which good fails to triumph over evil or people go unpunished for their bad deeds. Indeed, there are far more stipulations to this code than can be listed here. The Code was superseded in 1968 by the rating system of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Answer: Jesse Owens wins the 100-meter dash at the Olympics in Berlin.

The Summer Olympics in Berlin didn't take place until 1936. Jesse Owens, an African-American, gave Hitler's Aryan superiority a comeuppance by winning four gold medals. The US men's basketball also won its first tournament by defeating Canada.

Nicknamed the "Kingfish", Huey Pierce Long, Jr. was governor of Louisiana (1928-1932) and a Senator (1923-35). Long was famous for his motto "Every Man a King" and for his plan of wealth redistribution using a net asset tax on corporations and individuals. He also opposed the Federal Reserve System. With a national movement behind him, he was planing to run against Roosevelt, but Dr. Carl Weiss, the son-in-law of a judge Long was working to unseat, shot him dead.

In Akron, Ohio, William G. Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith found Alcoholics Anonymous. Its 12-Step Program revolutionized the treatment of alcoholism and was later adapted for the treatment of many other addictions and behavioral problems.

The Social Security Act provided social insurance (a pension) for the aged, as well as benefits for the disabled. It is considered the most important piece of legislation of the New Deal.

Answer: Several counties in California and Oregon attempt to form a new state (and fail).

The attempt to form a new state actually happened, but in 1941, not 1936. On November 27, a group of secessionists led by Mayor Gilbert Gable of Port Orford, Oregon declared that several counties in Northern California and Southern Oregon had seceded from their respective states to form the State of Jefferson, the 49th and the smallest at the time. The movement ended abruptly when Gable died on December 2, and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor five days later.

Construction of the Hoover Dam, known initially as the Boulder Dam, was begun in 1931 in the Black Canyon of the Colorado river, along the border of Arizona and Nevada. FDR dedicated the Boulder Dam in 1935, although construction was not finished until a year later, when it began generating power.

FDR won in a landslide over Republican challenger Alf Landon, with 62% of the popular vote, and 538 Electoral votes to 8.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of African-American volunteers, departed from New York City to fight for the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War against the fascist dictator Generalissimo Franco. It is one of the first U.S. military units commanded by a Black officer, Oliver Law.

Answer: FDR signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff and cripples world trade.

FDR never signed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff - his predecessor Herbert Hoover did in 1930. The law hiked tariff rates and reduced American imports and exports by half -- deepening the Great Depression. One of FDR's campaign promises in 1932 was to lower tariffs to stimulate world trade.

"Oh, the humanity!" cried radio announcer Herbert Morrison when he saw the throngs of people fleeing in terror as the great zeppelin, the Hindenburg, caught fire and crashed whilst mooring in Lakehurst, NJ. What was supposed to be a puff piece turned into one of the most famous radio broadcasts of the century, as it covered a disaster in which many burned to death, jumped to their deaths, or died of smoke inhalation or falling debris.

Planning to fly around the world, Amelia Earhart with navigator Fred Noonan took off from Miami on June 1 aboard a Lockheed Electra 10Ea built to Earhart's specifications. They landed at Lae, New Guinea, about 22,000 miles (35,000km) away. On July 2, they departed from Lae for Howland Island, but despite radioing that they had arrived, they were nowhere to be seen. The search for Earhart and Noonan began about an hour after her last radio transmission, but neither the aircraft nor the bodies were ever found.

The Ohio River flooded in late January and early February, devastating cities from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois. The waters reached 80 feet in Cincinnati. About 70% of Louisville, KY was underwater. FDR sent thousands of WPA workers to flooded cities for rescue and cleanup -- not to mention food, temporary housing, and millions of dollars in aid. The Army Corps of Engineers began a massive three-year project to build scores of storage reservoirs to mitigate flooding in the future.

Answer: The Statue of Liberty is severely damaged by an explosion.

The Statue of Liberty was never bombed, heaven forbid!

Actor-writer-director Orson Welles broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel that was a little too realistic. He interspersed simulated news bulletins with musical programming. It was just an episode of "Mercury Theater", but many listeners thought that Martians had really invaded, and a panic ensued.

The Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect, which created a national minimum wage of 25 cents per hour, established a 44-hour workweek, mandated time-and-a-half pay for overtime, and forbade most employment for minors. This is considered the second-most important piece of legislation of the New Deal, after the Social Security Act of 1935.

Adolf Hitler and many other Germans believed that the Treaty of Versailles, signed at the end of the Great War, had wrongfully given Germany's Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia. In 1938, FDR wrote Hitler and asked him to use diplomacy rather than force to regain the natural and industrial resources of the Sudetenland. Roosevelt also made it clear that the USA would not intervene should Germany invade Czechoslovakia.

Answer: The President desegregates the Army.

The Army remained segregated throughout FDR's administration. His successor, Harry Truman, would desegregate the Army almost a decade later, in 1948.

In 1938 Germany seized the Sudetenland, and in March 1939 it invaded what was left of Bohemia and Moravia, thus dismembering Czechoslovakia. Then, in September 1939 it invaded Poland, thus beginning World War II. The USA remained neutral until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941.

The St. Louis sought refuge for her Jewish passengers, but they were turned away from every port in the Americas, including the USA. The ship had to return to Europe: Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium accepted the 900 or so refugees. Of course, with the German invasion of the last three countries in 1940, most of the refugees again came under German control and about 250 died in concentration camps.

Both 'The Wizard of Oz' starring Judy Garland and 'Gone with the Wind' starring Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable premiered in 1939 and became part of the canon of classic American movies.