As the USA entered the war in 1917, new branches of government were created to ease the burden on the pre-existing peacetime administrative system. President Woodrow Wilson, although possessing ultimate jurisdiction over all aspects of the war effort, delegated combat decisions to the top ranks of the Army and Navy,... More
The dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886 with its inscription exhorting the world to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” coincided with the first organized attempts to restrict or exclude those “huddled masses” from entering the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was promulgated in... More
The four decades straddling the beginning of the 20th century saw the US population more than double, from 50 million to 106 million, fuelled both by high rates of natural increase and massive immigration. The magnets for these new arrivals were quite focused: the job opportunities in the industrial cities... More
The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 opposed any further European colonization in the western hemisphere, effectively placed Latin America under US guardianship. In this context, the Spanish-American War (1898–1902), which led to Cuba and Puerto Rico being seized from Spain, was cast as supporting liberation from a colonial aggressor. However, until... More
Until the 1890s, the US had little interest in Latin America, but had business interests in Mexican mines and railroads. In the 1890s the US adopted a more outward looking foreign policy and enacted the Monroe doctrine of opposing European colonialism in the region. The US resolved a diplomatic crisis... More
After the initial troop deployment on Guadalcanal on 7 August, Allied naval forces rushed to move supplies ashore for the Marines currently engaging Japanese defenders. Over the next few days three perimeter patrols were set up to protect the north, south and eastern approaches to the area in which the... More
Enrico Fermi first achieved self-sustaining nuclear fission in Chicago in 1942. In 1946, the Atomic Energy Commission was established to oversee research into peaceful applications for the technology. The first experimental breeder reactor went live in Arco, Idaho (1951), with the first commercial plant following at Shippingport, Pennsylvania (1957). The... More
Woodrow Wilson won re-election as US President in 1916 (albeit narrowly) with the slogan ‘He kept us out of the War’. Yet, less than five months later, he passionately advocated the declaration of war on Germany, proclaiming, ‘the world must be made safe for democracy…against selfish and autocratic power’, and... More
After the debacle of the French attempt to build a canal through Panama, informed US opinion tended to favour an alternative route through Nicaragua. However, the irrepressible Teddy Roosevelt favoured Panama, and when he became President in 1901 was ready to steamroller it through. When Colombia (of which Panama was... More
The common factor in US migration patterns in the middle decades of the 20th century was rural depopulation, with over half of the nation’s 3,100 counties registering absolute declines in population. Choice of urban destination was more mixed. The ‘Great Migration’ of African Americans from the southern states resumed in... More
The American post-war planning process turned out a number of differing proposals for the division and management of Germany. Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed splitting Germany and Austria into six separate states and two small international zones, but believed that Germany should experience some form of punishment, whilst the Secretary of... More
By the turn of the 20th century, the American railroad network was largely controlled by a handful of tycoons. High monopolistic rail freight rates had been successfully challenged in the east by the Grange farmers’ movement, but the issue succeeded in capturing presidential attention in 1901, with a battle for... More