Years of Crisis

British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940, famous for his policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany, particularly his signing of the Munich Agreement in a failed effort to secure "peace for our time" before ultimately leading Britain into World War II

Extremely rapid and accelerating rate of inflation that quickly erodes the real value of a local currency, causing prices for all goods and services to increase uncontrollably, often leading to the abandonment of the currency

Autobiographical and political manifesto written by Adolf Hitler, which lays out his core anti-Semitic, racist, and ultranationalistic ideology, including the necessity of Lebensraum (living space) for the German "Aryan" race, and became the foundational text of the Nazi Party

Annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938, a long-desired goal of Adolf Hitler to unite all German-speaking peoples into a Greater German Reich, in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles

Surprise non-aggression treaty signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in August 1939 that publicly pledged neutrality but secretly agreed to divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, allowing Germany to invade Poland and thus triggering World War II

Transformative series of programs and reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States from 1933 to 1938, aimed at providing Relief for the unemployed and poor, Recovery of the economy, and Reform of the financial system to lift the country out of the Great Depression and fundamentally expand the role of the federal government in American life

The longest-reigning Japanese monarch (1926–1989) who presided over Japan's extreme militaristic expansion and involvement in World War II, famously making the unprecedented radio broadcast to announce the nation's surrender, after which his role was redefined from a divine ruler to a constitutional "symbol of the state"

Devastating, nationwide, state-sponsored pogrom on November 9–10, 1938, in which Nazi paramilitary groups and civilians violently attacked Jewish persons, looted and destroyed thousands of Jewish-owned businesses and homes, burned hundreds of synagogues, and arrested 30,000 Jewish men, marking a crucial and terrifying escalation of the persecution that led to the Holocaust

German word for "leader" or "guide," most strongly and infamously associated as the official title and cult-of-personality designation assumed by Adolf Hitler in 1934 to denote his absolute authority as the dictatorial head of Nazi Germany

Pablo Picasso's monumental 1937 oil painting that uses Cubist abstraction and a stark monochrome palette to express the brutal anguish and universal suffering caused by the indiscriminate aerial bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Spanish Civil War, becoming the 20th century's most powerful and iconic anti-war statement

Only U.S. President elected to four terms, leading the nation through the Great Depression with his transformative New Deal programs and then guiding the country to victory as Commander-in-Chief during most of World War II, fundamentally reshaping the role of the federal government in American life

Far-right, totalitarian ideology of the German Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler that combined extreme ultranationalism and anti-democratic rule with a virulent, pseudo-scientific racism and antisemitism that promoted the concept of a superior "Aryan" master race, sought territorial expansion for Lebensraum, and directly led to World War II and the Holocaust

Diplomatic meeting between the leaders of Nazi Germany (Hitler), Great Britain (Chamberlain), France (Daladier), and Italy (Mussolini) that resulted in the infamous Munich Agreement, which formalized the policy of appeasement by forcing Czechoslovakia to cede the predominantly German-speaking Sudetenland region to Germany in a misguided and ultimately failed attempt to prevent a European war

Austrian-born leader of the Nazi Party and the totalitarian dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, whose extreme racist and expansionist policies—particularly his ideology of Lebensraum and fervent antisemitism—directly led to the initiation of World War II in Europe and the systematic genocide of approximately six million Jews known as the Holocaust

Founder of Fascism and the totalitarian dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1943, whose ultranationalist and militaristic rule, initiated by the March on Rome in 1922, served as a model for Adolf Hitler and led Italy into a disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II

Foreign policy doctrine that advocates for a nation to limit its involvement in international affairs and conflicts, focusing primarily on its own domestic issues and maintaining a neutral stance on foreign disputes, most famously adopted by the United States between the two World Wars

Rignificant, widespread, and sustained decline in general economic activity, typically defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth in a country's gross domestic product (GDP), characterized by simultaneous drops in real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales

Bundle of wooden rods tightly bound together around an axe head with the blade projecting, historically an ancient Roman symbol of a magistrate's power and authority to enforce law and punishment, which was later adopted as a key emblem by Benito Mussolini's Fascist movement in Italy, giving the political ideology its name

Fragile, semi-presidential democracy that governed Germany from 1918 to 1933, born out of the defeat of World War I and characterized by political turmoil (coups, assassinations, and coalition instability), economic crises (hyperinflation followed by the Great Depression), and a brief, vibrant cultural flourishing, before ultimately collapsing with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor

Most severe and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world, starting with the stock market crash of October 1929 and persisting through much of the 1930s, characterized by catastrophic levels of unemployment, widespread bank failures, drastic declines in output and prices, and profound social and political upheaval across many nations

General of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Prime Minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944 who led the country's military campaigns during much of World War II, including the decision to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was later convicted and executed for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East

Radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, centralized control of private enterprise, and a strong emphasis on ultranationalism, militarism, and the belief that the state—led by a single, all-powerful leader (like Mussolini's Italy or Franco's Spain)—is the highest form of organization

Sudden, steep, and catastrophic drop in stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange that marked the public beginning of the Great Depression and instantly wiped out billions of dollars in wealth, confidence, and investment, causing widespread panic and bank runs

Diplomatic policy of making concessions to an aggressive power—primarily Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler—in the hope of avoiding war, most famously associated with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's acceptance of the German annexation of the Sudetenland at the Munich Conference in 1938

Systematic, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of six million Jews across German-occupied Europe by the Nazi German regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945, carried out with the intention of achieving the "Final Solution" through mass shootings, starvation, and gassing in specially built extermination camps

Fundamental, aggressive, and highly destructive tenet of Adolf Hitler's Nazi ideology that asserted the German "master race" required vast amounts of land in Eastern Europe (primarily Poland and the Soviet Union) to settle, farm, and expand the Reich, necessitating the forcible displacement and extermination of the Slavic and Jewish populations already living there

Highly influential British economist whose revolutionary theory, Keynesian economics, fundamentally shifted modern macroeconomics by advocating that during periods of recession and depression, governments should intervene through expansionary fiscal and monetary policies (such as increased public spending and lower interest rates) to stimulate aggregate demand, reduce unemployment, and stabilize the economy

Roughly two decades between the end of World War I (November 11, 1918) and the start of World War II (September 1, 1939), characterized by global economic turmoil (especially the Great Depression), the rise of aggressive, totalitarian ideologies like Fascism and Nazism, a failed international attempt at collective security through the League of Nations, and the ultimate policy of appeasement toward dictators that failed to prevent the second global conflict

Brutal conflict between the democratically elected, left-leaning Republican government and a nationalist, right-wing military coup led by General Francisco Franco, which, with crucial military aid from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, ended in a Nationalist victory and the establishment of Franco's nearly four-decade-long dictatorship

Spanish military general and leader of the Nationalist forces who, with crucial support from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, overthrew the democratically elected Second Spanish Republic in the bloody Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and subsequently ruled Spain as an authoritarian dictator (El Caudillo) until his death in 1975

Military alliance that initiated and fought against the Allies in World War II, primarily composed of the three major nations—Nazi Germany (led by Adolf Hitler), Fascist Italy (led by Benito Mussolini), and Imperial Japan (under Emperor Hirohito and its military leaders)—all of whom were united by a shared ideology of ultranationalism, militarism, and aggressive expansionism to conquer territory and establish global dominance

Horrific six-week period beginning in December 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when the Imperial Japanese Army brutally slaughtered an estimated 200,000 to over 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers and perpetrated tens of thousands of rapes, widespread looting, and arson in the former Chinese capital city

Official designation for the totalitarian Nazi German state under the absolute dictatorship of Adolf Hitler from January 1933 to May 1945, which was based on the racist ideology of Nazism, violently suppressed all opposition, aggressively pursued territorial expansion for Lebensraum, and systematically executed the Holocaust

Parliamentary system cabinet where multiple political parties cooperate, reducing the dominance of any single party, typically formed when no single party wins an absolute majority in a general election, or during a national crisis to present a unified front