Crises Around the World Group members: Elan Reyes Johan Sierra

A Time of Hope The European powers entered the 1920s thinking that they had fought to make the world safe for democracy. Concerned about the threat of communism, many European countries improved their treatment of workers. Europe and the United States underwent a major economic recovery between 1924 – New entertainment technologies such as radio and movies became thriving new industries.

Worldwide Economic Depression By the late 1920s, the economies of the United States and Europe slowed down. The wages of working people had not risen as fast as profits. Production expanded faster tan people´s ability to buy goods, so sales began to drop. Europe had a very heavy debt with the united states. On october 24, 1929, the American stock market crashed. Within three years, the average value of fifty major industrial stocks had collapsed from 252 to 61. Between 1929 and 1932, world economic output dropped by 38 percent, and international trade fell by two thirds.

Responses to the Great Depression During the great depression, people demanded solutions. In the United States, France, and Britain, governments were able to make reforms within democratic systems of government. In Italy and Germany, the Great Depression resulted in facism. Frankin Roosevelt, became president of the United States in 1933, he provided a program of social reform and economic recovery. Italians were on the winning side of World War I, but the war left Italy with a poor economy and widespread unemployment. In the 1921 elections, the socialists and communists won a large majority in the parliament In Germany, Adolf Hitler emerged from World War I as an honored soldier and nationalist.

Japan:Growing Power in the Far East Since the late 1800s Japan had been building up its military, schools, agriculture, and industry to enable the country to challenge the major Western powers. Japan´s goals led it to invade the northern Chinese province of Manchuria in In 1937 the japanese invaded the main part of China. U.S and Japanese relations grew worse and son Japan joined Nazi Germany and facist Italy in a military Alliance.