March 20, 1933 - Roosevelt signed the Economy Act into law - slashed the salaries of federal employees in the name of preserving the nation's fiscal resources, forced veterans to forgo part of their war benefits in the name of the economy, forced the federal government to shuffle various agencies in hopes of maximizing their cost efficiency.

April 10, 1933 - FDR created Civilian Conservation Corps, a federally funded organization that put thousands of Americans to work on projects with environmental benefits; under the direction of his Secretary of Interior, Harold Ickes; known as "Roosevelt’s Tree Army," was open to unemployed, unmarried U.S. male citizens between the ages of 18 and 26; 1933 to 1942 -  employed over 3 million men; 1942 - Congress abolished the agency.

May 3, 1933 - Nellie Taylor Ross took control of the United States Mint (first woman ever); unveiled the dime and production of the steel penny (designed to aid the nation's finances during World War II).

May 12, 1933 - President Franklin Roosevelt signed Agricultural Adjustment Act into law - first major price support and acreage reduction program (voluntary agreements with producers); set parity as goal for farm prices; markets regulated through voluntary agreements with producers; processing taxes used to offset cost of program. Program authorized production adjustment programs that were a direct outgrowth of the experience of the Federal Farm Board; authorized use of marketing agreements and licenses, which had been used already by producers to promote orderly marketing of perishable fruits and vegetables; large quantities of surplus food were distributed to needy households and to school lunch programs. 1936 - the Supreme Court deemed the legislation that had fostered the AAA unconstitutional and forced Congress to draft new plans for rescuing farmers.

May 18, 1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.

May 27, 1933 - Federal Securities Act signed.

June 2, 1933 - Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizes first swimming pool built inside the White House.

June 13, 1933 - Congress passed Home Owners Refinancing Act to help Depression-stricken citizens refinance their homes. Act established the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), a typical Roosevelt-era administration which wielded federal funds in the fight against the Depression. Chaired by Jesse Holman Jones, helped finance mortgages, helped pay for repairs on some people's homes. HOLC lasted three years, doled out loans for roughly one million mortgages.

June 16, 1933 - U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, created.

July 8, 1933 - Public Works Administration became effective.

July 27, 1933 - World Economic Conference held in London ran from June 12 to July 27, yielded few tangible results. In the main, the Conference stalled on differing opinions on how to revive international trade. European leaders pushed for the stabilization of exchange rates as a measured first step that would initially boost international prices and eventually goose global trade. But, with an eye clearly cast on national interests, recently elected American President Franklin Roosevelt balked at this "internationalist" solution. Much to the chagrin of "American internationalists," including Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Roosevelt maintained his refusal to liberalize trade by reigning in the dollar throughout the rest of 1933.

August 28, 1933 - An Executive order prohibited "hoarding" gold and placed limits on exports of precious metal.

October 14, 1933 - Nazi Germany announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations.

November 8, 1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration; designed to secure temporary work for more than 4 million unemployed people who would otherwise have to endure a winter of unemployment; provided a mix of white and blue-collar jobs that promised to pay normal wages for a limited schedule of work; program succeeded in helping workers through the winter, in giving the country a badly needed infusion of cash - pumped $1 billion into the economy by May 1934 when program was retired.

November 11, 1933 - Massive dust storm sweeps South Dakota; drought-ridden land of the Southern Plains became known as the Dust Bowl; 1938 - worst year of the dust storms,  estimated that 850 million tons of topsoil disappeared with the winds (called the worst environmental disaster in American history by some historians); Roosevelt administration responded to the Dust Bowl with a billion- dollar program to aid and educate farmers in soil conservation techniques that have become standard practice.

November 16, 1933 - The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations (after sixteen years and nine days of the Soviet Government's existence). President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Soviet leader Maxim Litvinov, expressed hope that United States-Soviet relations would ``forever remain normal and friendly''; subject to the approval of the Soviet Government, William C. Bullitt of Philadelphia, special assistant to the Secretary of State, was designated to be the first American Ambassador to the U. S. S. R.; November 21, 1933 - Ambassador Bullitt, begins service.

December 5, 1933 - National Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealed the 18th Amendment; October 28, 1919 - Volstead Act passed over President Woodrow Wilson's veto (provided for the enforcement of Prohibition, included creation of a special Prohibition unit of the Treasury Department); 1966 - Mississippi, the last dry state in the Union, ended Prohibition.

December 31, 1933 - Treasury Secretary (51st) William Woodin suffered a breakdown, stepped down after less than a year on the job - 1) just four days into the secretary's term, Roosevelt closed the nation's banks to mete out a new series of fiscal regulations; 2) ten days later, the president lifted the so-called "banking holiday" and handed Woodin the responsibility of steering banks along a strict and sound financial course; 3)  secretary charged with infusing the economy with a hefty batch of Federal Reserve notes; 4) charged with helping Roosevelt  kick start the New Deal program of economic initiatives.

1934 - National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) created; 1949 - part of the General Services Administration  (GSA); April 1, 1985 - National Archives and Records Act of 1984 became effective; NARA became separate, independent, agency.

January 30, 1934 - House passed the Gold Reserve Act to put a halt to the volatility of gold prices; nationalized gold; gave President Franklin Roosevelt license to peg the value of the dollar within a range of 50 to 60 cents in terms of gold; January 31, 1934 - Roosevelt announced that the dollar would be worth 59.06 cents, gold would be valued at $35 per ounce; paved the way for the "nationalization" of gold as various Federal Reserve banks handed control of their gold supplies, including all coins, bullion and gold certificates, to the U.S. Treasury (shuttled a good chunk of the gold to a well-protected spot in Fort Knox, Kentucky).

February 8, 1934 - Federal government authorizes the Export-Import Bank to prop up the nation's sagging export business; equipped with various lending powers, license to issue insurance and guarantees; bank's ability to offer a raft of credits, including loans to cash-strapped countries who conduct trade with the U.S. partners, transformed it into a key instrument of the American government's international development efforts.

February 15, 1934 - Legislators passed the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, which provided an infusion of funds, especially for the administration's support of Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which funneled money to states and oversaw the subsequent distribution and relief efforts.

April 7, 1934 - Congress passed the Jones-Connally Farm-Relief Act. The bill effectively placed an expanded roster of farm products under the control of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) which was established to help farmers by slashing production and increasing prices.

April 13, 1934 - U.S. Congress passes Johnson Debt Default Act in response to Allied governments which defaulted on World War I loans; prohibited financial transactions with foreign governments which were in default in debt payment obligations to the United States; further reduced liquidity available in international financial markets and contributed to the global depression.

April 28, 1934 - Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Home Owners Loan Act.

May 18, 1934 - Congress approves "Lindbergh Act," makes kidnapping a capital offense.

June 4, 1934 - President Franklin Roosevelt asks Congress to appropriate $52.5 million to battle economic and social disaster in the American Midwest caused in part by a series of droughts in the Great Plains region. By 1938, when the drought had abated and normal rainfall levels returned, over $1 billion in federal aid had been appropriated for the Great Plans region. Out of Roosevelt’s drought-relief program grew soil conservation districts that remain in place today and have helped to prevent the emergence of drought conditions as devastating as the ones of the 1930s.

June 15, 1934 - Great Smokey Mountains National Park dedicated.

June 18, 1934 - Wheeler-Howard Act (Indian Reorganization Act) repudiated the policy set by Dawes Severalty Act of 1887,  attempted to revive the centrality of Native American tribal control and cultural autonomy on the reservations, ended further transfer of Indian lands to Anglos and provided for a return to voluntary communal Indian ownership, but considerable damage had already been done.

June 19, 1934 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Communications Act: of 1934 into law; abolished Federal Radio Commission, transferred jurisdiction over radio licensing to new Federal Communications Commission; new FCC largely took over operations and precedents of FRC.

June 19, 1934 - Congress passed Silver Purchase Act; nationalized silver stocks, charged the President with increasing the Treasury's silver supply. Though silver was hardly about to supplant the gold standard, the legislation called for silver to equal one-third of the Treasury's gold holdings. Passage of the bill marked a rare victory for the long-suffering silver movement, which had pushed for the adoption of metal since the late nineteenth century.

June 26, 1934 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed The Federal Credit Union Act; established Credit Unions.

July 1, 1934 - The Federal Communications Commission, as mandated in the "Communications Act of 1934," replaced the Federal Radio Commission as the regulator of broadcasting in the United States.

July 10, 1934 - First sitting U.S. president to visit South America, Franklin D. Roosevelt in Colombia; July 11, 1934 - first President to travel through Panama Canal.

August 2, 1934 - Paul von Hindenburg, president of the Weimar Republic of Germany, died; Chancellor Adolf Hitler became absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Führer, or "Leader." After a succession of chancellors proved ineffectual in reversing Germany's economic slide, and gaining the Nazi support necessary to keep a coalition together, Hindenburg reluctantly named Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hindenburg was never an ardent Hitler supporter, but he did little to impede him as Hitler began employing terror tactics in his drive to consolidate power for the Nazis.

August 7, 1934 - The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the government's attempt to ban the James Joyce novel ''Ulysses.''

October 16, 1934 - The embattled Chinese Communists break through Nationalist enemy lines and begin an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China. Known as Ch'ang Cheng--the "Long March"--the retreat lasted 368 days and covered 6,000 miles, nearly twice the distance from New York to San Francisco; 1927 - Civil war in China between the Nationalists and the Communists broke out; 1931 - Communist leader Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the newly established Soviet Republic of China, based in Kiangsi province in the southwest; 1930-1934 - Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek launched a series of five encirclement campaigns against the Soviet Republic. Under the leadership of Mao, the Communists employed guerrilla tactics to resist successfully the first four campaigns, but in the fifth, Chiang raised 700,000 troops and built fortifications around the Communist positions. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were killed or died of starvation in the siege, and Mao was removed as chairman by the Communist Central Committee. The new Communist leadership employed more conventional warfare tactics, and its Red Army was decimated. October 20, 1935 - Mao halted his columns at the foot of the Great Wall of China. Communist marchers crossed 24 rivers and 18 mountain ranges, mostly snow-capped. Only 4,000 troops completed the journey. The majority of those who did not perished. It was the longest continuous march in the history of warfare and marked the emergence of Mao Zedong as the undisputed leader of the Chinese Communists. Learning of the Communists' heroism and determination in the Long March, thousands of young Chinese traveled to Shensi to enlist in Mao's Red Army. After fighting the Japanese for a decade, the Chinese Civil War resumed in 1945. Four years later, the Nationalists were defeated, and Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. He served as chairman until his death in 1976.

December 1, 1934 - Sergei M. Kirov, political rival of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, beginning Stalin's purge in which he eliminated his opponents in the Communist Party, the government, the armed forces, and the intelligentsia.

December 29, 1934 - Japan renounced the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.

March 21, 1935 - Persia officially renamed Iran.

April 8, 1935 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, authorizes almost $5 million to implement work-relief programs. Congress approved The Works Progress Administration (established under the Act) as a means of creating government jobs for some of the nation's many unemployed; authorizes almost $5 million to implement work-relief programs. May 6, 1935 - The Works Progress Administration began operations under the direction of Harry L. Hopkins; employed more than 8.5 million persons on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943; program chose work that would not interfere with private enterprise, especially vast public building projects like the construction of highways, bridges, and dams; never managed to serve more than a quarter of the nation's unemployed. In total, the act allocated approximately $880 million in federal funds and created millions of jobs.

April 14, 1935 - Black Sunday in the Dust Bowl, worst duster of all; "dust bowl" was reportedly coined by a reporter in the mid-1930s, referred to the plains of western Kansas, southeastern Colorado, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico which had been over-plowed by farmers and overgrazed by cattle and sheep, resulting soil erosion, combined with an eight-year drought which began in 1931, created a dire situation for farmers and ranchers; Roosevelt’s administration introduced programs to help alleviate the farming crisis and to provide farmers with a source of income: Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in the Department of Agriculture promoted improved farming and land management techniques and farmers were paid to utilize these safer practices; 1939 - rains arrived and the drought ended.

May 6, 1935 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA) under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act (signed in April). The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA) and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Administration (PWA) and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the United States in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone. In return for monetary aid, WPA workers built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters--such as the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, S.C.--and built the ski lodge at Oregon’s Mt. Hood. The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays, art projects, such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. FDR safeguarded private enterprise from competition with WPA projects by including a provision in the act that placed wage and price controls on federally funded products or services. 1939 - renamed the Works Projects Administration; 1943 - World War II had almost entirely usurped the efforts of America's work force, WPA was permanently closed.

May 27, 1935 - Supreme Court declares FDR's National Recovery Act unconstitutional.

June 28, 1935 - Franklin D. Roosevelt orders a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox Kentucky.

July 5, 1935 - President Franklin Roosevelt signs into law the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act): established National Labor Relations Board, addressed relations between unions and employers in the private sector; authorized labor to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining; permitted formation of the United Automobile Workers. President Roosevelt instead threw his weight behind the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Supreme Court decided to scotch the NIRA; strong congressional support for Wagner's bill, eventually melted Roosevelt's opposition; in the short term, a tremendous boon for America's workers. Along with granting workers the right both to strike and to freely select their own union via voting, the Wagner also clamped down on "unfair labor practices" by management, which encompassed a myriad of methods designed to prevent workers from organizing.

August 14, 1935 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly; 1934 - Government surveys estimated that more than half of the nation's elderly lacked the means to support themselves. Social Security Act was relatively moderate: the bill mandated the now familiar "contributory system" in which workers forked over part of their salaries to a joint pension fund. Shortly after the passage of the bill, the government wheeled into action, creating an elaborate system for collecting, collating and doling out pensions. January 1937 - Social Security program was open for business. Over the years, Americans have put away over $4.5 trillion in the fund, while more than $4.1 trillion worth of benefits have been paid out to the nation's retired citizens.

August 30, 1935 - President Franklin Roosevelt's Revenue Act, aimed to take a cut out of the nation's fattest pocketbooks,  passed into law. Referred to as the Wealth Tax Act, the legislation increased taxes on rich citizens and big business, while lowering taxes for small businesses. Though the taxes were a seeming boon to a nation mired in the Depression, they raised the hackles of business leaders and the wealthy elite. The president, himself a child of affluence, was branded a "traitor to his class," as well as a Communist. The Revenue Act hardly paved the way for a wholesale redistribution of wealth, but it did seek to rectify the imbalances in the American economy. "Our revenue laws have operated to the unfair advantage of the few," FDR reasoned when the act passed. "They have done little to prevent an unjust concentration of wealth and economic power."

August 31, 1935 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, or Senate Joint Resolution No. 173, which he calls an "expression of the desire…to avoid any action which might involve [the U.S.] in war." The signing came at a time when newly installed fascist governments in Europe were beginning to beat the drums of war. Roosevelt said new law would require American vessels to obtain a license to carry arms, would restrict Americans from sailing on ships from hostile nations and would impose an embargo on the sale of arms to "belligerent" nations. Most observers understood "belligerent" to imply Germany under its new leader, Adolf Hitler, and Italy under Benito Mussolini. It also provided the strongest language yet warning other countries that the U.S. would increase its patrol of foreign submarines lurking in American waters. This was seen as a response to Hitler’s March 1935 announcement that Germany would no longer honor the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Germany from rebuilding her military; he had then immediately stepped up the country’s submarine production.

September 8, 1935 - Sen. Huey P. Long, the ''Kingfish'' of Louisiana politics, was shot and mortally wounded outside the main hall of the capitol building in Baton Rouge by Dr. Carl Weiss who apparently acted out of revenge that his father-in-law, who had been a Louisiana judge, lost his job because he was not part of the Long political machine; died two days later; 1928 - youngest governor of Louisiana at age 34; preached the redistribution of wealth, which he believed could be done by heavily taxing the rich. One of his early propositions, which met with much opposition, was an "occupational" tax on oil refineries. Later, Long would develop these theories into the Share Our Wealth society, which promised a $2,500 minimum income per family; abolished the state's poll tax on voting and gained free textbooks for every student. His motto was "Every Man a King." His populism led to an impeachment attempt, but he successfully foiled the charges. In 1930, he won the election for Louisiana senator but declined to serve until his handpicked successor was able to win the governor's seat in 1932.

October 20, 1935 - Mao Zedong arrived in Hanoi in northwest China with 8,000 survivors, and set up Chinese Communist headquarters. His Long March took a little over a year.

November 9, 1935 - United Mine Workers chief John L. Lewis joined forces with a dozen fellow labor leaders to announce the creation of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO); charged with pushing the cause for industrial unionism; carried out successful organizing efforts in the steel, auto, other major mass production industries.

November 9, 1935 - Japan invades Shanghai China.

November 14, 1935 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the Philippine Islands a free commonwealth.

June 30, 1936 - 40 hour work week law approved.

July 18, 1936 - Spanish Civil War began as as a revolt by right-wing Spanish military officers in Spanish Morocco and spread to mainland Spain. From the Canary Islands, General Francisco Franco broadcasts a message calling for all army officers to join the uprising and overthrow Spain's leftist Republican government. Within three days, the rebels captured Morocco, much of northern Spain, and several key cities in the south. Spanish garrisons rose up in revolt all across Spain. Workers and peasants fought the uprising, but in many cities the Republican government denied them weapons, and the Nationalists soon gained control. February 1936 - new elections brought the Popular Front, a leftist coalition, to power, and Franco, a strict monarchist, was sent to an obscure command in the Canary Islands off Africa. Fearing that the liberal government would give way to Marxist revolution, army officers conspired to seize power. After a period of hesitation, Franco agreed to join the military conspiracy. 1937 - Franco unified the Nationalist forces under the command of the Falange, Spain's fascist party, while the Republicans fell under the sway of the communists. Germany and Italy aided Franco with an abundance of planes, tanks, and arms, while the Soviet Union aided the Republican side. March 28, 1939 - Republicans finally surrendered Madrid, bringing the Spanish Civil War to an end. Up to a million lives were lost in the conflict, the most devastating in Spanish history. Franco subsequently served as dictator of Spain until his death in 1975.

September 11, 1936 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.

October 1, 1936 - General Francisco Franco was proclaimed the head of an insurgent Spanish state. It would take more than two years for Franco to defeat the Republicans in the civil war and become ruler of all of Spain. He subsequently served as dictator until his death in 1975. After a period of hesitation, Franco agreed to join the military rebellion, which began in Morocco on July 17, 1936, and spread to the Spanish mainland the next day. With Nationalist army forces from Morocco, Franco rapidly overran much of the Republican-controlled areas in Spain and marched on Madrid. Believing victory was imminent, Franco was made leader of the new Nationalist regime. In fact, the bloody Spanish Civil War stretched on until the end of March 1939. In the conflict, Franco's Nationalists received heavy support from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republicans were aided by the USSR and international volunteers. With the surrender of Madrid on March 28, 1939 -  Franco formally became dictator of all of Spain--El Caudillo, "The Leader" in Spanish. Franco maintained Spanish neutrality during World War II.

November 1936 - Social Security numbers first assigned as means for federal government to track payments to the retirement system; ultimately helped track payrolls, loan payments, financial transactions, income taxes, punlic assistance access, draft registration, professional licenses, marriage licenses, divorce decrees.

November 1, 1936 - In a speech in Milan, Benito Mussolini described the alliance between Italy and Nazi Germany as an ''axis'' running between Rome and Berlin. The Axis became the name for this pact between Germany and Italy. Japan joined them in 1940.

November 3, 1936 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Vice President John N. Garner of Texas) won a landslide election victory over Republican challenger Alfred M. "Alf" Landon (36.5 percent of the popular vote); about 45,000,000 persons voted (nearly eight million more voters than ever before had gone to the polls). Roosevelt, running for his second term, won 27,747,636 votes to 16,679,543 for his Republican rival. Mr. Landon received 8 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 523. The plurality of 11,068,093 in the popular vote stood as a record until 1964.

November 18, 1936 - Germany and Italy recognized the Spanish government of Francisco Franco.

December 11, 1936 - Edward VIII, eldest son of King George V, becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. On the evening of December 11, he gave a radio address in which he explained, "I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love." December 12, 1936 - his younger brother, the duke of York, was proclaimed King George VI.

May 6, 1937 - The hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 of the 97 people on board. The accident happened just as the great German dirigible was about to tie up to its mooring mast four hours after flying over New York City on the last leg of its first transatlantic voyage of the year. Until today the Hindenburg had never lost a passenger throughout the ten round trips it made across the Atlantic with 1,002 passengers in 1936.

May 12, 1937 - George VI and his consort, Lady Elizabeth, are crowned king and queen of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey. December 11, 1936 - King Edward VIII, elder brother of George, abdicated; first English monarch to voluntarily relinquish the English throne, agreed to give up his title in the face of widespread criticism of his desire to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee.

May 28, 1937 - Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain.

July 2, 1937 - Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator. Believed to have alighted on the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Apparently headwinds had exhausted their gasoline within 100 miles of the end of a projected 2,556-mile flight from Lae, New Guinea.

July 22, 1937 - Irish premier Eamon de Valera wins elections.

July 24, 1937 - The state of Alabama dropped charges against five black men accused of raping two white women in the Scottsboro case.

September 28, 1937 - Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Bonneville Dam on Columbia River (Oregon).

January 3, 1938 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an adult victim of polio, founds the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later renamed the March of Dimes Foundation; non-partisan association of health scientists and volunteers that helped fund research for a polio vaccine and assisted victims on the long path through physical rehabilitation; at a fundraiser, celebrity singer Eddie Cantor jokingly urged the public to send dimes to the president, coining the term "March of Dimes"; public took his appeal seriously, flooded the White House with 2,680,000 dimes and thousands of dollars in donations; 1941 - foundation provided funding for the development of an improved iron lung, which helped polio patients to breathe when muscle control of the lungs was lost; 1949 - March of Dimes appointed Dr. Jonas Salk to lead research for a polio vaccine; 1955 - Salk developed and tested the first successful polio vaccine.

February 16, 1938 - President Franklin Roosevelt signed the new version of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA); designed to fulfill Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace's call for an "ever-normal granary" and thus was packed with measures intended to steady agriculture prices, as well as farmers' earnings; meted out limits on planting and crop sales, provided for the stockpiling of agricultural surpluses, established the Federal Crop Insurance Corp., which offered insurance to wheat farmers in case of damage caused by "unavoidable natural causes."

February 16, 1938 - U.S. Federal Crop Insurance program authorized.

March 11, 1938 - Congress passed the Revenue Act; called for a series of corporate tax cuts, proved to be controversial; President Franklin Roosevelt for one was an ardent foe of the Revenue Act of 1938 and refused to lend his signature to the legislation. Undeterred, proponents of the bill and its package of tax breaks succeeded in overriding Roosevelt's veto and pushing the Revenue Act into law books later that spring.

May 17, 1938 - Congress approves Vinson Naval Act, which funds a two-ocean navy.

June 23, 1938 - The Civil Aeronautics Authority was established.

June 25, 1938 - Federal minimum wage law guarantees workers 40 cents per hour.

June 28, 1938 - Queen Victoria ascends to British throne.

August 18, 1938 - Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Thousand Islands Bridge connecting U.S. and Canada.

September 27, 1938 - President Franklin Roosevelt writes to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler regarding the threat of war in Europe. The German chancellor had been threatening to invade the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and, in the letter, his second to Hitler in as many days, Roosevelt reiterated the need to find a peaceful resolution to the issue. The previous day, FDR had written to Hitler with an appeal to negotiate with Czechoslovakia regarding Germany’s desire for the natural and industrial resources of the Sudetenland rather than resort to force. Hitler responded that Germany was entitled to the area because of the "shameful" way in which the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended World War I, had made Germany a "pariah" in the community of nations. The treaty had given the Sudetenland, a territory that was believed by Hitler and many of his supporters to be inherently German, to the state of Czechoslovakia. Therefore, Hitler reasoned, German invasion of the Sudetenland was justified, as annexation by Germany would simply mean returning the area to its cultural and historical roots. Hitler assured Roosevelt that he also desired to avoid another large-scale war in Europe. In the end, Hitler ignored the international community’s pleas for a peaceful solution and invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939.

September 30, 1938 - British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest.

October 30, 1938 - Orson Welles (23) causes a nationwide panic with his broadcast of "War of the Worlds"--a realistic radio dramatization of H.G. Wells' 19th-century science fiction novel about a Martian invasion of Earth. Not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of the havoc it would cause. Sscare began when an announcer broke in to report that "Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory" had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer's field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey. In New Jersey, terrified civilians jammed highways seeking to escape the alien marauders. People begged police for gas masks to save them from the toxic gas and asked electric companies to turn off the power so that the Martians wouldn't see their lights. One woman ran into an Indianapolis church where evening services were being held and yelled, "New York has been destroyed! It's the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!" Federal Communications Commission investigated the program but found no law was broken.

January 26, 1939 - During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona, the Republican capital of Spain, falls to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco; soon after the rest of Catalonia fell. With their cause all but lost, the Republicans attempted to negotiate a peace, but Franco refused. March 28, 1939 - the victorious Nationalists entered Madrid, and the bloody Spanish Civil War came to an end. Up to a million lives were lost in the conflict, the most devastating in Spanish history. June 1938 - Nationalists drove to the Mediterranean Sea and cut the Republicans' territory in two. Later in the year, Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia.

February 27, 1939 - The Supreme Court outlawed sit-down strikes.

March 2, 1939 - The Massachusetts legislature voted to ratify the Bill of Rights, 147 years after the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution had gone into effect.

March 29, 1939 - Victorious Nationalists entered Madrid in triumph, Republican defenders of Madrid raised the white flag over the city, brought to an end the bloody three-year Spanish Civil War; July 1936 - General Francisco Franco led a right-wing army revolt in Morocco, which prompted the division of Spain into two key camps: the Nationalists and the Republicans. Franco's Nationalist forces rapidly overran much of the Republican-controlled areas in central and northern Spain, and Catalonia became a key Republican stronghold; 1938 - Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia; January 1939 - captured its capital, Barcelona; up to a million lives were lost in the conflict, the most devastating in Spanish history.

April 1, 1939 - The United States recognized the Franco government in Spain following the end of the Spanish Civil War.

June 1939 - United States Employment Service first published United States Department of Labor Dictionary of Occupational Titles.

June 7, 1939 - King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, arrived at Niagara Falls, NY, from Canada on the first visit to the United States by a reigning British monarch.

August 2, 1939 - Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

August 2, 1939 - Hatch Act prohibits political activity by federal workers.

September 5, 1939 - Franklin D. Roosevelt declares U.S. neutrality at start of WW II in Europe.

September 21, 1939 - President Roosevelt appears before Congress and asks that the Neutrality Acts, a series of laws passed earlier in the decade, be amended. Roosevelt hoped to lift an embargo against sending military aid to countries in Europe facing the onslaught of Nazi aggression during World War II; 1936 and 1937 - the Neutrality Acts had been expanded to restrict the sale of arms and war materials during a period of isolationist sentiment; November 4, 1939 - Congress agreed to the proposed changes; 1940 - with Britain standing as the last bastion against Nazi aggression in Europe and with German U-boats threatening American shipping, the Neutrality Act was again amended to allow the arming of merchant vessels; December 1941 - the act was rendered moot by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America’s subsequent entry into World War II.

October 11, 1939 - Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, arguing the scientific feasibility of atomic weapons and urging the rapid development of a U.S. atomic program.

November 4, 1939 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents, a policy favoring Britain and France.

November 15, 1939 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

November 19, 1939 - Cornerstone of the first presidential library, that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, is laid at Hyde Park, New York.

December 14, 1939 - League of Nations, the international peacekeeping organization formed at the end of World War I, expels the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in response to the Soviets' invasion of Finland on October 30. The invasion of Finland, where no provocation or pact could credibly be adduced to justify the aggression, resulted in worldwide reaction. President Roosevelt, although an "ally" of the USSR, condemned the invasion, causing the Soviets to withdraw from the New York World's Fair. And finally, the League of Nations, drawing almost its last breath, expelled it.

January 31, 1940 - First monthly retirement payment made under the auspices of the Social Security Act; kicked off its program of doling out regular benefits to retired workers; first Social Security check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Vermont.

May 3, 1940 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomes approximately 4,000 women attending a women’s division meeting of the Democratic National Committee to Washington D.C. He and his wife Eleanor’s plans to host the event at the White House, however, had to be modified at the last minute, as they had originally expected only 100 guests.

May 7, 1940 - Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain.

May 10, 1940 - Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, is called to replace Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister following the latter's resignation after losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons. April 1940 - After British forces failed to prevent the German occupation of Norway, Chamberlain lost the support of many members of his Conservative Party. Churchill formed an all-party coalition and quickly won the popular support of Britons. May 13 - in his first speech before the House of Commons, Prime Minister Churchill declared that "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat" and offered an outline of his bold plans for British resistance. In the first year of his administration, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would "never surrender." They never did.

May 26, 1940 - American President Franklin D. Roosevelt makes known the dire straits of Belgian and French civilians suffering the fallout of the British-German battle to reach the northern coast of France, and appeals for support for the Red Cross. British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk in France. Ships arrived at Calais to remove the Force before German troops occupied the area, and it was hoped that 45,000 British soldiers could be shipped back to Britain within two days; delayed, but successful, evacuation nine days later. But the cost to civilians was great, as thousands of refugees fled for their lives to evade the fallout of the battle.

June 29, 1940 - U.S. passes Alien Registration Act requiring Aliens to register.

June 30, 1940 - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forms.

July 5, 1940 - Congress passes the Export Control Act, forbidding the exporting of aircraft parts, chemicals, and minerals without a license. The prohibition was a reaction to Japan's occupation of parts of the Indo-Chinese coast. U.S. feared the advance of Japanese expansion and cooperation, even if by coercion, between German-controlled France and Japan.

July 18, 1940 - The Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term in office.

July 21, 1940 - Soviet Union annexes Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

August 6, 1940 - Soviet empire annexed Estonia.

August 20, 1940 - Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer--Ramón Mercader--was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day. 1924 - Lenin died, and Joseph Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR. Against Stalin's stated policies, Trotsky called for a continuing world revolution that would inevitably result in the dismantling of the increasingly bureaucratic Soviet state. He also criticized the new regime for suppressing democracy in the Communist Party and for failing to develop adequate economic planning. In response, Stalin and his supporters launched a propaganda counterattack against Trotsky. In 1925 - he was removed from his post in the war commissariat. One year later, he was expelled from the Politburo and in 1927 from the Communist Party. In January 1928 - Trotsky was deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia. He lived there in internal exile for a year before being banished from the USSR forever by Stalin. 1936 - granted asylum in Mexico. Settling with his family in a suburb of Mexico City, he was found guilty of treason in absentia during Stalin's purges of his political foes.

September 2, 1940 - Great Smoky Mountains National Park dedicated.

September 14, 1940 - Congress passed the Burke-Wadsworth Act (Selective Training and Service Act), providing for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history; September 16, 1940 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law; registration of men between the ages of 21 and 36 began exactly one month later. There were some 20 million eligible young men-50 percent were rejected the very first year, either for health reasons or because 20 percent of those who registered were illiterate.

September 16, 1940 - Samuel T. Rayburn (D- Texas) elected speaker of House of Representatives; held the post for almost 17 years - longer than anyone in history..

October 24, 1940 - The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

October 29, 1940 - Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson drew the first number - 158 - in America's first peacetime military draft.

November 5, 1940 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term; beat Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie.

November 15, 1940 - The first 75,000 men were called to Armed Forces duty under peacetime conscription.

November 27, 1940 - Two months after General Ion Antonescu seized power in Romania and forced King Carol II to abdicate, Antonescu's Iron Guard arrests and executes more than 60 aides of the exiled king, including Nicolae Iorga, a former minister and acclaimed historian. The extreme right-wing movement known as the Iron Guard was founded by Corneliu Codreanu in the 1920s, imitating Germany's Nazi Party in both ideology and methods. 1938 - King Carol II managed to establish a stronger dictatorship in Romania and took steps to suppress the activities of the Iron Guard as well as its left-wing antithesis, the Romanian Communist Party. However, the control fell into violent turmoil after the Munich Pact of 1939 was signed, seen as an abandonment of Romania by its Western allies from World War I, followed by a Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact in 1939, which ceded portions of Romania to the USSR. General Ion Antonescu emerged from the chaos victorious and established a dictatorship with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's approval, killing, exiling, or imprisoning most of his former political opposition. Nevertheless, Romanian resistance to the Iron Guard and Nazi occupation persisted during the war;  August 1944  - a massive revolt toppled Antonescu's government in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, allowing the Soviet liberators to capture the city without firing a shot. 1945 -  Romanian communists came to power with the backing of the Soviet Union.

January 6, 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses Congress in an effort to move the nation away from a foreign policy of neutrality; insisted that people in all nations of the world shared Americans’ entitlement to "four freedoms:" the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God "in his own way," freedom from want and freedom from fear; 1948 - United Nations adopts United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (based on these 4 freedoms).

January 10, 1941 - Franklin Roosevelt introduces the "lend-lease" program to Congress. The plan was intended to help Britain beat back Hitler’s advance while keeping America only indirectly involved in World War II; lend-lease program provided for military aid to any country whose defense was vital to the security of the United States. The plan thus gave Roosevelt the power to "lend" arms to Britain with the understanding that, after the war, America would be paid back "in kind." March 11, 1941 - Congress authorized the program. By the end of the war the United States had "given" more than $50 billion in armaments and financial support to Britain, the U.S.S.R. and 37 other countries. The lend-lease program laid a foundation for the post-war Marshall Plan, which provided aid to European nations to help rebuild their economies after two devastating world wars. 

February 4, 1941 - United Service Organization, civilian agency, is founded to offer support for U.S. service members and their families; sent many actors, musicians, and other performers to entertain the troops. 1948 - disbanded; 1949 - formed again, still exists today; provides recreation, entertainment, children's programs and other services to U.S. military families.

May 5, 1941 - Emperor Haile Selassie re-enters Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, exactly five years to the day of when it was occupied by Italy. October 3, 1935 - Italy attacked. Selassie formally protested before the League of Nations Council, but the League responded with only mild sanctions, fearing that a more extensive embargo, or the closure of the Suez Canal, denying Italy needed supplies and reinforcements, would lead to war-and Italy simply getting its oil from the United States, which was not a party to League agreements.

May 6, 1941 - Soviet dictator Josef Stalin assumed the premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov.

May 27, 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces a state of unlimited national emergency in response to Nazi Germany’s threats of "world domination". In a speech he repeated his famous remark from a speech he made in 1933 during the Great Depression: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He insisted that an attack on the United States "can begin with the domination of any base which menaces our security," for instance Canada, Brazil or Trinidad, and not just when "bombs actually drop in the streets of New York or San Francisco or New Orleans or Chicago." He appeared to be urging Americans to consider actively engaging in the war in Europe stating "it would be suicide to wait until they are in our front yard." He promised the protection of shipping in the Atlantic, continued humanitarian and military aid to Britain, the establishment of a civilian defense and warned of saboteurs and "fifth columnists" (communist infiltrators) who threatened democracy in America and abroad. He also condemned war profiteering and urged organized labor to resist disruptive strikes in war-production industries.

June 19, 1941 - U.S. president Roosevelt signs Two Ocean Navy Expansion Act.

June 25, 1941 - Fair Employment Practices Commission established.

July 1941 - Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell, Army construction chief, sprang the idea of building a single, huge headquarters, in a Virginia neighborhood known as Hell’s Bottom, that could house the entire War Department, then scattered in seventeen buildings around Washington. Somervell ordered drawings produced in one weekend and, despite a firestorm of opposition, broke ground two months later.  February, 1942 - first Pentagon employees skirted seas of mud to move into the building and went to work even as construction roared around them.

July 24, 1941 - Franklin D. Roosevelt demands Japanese troops out of Indo-China.

July 25, 1941 - Franklin D. Roosevelt bans selling benzine/gasoline to Japan.

August 3, 1941 - Gasoline rationing began in parts of the eastern United States; spread to the rest of the country as soon as the U.S. joined the Allied forces, and the production of cars for private use halted completely in 1942. Measures of a similar sort had already taken place in most European countries.

August 9, 1941 - Winston Churchill reaches Newfoundland for first talk with FDR; August 10, 1941 - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Churchill hold second meeting at Placentia Newfoundland; August 14, 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles that renounced aggression.

August 27, 1941 - Prince Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister of Japan, announces that he would like to enter into direct negotiations with President Roosevelt in order to prevent the Japanese conflict with China from expanding into world war.

August 28, 1941 - President Franklin Roosevelt handed down an executive order establishing the Office of Price Administration (OPA) - wartime government agency for regulated prices and production; charged with controlling consumer prices in the face of war (imposed rent controls , rationing program which initially targeted auto tires, churned out coupon books for sugar, coffee, meat, fats, oils, and numerous other items; closed soon after 1946 election (only rents, sugar, and rice still subject to controls). The agency's record of service during the war was fairly impressive: by V-J, consumer prices had increased by 31 percent, a number which was noticeably better than the 62 percent bloating of prices during World War I.

September 11, 1941 - Charles A. Lindbergh sparked charges of anti-Semitism with a speech in which he blamed ''the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration'' for trying to draw the United States into World War II.

September 21, 1941 - Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1941 to raise revenue from American taxpayers to fund America's entry into World War II.

October 9, 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested congressional approval for arming U.S. merchant ships.

October 23, 1941 - U.S. Senate passed the $5.98 billion supplemental Lend-Lease bill, bringing the country closer to direct involvement in World War II.

October 30, 1941 - President Roosevelt, determined to keep the United States out of the war while helping those allies already mired in it, approves $1 billion in Lend-Lease loans to the Soviet Union. The terms: no interest and repayment did not have to start until five years after the war was over.

October 31, 1941 - Work on Mount Rushmore ended (after 14 years) with the monumental heads of four U.S. presidents - Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt - carved on the face of a mountain near Keystone, SD.

November 1, 1941 - President Roosevelt announces that the U.S. Coast Guard will now be under the direction of the U.S. Navy, a transition of authority usually reserved only for wartime (American ships were casualties of the European war); in peacetime, the Guard was under the direction of the Department of Treasury; 1967 - Department of Transportation took control.

November 3, 1941 - The Combined Japanese Fleet received Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days, Pearl Harbor is to be bombed, along with Mayala, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines. Tokyo delivered the order to all pertinent Fleet commanders, that not only the United States-and its protectorate the Philippines--but British and Dutch colonies in the Pacific were to be attacked. War was going to be declared on the West.

November 13, 1941 - The United States Congress amends the Neutrality Act of 1935 (forbidding the sale of munitions by U.S. firms to any and all belligerents in any future war) to allow American merchant ships access to war zones (after U.S. destroyer Reuben James was sunk by a German sub in October 194); merchant ships would be allowed to arm themselves for self-defense, allowed to enter European territorial waters; September 1939 - first amendment to the act, allowed sale of munitions to those nations under siege by Nazi Germany.

December 9, 1941 - China declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy.

December 11, 1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; German charge d'affaires in Washington handed American Secretary of State Cordell Hull a copy of the declaration of war; the United States responded in kind.

December 18, 1941 - Congress passes 1st American War Powers Act: authorized the president to initiate and terminate defense contracts, reconfigure government agencies for wartime priorities, and regulate the freezing of foreign assets. It also permitted him to censor all communications coming in and leaving the country; FDR appointed the executive news director of the Associated Press, Byron Price, as director of censorship (took no extreme measures).

December 22, 1941 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, DC for the Arcadia Conference, a series of meetings with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on a unified Anglo-American war strategy and a future peace; created a combined general staff to coordinate military strategy against both Germany and Japan and to draft a future joint invasion of the Continent. Roosevelt also agreed to a radical increase in the U.S. arms production program: the 12,750 operational aircraft to be ready for service by the end of 1943 became 45,000; the proposed 15,450 tanks also became 45,000; and the number of machine guns to be manufactured almost doubled, to 500,000. Confederation of 26 nations (called the "United Nations"), led by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, declared a unified goal to "ensure life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve the rights of man and justice" = blueprint for the destruction of fascism and future international peacekeeping organization.

December 26, 1941 - Less than three weeks after the American entrance into World War II, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress; urged Congress to back President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal that America become the "great arsenal of democracy" and warned that the Axis powers would "stop at nothing" in pursuit of their war aims; told that body today that anti-Axis forces probably will be able to undertake a world-wide offensive in 1943.

January 1, 1942 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the "United Nations." The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization.

January 6, 1942 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces to Congress that he is authorizing the largest armaments production in the history of the United States; production schedule would result in 45,000 aircraft, 45,000 tanks, 20,000 antiaircraft guns, 8 million tons in new ships...C "These figures and similar figures for a multitude of other implements of war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea of just what