American history: 1914 - 1945


 

World War I & Jazz Age: 1914 - 1928

Foreign affairs (relationships with other countries) took up a great deal of President Woodrow Wilson's attention ...

A War and a Peace

In August 1914, a war started on the continent of Europe ...

A War and a Peace - PowerPoint-Präsentation

The Roaring Twenties

Girls dancing the Charleston. Gangsters carrying machine guns. Charlie Chaplin playing comical tricks ...

The Roaring Twenties - PowerPoint-Präsentation

The movies

In the 1920s American movies filled the cinema screens of the world ...

The Harlem Renaissance

During the 1920s, many black artists, poets, writers and musicians moved to Harlem, a section of New York City, where they became well-known for their writing, art and music ...

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 4, 1901 (according to the most recent research), in the poorest section of town ...

Duke Ellington

Born Edward Kennedy Ellington, Duke Ellington was one of the founding fathers of jazz music ...

Duke Ellington - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Al Capone and the bootleggers

In 1919 the American people voted in favor of a new amendment to the Constitution ...

Al Capone and the bootleggers - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Congress Granted Citizenship to All Native Americans Born in the U.S.

Native Americans have long struggled to retain their culture ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)

In my younger and more tender years my father gave me some advice that I've been thinking about ever since ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Der große Gatsby (1925)

In meinen jüngeren Jahren, als ich noch zarter besaitet war, gab mein Vater mir einmal einen Rat, der mir seitdem wieder und wieder durch den Kopf gegangen ist ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby: Summary

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives a splendid picture of America after the First World War - a time when the most important thing in life for some people became to gain wealth and status ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) was born in St Paul, Minnesota, USA, the only son of an upper-middle class Catholic family ...

The houses of Frank Lloyd Wright

Many of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous buildings are houses ...

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, from the US state of Illinois, became famous for his short stories and books ...

Ernest Hemingway: Cat in the Rain

There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel ...

Buster Keaton: Der General (1926)

Eine der längsten, aufwändigsten und komischsten Verfolgungsjagden der Filmgeschichte ...

Ernest Hemingway: Hills Like White Elephants (1927)

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white ...

Edward Hopper: Automatenrestaurant, 1927 - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Depression & World War II: 1929 - 1945

October 29, 1929, was a dark day in history ...

Crash and Depression

In the heart of New York City lies a narrow street enclosed by the walls of high office buildings ...

Crash and Depression - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Edward Hopper: Early Sunday Morning, 1930 - PowerPoint-Präsentation

The United States in the 1930s

The United States played no real role in European politics in the 1930s but her lack of interest in European affairs was an important factor in helping to bring about war ...

Roosevelt's New Deal

On a cold, grey Saturday in March 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath as President of the United States ...

Roosevelt's New Deal - PowerPoint-Präsentation

George Gershwin Completes the Score for "Porgy and Bess" (1935)

George Gershwin signed his name to the completed opera score for Porgy and Bess on September 2, 1935 ...

William Faulkner: Wash (1936)

Sutpen stood above the pallet bed on which the mother and child lay ...

Walt Disney - PowerPoint-Präsentation

The Arsenal of Democracy

In the 1930s every year seemed to bring a new war, or threat of war, somewhere in the world ...

The Arsenal of Democracy - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Hirohito of Japan

Like Italy and Germany, Japan was a dictatorship, in which only the views of the Emperor Hirohito and his military advisers counted ...

Hirohito of Japan - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Frank Lloyd Wright: Falling Water (1937) - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Orson Welles in seinem Büro im Mercury Theatre, Februar 1938 - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Victor Fleming: Gone With the Wind (1939) - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Edward Hopper: Gas (1940) - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941)

"One day back in 1896 I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off ... "

Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941) - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Hellmuth Karasek: Citizen Kane

Ein Zeitungstycoon stirbt, einsam und ohne einen ihm nahestehenden Menschen, in seinem düsteren, mit antikem Ramsch überladenen und unfertigen Prunkschloss Xanadu ...

From European war to world war

Relations between Japan and the United States had become steadily worse since Japan invaded the Chinese territory of Manchuria in 1931 ...

Pearl Harbor

The military leaders of Japan decided that they should strike immediately against the United States and seize the key areas of the region which produced raw materials, for example, British-owned Burma for its oil and Malaya for its rubber ...

The fall of Singapore

After Pearl Harbor the US could do nothing to halt the string of Japanese victories ...

Midway - the turning point

El Alamein was the turning point of the war in North Africa

'Leap-frogging'

The British forces, based in India, planned to retake Burma from the Japanese but that attack did not start until 1944 ...

D-Day, June 6, 1944

Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, Americans heard on their radios that thousands of American and British soldiers had landed on the beaches of northern France ...

The advance on Japan

In June 1944 the US occupied the Marianas Islands and now, for the first time, American bombers could launch constant raids on Japan itself ...

Truman as president

The US Air Force bombed Japan regularly ...

Two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Truman decided that the Americans would explode their secret weapon – the atomic bomb - on a Japanese city ...

Could the Axis powers have won the war?

Did the entry of the US make an Axis victory more or less likely? ...