Chapter+26

=**Chapter 26: The Great Depression and World War II**=


 * The Great Depression- 1929**

• In the 1920s, U.S. corporations, banks, and millions of individuals borrowed money on margin to invest in the stock market, which had experienced a long, upward trend

• Federal Reserve Bank tightened the availability of credit

• This forced brokerage firms sent margin calls demanding that clients immediately pay back the money they had borrowed to buy stock

• As more and more sold stocks to pay back their margin debts to brokers, the market collapsed between October and mid-November 1929.The U.S. cut back on loans which caused a European economic collapse

• This worldwide crisis was worsened by rising unemployment, budget cuts, and tariff increases. Industry closed down, and agricultural price declines led to a rural debt crisis

• The effects of declining purchasing power and unavailability of ready credit extended beyond the West, reducing the demand for copper, tin, and other raw materials and for the finished products manufactured in urban factories


 * Effects**

• The Depression drove down the price of food, harming cash crop farmers

• In India, Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869–1948) emerged as the charismatic leader for Indian independence by advocating civil disobedience: the peaceful but deliberate breaking of the law

• In the Middle East, Mustafa Kemal or Atatürk took advantage of Europe’s vulnerability and founded the Turkish republic

• Persia also loosened Europe’s grip by forcing the negotiation of oil contracts and, in 1935, changed its name to Iran

• In 1936: Britain agreed to end its military occupation of Egypt, but not in the suez canal.

• British and French military forces were needed in their empires to control resistance movements, leaving totalitarianism to spread unchecked throughout Europe