FDR’s Court Packing Plan

1. Date: May 7, 2014Topic: World War II Aim: How did World War II involve the United States?Do Now: Multiple Choice Questions.

2. FDR’s Court Packing Plan • Supreme Court opposition to FDR’s programs continued with the court consistently striking down New Deal legislation. • FDR asked Congress to approve a law that would permit the President to increase the number of judges from nine to fifteen if the judges refused to retire at age 70. • The Judicial Reorganization Bill never became law because it was a threat to separation of powers.

3. Critics of the New Deal • Francis E. Townsend – created a financially impossible plan to provide government pensions for the elderly. • Father Charles E. Coughlin – a Catholic priest who blamed business owners, especially Jewish ones, for the economic crisis. • Huey Long – US Senator from Louisiana who proposed that income and inheritance taxes on the wealthy be used to give each American a $2,500 income, a car, and a college education.

4. The Rise of Totalitarian Governments • Totalitarian Government – one political party has complete control over the government and bans all other parties. They also rely on terror and suppress individual rights and silence opposition. • Fascism – places the importance of the nation above all else and individual rights and freedoms are lost as everyone works to benefit the nation. • Nazi Germany under Hitler and Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini were two examples of fascist governments.

5. Major Events Between 1919-1941 • 1938 Munich Agreement – Great Britain and France allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia with a large German speaking population. • Appeasement – Great Britain and France resorted to appeasement through agreeing to allow Germany to take the Sudetenland. • Lend Lease Act – allowed the United States to sell or lend war materials to “any country who defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” • Arsenal of Democracy – phrase coined by FDR stating that the United States would supply arms to those fighting for freedom.

6. Attack on Pearl Harbor • The attack climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. • Japan invaded China in 1937, allied with the Axis Powers, and occupied French Indochina in 1941. • United States responded by freezing Japanese assets in the United States and declaring an embargo on petroleum and vital war materials to Japan. • December 7, 1941: Japanese war planes attacked the US Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. • The attack shattered the American belief that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would safely isolate the US from fighting in Europe and Asia.

7. YESTERDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941…

8. Major Powers of World War II • The major powers of the Allies included Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. • Germany, Italy, and Japan, were the Axis powers.

11. Wartime Diplomacy • Atlantic Charter Meeting (1941) – Roosevelt and Churchill met on battleships in the North Atlantic to agree on certain principles for building a lasting peace and establishing free governments in the world. • Casablanca (1943) – Roosevelt met with Churchill to plan “victory on all fronts.” They used the term “unconditional surrender” to describe the anticipated victory. • Cairo (1943) – Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang, Kai-shek OF China planned the Normandy invasion. • Yalta (1945) – Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin outlined the division of post-war Germany into spheres of influence and planned for the trials of war criminals. The Soviet Union promised to enter the war against Japan.

12. The Atomic Bomb THE TRINITY TEST – 16 MS AFTER DETONATION – JULY 1945 • Potsdam (1945) – Allied leaders warned Japan to surrender or face utter destruction. • The Manhattan Project – the research done at Los Alamos, New Mexico under the direction of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer with the goal to create an atomic bomb.