The Port Chicago Disaster

Examples of The Port Chicago Disaster in the following topics:

• African Americans in WWII

  • The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California.
  • A month later, unsafe conditions inspired hundreds of servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny.
  • Fifty men—called the "Port Chicago 50"—were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to long prison terms.
  • Due to public pressure, the United States Navy reconvened the courts-martial board in 1945; the court affirmed the guilt of the convicted men.
  • Explain the importance of the Tuskegee Airman, the Golden Thirteen, the Port Chicago disaster, and the 1997 recipients of the Medal of Honor.

• Prohibition

  • The matter of geography presented further complications in that the valleys, mountains, lakes and swamps, as well as the extensive seaways, ports and massive borders running along Canada and Mexico, made it exceedingly difficult to stop bootleggers intent on avoiding detection.
  • Chicago, the largest city in Illinois and of one America’s true metropolises along with New York and Los Angeles, became a haven for Prohibition dodgers.
  • By the end of the decade, Capone controlled all 10,000 Chicago speakeasies, illegal nightclubs where alcohol was sold, and ruled the bootlegging business from Canada to Florida.
  • Speakeasies became far more popular during the Prohibition era, partially influencing the mass migration of Jazz musicians from New Orleans to major northern cities like Chicago and New York.
  • Alphonse "Al" Capone headed the largest criminal organization in the Chicago area during Prohibition.

• Dunkirk and Vichy France

  • The Dunkirk evacuation was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk from the attack of German soldiers, which started as a disaster but soon became a "miraculous" triumph.
  • In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the events in France "a colossal military disaster," saying "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured.
  • British ships ferried French troops to Brest, Cherbourg, and other ports in Normandy and Brittany, although only about half of the repatriated troops were deployed against the Germans before the surrender of France.
  • Gort immediately saw that evacuation across the Channel was the best course of action, and began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk, the closest location with good port facilities.
  • By 24 May, the Germans had captured the port of Boulogne and surrounded Calais.

• The Environmental Impact of Cities

  • These new large cities were not coastal port cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, but laid inland along new transportation routes (like Denver, Chicago, and Cleveland).
  • Factory jobs were the only jobs some immigrants could get, and as more came to the cities to work, the larger the urbanization process became.
  • In 1870 there were only two American cities with a population of more than 500,000, but by 1900 there were six, and three of these, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia had over one million inhabitants.
  • City living was for the lower class; the upper class had enough money to get away from all of the pollution and the city stench.
  • For example, in the city of Chicago, you will find a lot of the nicer homes away from the city, and more towards the suburbs.

• The Setbacks in the Atlantic

  • In 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy, the Marine Nationale, for command of the sea.
  • The U-boat fleet, which was to dominate so much of the Battle of the Atlantic, was small at the beginning of the war.
  • Much of the early German anti-shipping activity involved mine laying by destroyers, aircraft, and U-boats off British ports.
  • The hunting group strategy proved a disaster within days.
  • The harsh winter of 1939–40, which froze over many of the Baltic ports, seriously hampered the German offensive by trapping several new U-boats in the ice.

• Immigration Restriction League

  • The League was founded in Boston and had branches in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
  • The League used books, pamphlets, meetings, and numerous newspaper and journal articles to disseminate information and sound the alarm about the dangers of the immigrant flood tide.
  • The bill asked for an increase of the duty paid by alien passengers to enter the United States from two to five dollars.
  • Furthermore, it stated that the company that had transported such individuals would pay half the cost of their removal to the port of deportation.
  • The League disbanded after the death of its president, Prescott F.

• Transportation: Roads, Canals, and Railroads

  • The Erie Canal made an immense contribution to the wealth and importance of New York City, which became the chief U.S. port, and it fostered a population surge in western New York State.
  • It helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States.
  • Towns were planned out along the path of the canal, spaced at intervals corresponding to the length that the mules could haul the barges.
  • From 1848 to 1852, the canal was a popular passenger route, but this ended in 1853 with the opening of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad that ran parallel to the canal.
  • The most prominent early railroad was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), which linked the port of Baltimore to the Ohio River and offered passenger and freight service as of 1830.

• Continuing Hardships

  • The Roosevelt Administration reacted with a rhetorical campaign that cast monopoly power as the cause of the depression.
  • FDR urged Thurman Arnold in the anti-trust division of the U.S.
  • In February 1938, Congress passed a new AAA bill which authorized crop loans, crop insurance against natural disasters, and large subsidies to farmers who cut back production.
  • Other appropriations raised the total to $5 billion in the spring of 1938, after which the economy recovered.
  • A 1933 plan by University of Chicago economists, known as the Chicago plan, was resurrected and recirculated in a 1939 draft proposal entitled A Program for Monetary Reform.

• The Embargo Act of 1807

  • The Embargo Act of 1807 was a general embargo enacted by the U.S.
  • All areas of the United States suffered: In commercial New England and the Middle Atlantic states, ships rotted at the wharves, and in the agricultural areas, particularly in the South, farmers and planters could not sell their crops on the international market.
  • Widespread disregard of the law meant enforcement was difficult, and the embargo became a financial disaster for the United States.
  • It was replaced by the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which lifted all embargoes on American shipping except for those bound for British or French ports.
  • The intent was to damage the economies of the United Kingdom and France.

• The American Revolution

  • The origins of the French involvement in the American Revolution go back to the British victory in the French and Indian War (1754–1763; the American theater in the Seven Years' War).
  • Furthermore, both the French general population and the elites supported the revolutionary spirit that many perceived as the incarnation of the Enlightenment ideals against the "English tyranny."
  • The capture of the French-controlled port of Mahé on India's west coast motivated Mysore's ruler, Hyder Ali  to start the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780.
  • Its participation in the war created the financial disasters that marked the 1780s.
  • Historians link those disasters to the coming of the French Revolution.