American isolationism ended at Pearl Harbor. Japan also assaulted the Philippines and other American holdings throughout the Pacific, but it was the attack on the US territory and naval base in Hawaii that threw the United States into the global conflict. Franklin Roosevelt called December 7 “a date which will live in infamy” and asked for a declaration of war, which Congress approved within hours. The US declared war on Japan the following day, and Germany and Italy declared war on America on December 11th.

After the fall of Poland, France and its British allies braced for an inevitable German attack. In May 1940, Hitler launched his campaign into Western Europe through the Netherlands and Belgium to avoid the Maginot Line, a prepared defense along the French-German border. Poland had fallen in three weeks; France lasted only a few weeks more.

Japan launched their full-scale invasion of China on July 7, 1937 and routed the forces of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army led by Chiang Kai-shek. The broken Chinese army surrendered Beijing to the Japanese on August 8, Shanghai on November 26, and the capital, Nanjing, on December 13

Hitler attacked the Treaty of Versailles and promoting German nationalism. By 1932 the Nazis controlled the most seats in the Reichstag parliament and Hitler became chancellor in 1933.

Corporations could sell shares to investors with the guarantee that all they risked were the dollars they invested.

Firms such as McCormick’s took advantage of economies of scale: a reduced per-unit cost achieved by making great quantities of standardized products. After accounting for large “fixed cost” investments in machines and marketing, each additional unit of a product could be made for very low “variable” production cost.

Singer sewing machines, Chicago meat packers’ “disassembly” lines, McCormick grain reapers, and Duke cigarette rollers all achieved unprecedented levels of production that propelled their companies into the forefront of American business. Henry Ford, who consulted with Taylor, made the assembly line famous in 1913, allowing the production of automobiles to skyrocket as their cost plummeted; but American firms had been paving the way for decades.

Nearly 100 Americans died in “The Great Upheaval.” Workers destroyed nearly $40 million worth of property. The strike galvanized the country. It convinced laborers of the need for institutionalized unions, persuaded businesses of the need for even greater political influence and government aid, and foretold a half century of labor conflict in the United States.