Shaking America

In 1932 over 43,000 protestors marched on Washington DC, demanding better treatment and pay for veterans of World War I.  President Hoover and the US government responded with violence, tear gassing and shooting the veterans.

When over 120,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly imprisoned in concentration camps during WWII they brought the American sport of baseball with them.

Sources

America's Concentration Camps by Allan R. Bosworth

Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American Baseball by Kerry Yo Nakagawa

Kenichi Zenimura: Japanese American Baseball Pioneer by Bill Staples Jr

 In the War of 1812 the US Navy would engage the British Royal Navy in the cold waters of Lake Erie.  The battle would decide the future of the Great Lakes.

Sources

Ships of Oak, Guns of Iron by Ronald Utt

The Lake Erie Campaign by Walter Rybka

https://www.nps.gov/articles/brock-meets-tecumseh.htm

https://www.nps.gov/articles/surrender-of-detroit.htm

https://www.nps.gov/articles/a-mere-matter-of-marching.htm

from the National Parks Service database

https://detroithistorical.org/sites/default/files/lessonPlans/SurrenderDetroitFINAL.pdf 

from the Detroit Historical Society

In the War of 1812 the United States would attempt to invade the British Canadian colonies, using Fort Detroit as a base of operations.  What started as an invasion ended as a humiliating defeat when American General William Hull surrendered Detroit without a fight.

Sources:

Ships of Oak, Guns of Iron by Ronald Utt

https://www.nps.gov/articles/brock-meets-tecumseh.htm

https://www.nps.gov/articles/surrender-of-detroit.htm

https://www.nps.gov/articles/a-mere-matter-of-marching.htm

from the National Parks Service database

https://detroithistorical.org/sites/default/files/lessonPlans/SurrenderDetroitFINAL.pdf 

from the Detroit Historical Society

Dan Gable endured a rough upbringing, personal tragedy and athletic defeat at the highest level.  But he never stopped, becoming the greatest American wrestler to ever compete.

Sources

A Wrestling Life by Dan Gable with Scott Schulte

The Champion Dan Gable from The US Olympic Museum website

Dan Gable Dominated as Wrestler and Coach by Douglass Looney, ESPN website

The Losses of Dan Gable by Wright Thompson, ESPN website

In 1970 the Rochester crime family boss Frank Valenti ordered a series of false flag bombings, hoping to draw the federal authorities’ attention away from his criminal organization and onto anti-war activists.

Sources

Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires by Selwyn Raab

American Mafia: The History of its Rise to Power by Thomas Repetto

The New York City Historical Society exhibit on the Italian-American Mafia

Poundmaker was a Chief of the Plains Cree, a peacekeeping warrior who fought and defeated the Canadian government at the Battle of Cut Horse Creek.  He shouldered the impossible task of preventing bloodshed, of calming the young warriors of the tribes and negotiating with an expansionist government that despised him.  His story is one of the great tragedies of Canadian history.

Visit the website at https://www.shakingamerica.com/

Sources

 Sweet Promises: A Reader on Indian/White Relations in Canada by J.R. Miller
Footprints in the Dust by Douglas W. Light
https://canadaehx.com/2020/07/04/chief-poundmaker/
PoundmakerCN.ca 

Honda and Toyota survived trade wars, import quotas and xenophobia in the 1960s through the 1980s to become an economic juggernaut that reshaped the American auto industry.  

Sources

The Keiretsu Advantage by Jasper Boers from the Yale Economic History Journal

The New, Improved Keiretsu by Katsuki Aoki and Thomas Taro Lennerfors

Lessons from the US-Japan Trade War of the 1980s from NPR's All Things Considered

The Import Quota that Rebuild the Auto Industry by Wells King and Dan Vaughn Jr

Outnumbered and surrounded by Nazi forces, Lieutenant John R Fox made a last stand in the hills of northern Italy.  In a desperate final act of bravery, Fox ordered an artillery strike on his own location just as the Nazis overran his position, killing hundreds of the enemy and sacrificing himself.

In the 1870s locust swarms of biblical proportions descended onto the Great Plains, devouring everything in their path.  Billions of locust blocked out the sun and devastated America’s agriculture, creating a national emergency unlike any other.


Sources include:

The book Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier by Jeffrey Lockwood

The Biogeosciences article “A probe into the different fates of locust

swarms in the plains of North America and East Asia” by G. Yu, D. Johnson, X Ki and Y. Li

The Kansas Historical Society article “Grasshopper Plague of 1874”

The BBC web article “Why Do Locusts Swarm?”