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What was Warsaw like before ww2 ? Just see WOLA - a district of Warsaw in 1935 .Wola district in Warsaw there are the graves of my ancestors from my family living there since 1700 .Fragment of the memories about Warsaw:None of the frenzy of the new occupation map after the September campaign in 1939, however, could not compare to making a huge city - the former capital of Poland as the border city of the new General Government, with the border of Reich running next to Warsaw. The city, located like no capital of Europe in the middle of its country, was to be transformed into a borderline town. The roads that formerly ran through it now were blocked , the Vistula waterery closed to Modlin and on north . The communication star, which to a large extent constituted for the development and significient of the city, was undercut. When fertile Kujawy was simultaneously assigned to Reich, they were taken away from the foreground, which played a large role in feeding the population before.Warsaw was to wither automatically. The defeat and fire cut her own resources. The starvation of the population was immediately apparent after the town was occupied. Horses skeletons lay on the streets, cleaned of meat to the last filament. The stores smoked a recent fire, the stores were looted or closed deaf. When field kitchens, set up in the suburbs, distributed rescue soup, thousands of Varsovians besieged them. It seemed that the city could not continue to exist. "Warschau ist ausradiert" - Hitler could have said.Ways which had to "wipe out" Warsaw from the world card were seemingly simple and obvious. The hungry city was supposed to empty the hunger already applied as a system of regulations and regulations rationing the allocation of food on a scale not found anywhere else in the world. Winter, frost, unemployment, and psychic panic were to make the rest. caused by the size of the disaster. Hopes were not unfounded. Who remembers hunger allocations, granted to the inhabitants of Warsaw during the occupation, who still has posters in their eyes, announcing the death penalty for illegal food trade and cattle slaughtering, who was freezing through the winter of 1939 - 1940 in apartments with plywood or cardboard windows, who dried after the oven a tree cut from street plantations, this one realizes the location in which the city has been found. The pressure of a particularly strong police force indicated that in addition to economic ticks, the immediate political oppression would continue to operate in Warsaw.- Na, hier heiss es nur auszuräumen - the Germans persuaded after the occupation of Warsaw.After two years, when Warsaw gained strength, they cheered:- Eine unerhört widerspenstige Stadt. The time has come when they called it "ein Schlaraffenland".How did it happen? What is the history of black market of food smuggling, from the first "Grandma", who crouched under a street wall with a basket of rolls and a few kilograms of lard, brought from a relative from Rembertów or Młocin, until the creation of a huge smuggling organization that inevitably provided the city with food in any quantity and quality, no one will come. No less difficult to guess where and how the goods hidden in Warsaw in the first days of the war were so hidden that even after 3 years in 1942 the Germans confiscated the huge wagon with tea at one of the Warsaw merchants.It is certain that Warsaw disregarded the system of destruction that defeated it and that it was able to solve the matter of its existence on its own. The speed with which she managed to turn the mismanagement, the ingenuity with which she lived "beside" the reality imposed on her, is something unprecedented and perhaps explained by only one concept of vitality, to which, as is known, the analytical thought escapes, everything else fails.The adventurism and fantastic character of the fight, its ridiculousness, sometimes tragic, improbability of its episodes, its usually anarchic assumptions, created a kind of " underground system " from Warsaw, where a harsh and brutal, generous and merciful man became accustomed, tamed with risk and danger, sometimes heroic, rarely wicked,Cities often compare to anthills. If we extend this comparison to the end and agree that the ant team's laws are incomprehensible and inscrutable, then Warsaw probably looked like in the eyes of Germans and visitors from other parts of the world.An Italian diplomat, whom I twice met in Warsaw, called Warsaw something that defies all criteria.- Where are these people rushing, what are they living for? He marveled at the busy street. - This city lives against everything that can be captured and predicted. A man loses his head and does the same as the others. Excuse me, sir, having eaten this wonderful pork chop in a restaurant, have we committed a crime?- Yes, strictly speaking, punished with death.- And this woman who sells sausage here also deserves to die?- Reliable!- And he lives and sells.- Sometimes, and under the German poster, which provides for the death penalty.- It's crazy.- Not greater than the madness of Germans who, by issuing unmanageable orders, suppose that the inhabitants of Warsaw will be meekly exterminated.- Suppose! - he agreed after a moment's reflection. - Germans are really uneasy in ignorance of Poles. But where does the money come from, where is the salary from, so that this way of life can be maintained and made independent of external circumstances?- I do not know. Perhaps we eat the resources accumulated during the peace time before war. Warsaw was a richer city than we had imagined. The bankers who were present when the Germans broke into the bank's safes said that there were treasures that nobody knew about. And many of them have been withdrawn in due time. Local wholesalers say that the stock of some of the goods that the city still has, covers its demand for two years.- What will happen when it ends?"And who would be wondering what he would live in in two or three years? Just notice that, after all, we live much more modestly than before the war. Our prevention has increased. Ingenuity even more. Did you see the Warsaw rickshaws made of bicycles? Ford would not produce cheaper and better ones. In this city, there are a thousand workshops of all kinds, making replacement articles for the villages. And the village we have side by side is diligent, tireless and versatile in its output as no other.Every translation of the phenomena of life is limping at some point. Human is an unknown creature, is as elusive as individually as collectively. The Pole is apparently the most elusive among others of people, and the Varsovians - even less than the average Poles. A Warsaw citizen, irritated by statutory pressure, breaks down from the assessment at all and ignore unjust law.The self-defense union, which spontaneously arose in the first months of the occupation against the background of the struggle for the right to its own way of life, was to show the strength and complete cohesion. He acted independently of any instructions or political impulses. He ruled by unwritten law, similar to the rights of clans or, if he wants, the laws of a underground world. He connected everyone, great and small. He distorted the society to the ground. He transformed simple people into intelligentsia, made intellectuals out of the intelligentsia, and taught them the strangest professions. How many docents, humanists and artists valued dollars, gold and jewels, like a seasoned spec. How many ladies from the company flowed through the smuggling route by lugging packages through the Warsaw suburbs and forests, not because they had to fish but to keep loved ones?The smuggling of food, maybe the trade in gold and currencies was the most honest form of the occupation struggle for existence. More complicated situations arose where the omission of law became a side-job of permanently employed people. Here, the regulations' executor would sometimes become an instructor how to celebrate them.The balances of Warsaw enterprises were arranged and corrected by tax officials themselves. Simply put, they taught their clients how to cheat the treasure of Nazi Germany . Bankers, without exception, speculated on the differences in money rates and securities. Working capital came from bank offices. It was returned back, as inflation continually continued to guarantee the security of any interest based on cash loans. On the municipal board, the internships included food, clothing, electricity and gas assignments as well as a telephone network. The most peculiar trick of obtaining side or main means of livelihood was used by telephone line inspectors, deliberately switching off someone telephone. For a quick "repair" of the damage, they took a special payment, which no one was sparing, knowing how low their wages are. The key, used by the auditors, was not devoid of moral principles when it came to choosing the camera. At entrepreneurs doing good business, the telephone "broke down" several times a month.The whole system perfected slowly, and what happened in 1940 was still a fairy tale in relation to later years, when the smuggling took over and German raw materials and reached out to the Reich, Belgium and France, from where the imported goods only went at the alteration to factories recognized as "kriegswichtig". The fistful of gold and jewels also ceased to be an internal affair of Warsaw. The Warsaw vagabonds turned their heads and zlotys throughout the whole Europe occupied by the Germans and claimed, perhaps rightly, that prices and courses "dictate" Warsaw, not Paris or Brussels.Effective, though less praiseworthy, currency achievements were, of course, the participation of a few handfuls of cheekers and insolents, and were only of indirect significance in the battle fought by the Warsaw general. Thousands more, the army of food smugglers was not available to everyone, since the service required fortitude, stamina, iron nerves and muscles in it.But the weaker did not die. A trained city helped them with a generous hand. There were whole periods when the tram conductors were paid for the ticket twice, and the ticket itself was returned for re-sale. The Polish railwaymen, pushed back by the German Brigade brought to the lower positions, became, over time, an integral part of the smuggling mass, which, moreover, managed to draw soon into its network and their German superiors.The susceptibility to corruption, characteristic of German officials sent to Warsaw, obviously facilitated the economic dictates of the black market. What bribed the bribe, sometimes funny, made stupefaction with the state of affairs that had completely eluded the Germans from their hands. At first, the "Volksdeutsch" and "Reichsdeutsch", who were assigned to Polish institutions as proxies, directors or "Treuhänder", turned into scared and passive witnesses of what was going on around them.It happened to me once in Kohlenhändlerverband that the Polish director there had thrown out the Volksdeutsche for the allocation of coal. The reason for the refusal was hanging on the wall of the ordinance. Immediately afterwards, he generously provided me with a "fuel" list of Polish writers presented to him and handed some cash to give them away. In the neighboring room, his German superior sat at the open door. I watched him curiously, for I was tempted to think how a man so obviously disregarded and fooled could look. He looked thoughtful and helpless. He probably thought that what surrounds him belongs to "Schlaraffenland".But is it possible to glorify phenomena which, in principle, rely on deception and reconcile the most basic notion of a person's order of things? The youngest were the layer of the most drunken "charms" of this life. Many of the older generation also wailed over the youth who had undergone a tough school of light life, characteristic of the times of the occupation. How will you relate to law and integrity in everyday life when normal, peaceful times come about?I do not know if people are as quick acquainted with the law as illegitimacy. I am afraid that the process of relapse is more difficult and longer. Anyone who saw the struggle for existence under German occupation could not escape the fear that traces of it and blemish would reach deeper than we might have at the time.There will remain, however, legends that are often and heroic. The biggest one should probably be the memory of what happened in 1943, when the Germans ordered a huge raid in all marketplaces in Warsaw. The purge, carried out quickly and efficiently, using whole police battalions, gave an excellent result. More than a thousand young "Cossacks" of the black market were caught, and thus almost all of the "leaders" of the great smuggling army. Those who were arrested were gathered in a school building in the Praga district, after which, without any unnecessary investigations and lengthy inquiries, all of them were loaded in the main railway station for cattle cars. The train, sealed and staffed with armed guards, stood some time at the station. At that time, a Polish police officer came to the wagons at the station.- Attention, boys, attention, - he said, patrolling there and alone, - the train goes to Treblinka of the German death camp. Rescue yourself as much as you can.When the train moved at night and found itself behind Warsaw, several doors were broken and attempted to jump out. The fire of the machine gun interrupted the escape. Then, in the two middle cars, imprisoned "boys" broke boards in the floor and threw them under the wheels. The train derailed and ripped apart. The terrified guard (Kalmyk Vlasov) let herself be disarmed. Several wagons have been crushed. The prisoners returned to Warsaw the next day, bringing injured and injured people with them. Several dozens of corpses have been left on the site.I must admit that after this incident, which I learned from the mouth of one of its participants, I dealt with a strange respect to the flour or bacon that was provided to me "to the left from the black market". And I did not ask about the price.source :Ferdynand Goetel News [23.04.1950] London Year 5, Nr 17 (212)Retropress

I strongly think so. I can’t help myself to think that also Germany was dragged into this war and that Germany is not solely to blame for everything.Let’s go back to the years just after WW1. Czechoslovakia an artificial construct that never before in history formed a unified state consisted of 3 different countries. The inhabitants: some 6.7 million Czechs, 3.1 million Germans, 2 million Slovaks, 700.000 Hungarians and 460.000 Ukrainians are suddenly combined into 1 single multi-ethnic state in which the Czechs and the Slovaks dominate. The more than 3 million Germans that live primarily in the regions bordering Germany and Austria call themselves the Sudeten Germans. Their demands for reunification with Austria are denied by the allies. The basis of this new multi-ethnic country was the treaty of Versailles and the treaty of ST Germaine, which clearly stated that the national minorities are to have internal autonomy. The terms are accepted by the Czechs and the Slovaks with smiling faces until later on, joyfully declaring them no embroiled. As early as 1920 the new Czech constitution abolishes the right to self-determination for the minority Germans, Poles and Hungarians. Consequently the minorities become culturally and economically more and more oppressed. As of September 1937 the Sudeten Germans negotiations with the Czech government regarding autonomy had been in vain, until this point reunification with the Reich has never been discussed nor proposed by Hitler. Beginning in May 1938 attacks by ethnic Czechs against the German minority increased dramatically and consequently the Sudeten German representatives publically demand the reunification of the Sudeten land with the German Reich. The government in Prague however responds with declaring martial law over all of the 13 Sudeten provinces. Thus, prompting Hitler to demand the return of the Sudeten territories to the German Reich. This in which the heads of state of Italy, England and France and Germany all agree to return the Sudeten territories inhabited primarily by Germans to the Reich.With this successful reunification the Germans in other regions also demanded their reunification. Thus Lithuania agrees to a treaty with Germany because the allies refuse to weigh in. The Lithuanians withdraw their administrators and troops out Memel. In return Lithuania receives a free market zone. Warsaw feared as similar situation might arise in the free state of Danzig, situated in Poland: but technically under mandate of the League of Nations. From the start the allies have granted Poland many additional rights over postal services, businesses, thoroughfares, transit fees and duties. As such Danzig was for all intents and purposes already under Polish control. Despite these extra concessions (which already exceeded the existing treaties) Poland remained unsatisfied. The Polish government publicly threatened several times to completely annex Danzig.In the years just after the war, in spite of her territorial gains Poland is still unsatisfied with the new order in Eastern Europe. The Polish delegation at Versailles had even then proclaimed that these territories granted to this newly created nation of Poland were merely a down payment on a much greater Poland. Directly after the end of the first world war Poland began to build up its military and even as late as 1938 had attacked the the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Germany and Czechoslovakia and even the next bordering regions of the neighbouring states. For this reason the conflicts of the next 20 years were predestined until 1934 conflicts between Germany and Poland smouldered. In the previous year just after Hitler had won the elections the Polish head of state several times saw to enlist France for the purpose of affecting a bilateral attack against Germany! France however declined to participate and so Poland eventually changed tactics. Finally in 1934 a friendship treaty was signed introducing a period of closer diplomatic relations, but under the surface disputes were still simmering. Danzig in particular situated on the Baltic coast next to East Prussia had been completely cut off from the Germany and became the new focus of political attention. Of the 370.000 inhabitants 97% were Germans and 3% left were primarily Poles. Irrespective of this fact Warsaw continues to try to rest total control of the strategically important harbour city. The German demand for the reunification of Danzig constitutes just 1 of the 3 reasons that would lead to the upcoming war between Germany and Poland.In West Prussia which was taken from Germany and given to Poland the situation was similar: her 2/3 of the populations professed loyalty to Germany. Due to the loss of West Prussia, East Prussia was now completely cut off from Germany. This untenable situation would thus constitute the 2nd of the 3 reasons for the eventual outbreak of World War 2. All transport connections from Germany to the now isolated East Prussia were under Polish control. The coals transports essential for East Prussia’s supply of energy could only be affected by an 8 railroad routes which were now fully under polish control. Following the world economic crisis, and the crash of the German currency; Germany could no longer pay the required transit fees in their full amount in Zloty’s, and thus one by one Poland began to close the railroad lines. The poles felt justified, claiming that Germany was violating the rule set in the treaty of Versailles by paying the required tariffs in Reich marks instead of Zloty’s. Germany on the other hand felt obligated and justified to avoid the economic strangulation of Eastern Prussia by all means. When the Polish government threatened to cut off all of the railroad lines in 1336 Germany developed the concept of and extraterritorial highway and railroad length through Polish occupied West Prussia towards East Prussia and the thereby reunite Danzig with Germany. In order for such a plan to be implemented negotiations begin between Berlin and Warsaw. The core of Germany’s first proposal on October 24th 1938, was an offer to accepted polish sovereignty over the former German territories of upper Salacia, West Prussia and Posen. Poland had tried several times previously and unsuccessfully to gain such concessions on territorial rights since 1920. In exchange for this Germany expected extraterritorial transportation lines to East Prussia and reunification with Danzig. Of the more than 20 previous administrations of the former Weimar republic, not a single one had granted such far-reaching concessions to the Poles. Hitler was the first.The negotiations continued on until the end of January 1939, but in spite of Poland’s publicly stated intensions of working out a mutually satisfactory solution these never came to fruition. During further discussions in January Hitler expands his proposals with the following compromise. Danzig would return to the German community socially, but would remain economically under Poland. Because Danzig’s under the League of Nations mandate is not Polish, this proposal is a genuine compromise. In February and March 1939 when Germany is still looking for a peaceful settlement, Poland is already thinking seriously about war. In February the Polish general staff developed guidelines for military operations against Germany. On March 4th 1939 the main staff begins planning for Operation West. A full month before Hitler orders the leadership of the Wehrmacht to commence a plan for attack against Poland. At this point the WW1 allies have already placed their bets of the outcome of this game. As early as March 1939 London and Paris guaranteed their support to Warsaw in the event that the Danzig questions would develop into a military confrontation. When the former German vice-chancellor living in exile in London at the time proposes a compromise to the English Foreign Office aiming to avoid a military showdown, he is gruffly brushed off by Churchill! Who makes it unequivocally clear where Great Britain’s interests lie. Winston Churchill states: “What we want is, for the German economy to be completely smashed”. The ranks begin to close with the French ambassador in Berlin stating: “He had to live with the Germans, but it would be way better if one could just drive them out of Europe like the Arabs were once chased out of Spain”. On May the 15th the French chief of Staff general assured that in case of war the French army would indeed attack with all its might, the Western Border of Germany and together with Poland they would put Germany in advice (LOL). That promise served Poland’s anti-German stance! Warsaw was encouraged by the promise, and from then on became increasingly undiplomatic in its tone towards Berlin. While the British, the French and the Poles commenced to shore each other up for an impending war, Hitler continuous to pursue a negotiated settlement to the problems with Poland. On April 28th in a memorandum of the polish administration Hitler yet again acknowledges Poland claim in a speech and its need to access to the Baltic Sea. Furthermore he offered additional treaties. No threats towards Poland are made and not a single word about war is uttered. Had to poles accepted this offer and in a countermove granted the extraterritorial highways and the reunification of Danzig. World War 2 would have been avoided! Bolstered by English and French guarantees Poland has no further incentive to negotiate in good faith with Germany and in the meantime in Warsaw maps are suddenly starting to circulate which contain a new Western Polish border extending to just Western Berlin. All across Poland the so-called Pogroms against the minorities begin. Germans are forcibly deported by the thousands, German stores boycotted, their farms torched and ethnic Germans are physically assaulted. On 3 separate occasions Polish air defences open fire on Lufthansa transport planes. In July facing increasingly violent attacks ethnic Germans now become a wave of refugees. Night after night polish border official shot at fleeing Germans. Shortly before the outbreak of war, already 80.000 ethnic Germans in were in refugee camps. Hitler on numerous occasions advise the English and the French that with regard to this drama a solution to the German-Polish question cannot be delayed anymore. The misery of the refugees was now far overshadowing the still open questions and this developed the 3rd and most pressing reason that would lead to war.My conclusion; if France and England didn't boast they would aid Poland in case of a German invasion, Poland would be forced to seek political solutions and concede Danzig and Prussia over to the Germans in order to avoid the catastrophe called WWII.

Resources, World War II, and Capitalism in that order chronologically.You’re looking at one of the first major resources that made the British Colonies that would become the United States rich. Tobacco. This plant was cultivated and grown as a cash crop throughout many colonies, particularly Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The plant was grown in the colonies, dried, and then shipped over to England. In addition, there were other sources of revenue such as molasses, shipped from the Caribbean to the colonies and distilled into rum. So why was this important? Well, England had originally created the colonies to search for gold after the Spanish were bringing in huge galleons loaded with gold and silver. So rich were these ships that it caused runaway inflation in Spain, crippling their empire, but that’s a story for another time.The colonies themselves were first purely for resources, but eventually began to form their own industry due to simple economics. Why load big, heavy logs when you can load the finished goods aboard a ship packed tighter and already finished out and ready to sell when you arrive at your destination? This led to artisans springing up throughout the colonies, turning cities like Boston and New York into major centers of trade. Ships come in and drop off raw materials, then load finished goods and head for Europe. So prevalent was this trade that one of the early currencies of the United States was the Spanish Peso along with the British Pound.It should be noted that while slavery was legal in the colonies, they weren’t near as profitable as they were in the Caribbean. Sugar plantations in Cuba and Haiti were making absurds amount of money, but were also working slaves to death, so much so they required regular shipments from Africa. A slave could thank their lucky stars if they made it to America, because the alternative was a slow, brutal death in the sugar cane fields. The reason slaves weren’t as profitable, however, had to do with another resource that would become much more important later on: cotton. American cotton grows very well, but has the problem of being full of seeds that must be combed through by hand, a process that takes a long time to do successfully. It wasn’t until 1793 that the cotton gin game along, which let one person do the work of several people when it came to sifting the seeds from cotton. But that was only the beginning of things.About this time, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to kick off in Europe, led predominantly by the British. British textiles were very in demand, and that required a lot of raw materials. The United States happened to now have a method of producing lots of cotton very quickly, and so suddenly slaves were worth a lot more money to pick and prepare cotton. This was both good and bad, as slavery had been a hot-button topic since the Constitution was ratified, and what had once been a dying institution was now rejuvenated. Farmers and plantation owners in the American south would grow the cotton, which would be transported aboard northern vessels over to England, where it would be sold for goods to bring home. This was fine until the United States started expanding states west, and the contention came in. The states that would go on to form the Confederate States of America believed their cotton was king, and that without it the entire world would come to a screeching halt. I’ll let the events from 1861 to 1865 show how wrong that assumption was to be.The American Civil War wound up costing the south both in terms of infrastructure, prestige, and even their economy, as Britain had used the war to burn through their stockpiles of cotton and develop sources in Egypt and India, meaning that the south was now somewhat humbled and only able to really produce for the more local markets forming in New England states. Fortunately for the nation at large, California and the New Mexico territories were proving to be literal gold mines, along with silver and other valuable metals, leading to the creation of a new mint in San Francisco to handle the influx of gold and silver instead of shipping it all the way back east, at least until 1905 when an earthquake ended that. Still, it was a fairly good time all around.So now we’re into the early 20th century, and great changes are afoot. The Spanish Empire is a shadow of its former self, defeated by the United States and now possessing almost no overseas colonies of value. Britain had a new rival in the form of Otto von Bismark’s united Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was starting to implode under its bloated and ineffective leadership. Europe was starting to be bound together in a spider’s web of alliances. America was isolationist but was beginning to see a golden age as new technologies, industries, and culture was sweeping the nation. You had the major industrial titans like John D. Rockefeller, Stanley Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were building industrial empires the world had never seen before and wouldn’t see on that scale again for decades. These were the kinds of people who could make or break political institutions, and often did. Then a teenager in Sarajevo shot an Archduke, and the world went to war.While the United States wasn’t directly involved in the fighting until later in the war, industrial output rose to meet the demands of an industrial war. The United States made a lot of money on the Allies requesting arms and supplies, and none of it led to damage to the American homeland. All the profits of war without any of the costly side effects like what was seen in France. With so many people working, it led to lots of savings, and much of that industry was then turned towards consumer goods. The Roaring 20s saw unprecedented wealth and prosperity that looked like a nonstop party that would never end. Except that it did. And it did so in a bad way.When the Great Depression hit, it was a massive reset button for the entire economy. Whole sectors shut down, and millions were out of work and desperate for anything they could get their hands on. This would last for years until Herbert Hoover’s plans were fully implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt to create the New Deal, which began to put people back to work across the nation. Schools, infrastructure, art, anything that could put people to work doing something to earn a paycheck. There were other benefits too, such as the creation of social security and other programs to protect people as they got older and couldn’t work. Slowly but surely, the nation began to pick itself up, dust off its shoulders, and get back to work. It also helped there was an insane little man running around Germany striking up support for a new war, which when it kicked off in 1939 led to Great Britain begging for aid from the United States, creating more work and putting the country on a faster track towards recovery. Things were looking up.December 7, 1941. The Empire of Japan launches a secret attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack catches the United States off guard, and immediately spurs the nation to a war footing. Men either volunteer or are drafted into service, leading to women at home taking up the work. For four long, grueling years, the United States begins to churn out goods for the war effort on a titanic scale. Entire ships to carry troops to the fight are built in days from top to bottom. Vehicles are rolled off the line and into large yards until they’re loaded up and shipped overseas. Millions of rounds of ammunition are churned out and sent off to England, Africa, Italy, Midway, the Solomons, the Philippines. Consumer goods are rationed, and service men are drawing checks that they have nothing to spend on, and so everyone involved in the war is forced to save money.This leads to the greatest period of personal wealth in United States history as millions of service men return home with cash to burn and an eagerness to start families. Vehicles built for war are now sold for pennies on the dollar, and the industries that had once been geared towards war were now producing goods for consumer use for cheap. Coupled with a demand for housing that was truly epic in scale, and it led to a boom time for the United States throughout the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Unemployment was low, goods were cheap, and advertisement throughout the era promoted the good life with new appliances like Frigidaire refrigerators and the latest Pontiac or Chevrolet. Sure, there were minor conflicts in Korea and a few issues with the Russians, but honestly, we were allies! What could possibly go wrong?Welcome to the Atomic era, with the United States and NATO on one side of the Iron Curtain, and the Soviets and the WARSAW pack on the other. Sprinkle a few ex-Nazi scientists around, and you have the beginnings of a new age, full of wonderful possibilities as the United States and Soviets try to win a cold war of ideology. Europe was split between the capitalist west and the socialist east, and they had to tread very, very carefully to avoid getting caught in the middle. This was exacerbated by numerous socialist and communist parties springing up in France along with groups in Britain that were wanting a more socialist lifestyle. The United States was staunchly anti-communist, so it was rather embarrassing when the island of Cuba off the cost of Florida decided to go red. The United States and the Soviet Union both had missiles aimed at each other at point blank range and were both willing to go to war if need be. This would spark the beginnings of a decades long feud between the two superpowers that wouldn’t end until the late 80’s, early 90’s.During this era, the United States saw its economy start to falter as the 60’s moved on into the 70’s, dominated by the corruption of Nixon, the clumsiness of Ford, and the meek Carter. Lyndon Johnson had rammed home Kennedy’s civil rights reforms, and the nation had taken a dip as civil rights became a major political issue. Nixon’s travels to China had gone a long way to opening up trade, which would eventually see the rise of China as a rival economic power to the United States in the late 90’s and early 00’s. There were numerous issues that plagued the nation and none of the leadership really had much of a firm answer for them, especially given the hard losses of the Vietnam War and the dramatic counter culture that arose and was challenging the status quo. That would change when a true Republican, someone who would not back down in the face of the Soviets stood up, squared his jaw, and with a bold determination… started to negotiate with them. Reagan wasn’t a perfect president but he was the kind of person to reflect the change in American ideology going into the 80’s. After a lackluster 70’s, the United States was rather surprising in how much of a turn around it had, and saw a major boost in its overall economy as the nation shifted from an industrial power to a service industry, relying more on banking and services than producing goods in a factory.Then, the world was treated to the Soviet Union’s dissolvement. A decades long enemy suddenly melted before their eyes. It was an amazing feeling. Without lifting a finger, the United States defeated their long time foe, and everyone had a chance to celebrate. The 1990’s were a strange yet awesome decade to be alive in. While George H.W. Bush wasn’t as popular as Reagan was, his successor, Bill Clinton, would go a long way to really showing how much different the United States was even from a few years prior. Computers were now not only a staple of business was a necessity. The internet came along, providing new opportunities and growth in ways no one could predict. It was a time to throw away the trappings of old and embrace the coming millennium. Nothing could stop us now!September 11, 2001. The beginning of the War on Terror that would involve the United States in its second war with Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, and getting groped at the airport after taking your shoes off for millions of Americans. The attacks brought with them a lot of changes in American attitudes that differed wildly from the 90’s. Gone were the winds of change, and in its place was a paranoia and fear of what would happen next. Unlike World War II, these enemies weren’t wearing standard uniforms or marching through countries. They were using dirty tactics to attack civilian targets, something that was supposed to happen far away in the Middle East. This would be a devastating but not insurmountable problem to overcome, but it would pale in comparison to what was coming, and this time it would be Americans doing it to themselves.In 2006, the United States housing market was at its peak. The exact causes vary, but it is generally attributed to deregulation of banking, risky loans, and CEOs believing the good times would never, ever end. That’s asking for trouble, and it happened in 2008 when the market collapsed. The implosion sent shockwaves throughout the world as suddenly it wasn’t just homes that were dropping in price, but the demand for new homes and the goods and services surrounding them. This caused a huge impact worldwide, one that we still feel to this day. As is the case with so many other blows to the American economy, it has and will get better.The take away from all this is that the United States has benefitted from each crisis in some form or fashion by the events that follow. Between it’s size, resources, and stability, many nations feel that investments in the United States are safer than other places, their location makes it ideal for trade, and the scope of that much power leads to that power perpetuating itself through internal investments and investments in outside markets. Being the biggest fish in the pond means there’s little to pull you down. This leads to the average American to have more money and more prosperity by virtue of where the U.S. happens to be at this point in history.