1936–1945 · Global · Trade
The Great Depression and wartime planning accelerated macroeconomics, national-income accounting and new arguments for public employment, social insurance and economic stabilization.
Atlas dossier · World WarsFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
The Great Depression and wartime planning accelerated macroeconomics, national-income accounting and new arguments for public employment, social insurance and economic stabilization.
John Maynard Keynes · Simon Kuznets · civil servants · workers · welfare-state advocates
Governments gained new tools for measuring economies and responding to crises, though policy choices remained contested across countries and social groups.
Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
1938–1945 · EuropeNuclear fission and the nuclear ageResearchers showed that splitting some atomic nuclei released enormous energy, leading rapidly to reactors and atomic weapons during the Second World War.
1931–1945 · AsiaThe Asia-Pacific War and NanjingJapanese imperial expansion in Manchuria and China widened into a devastating Asia-Pacific war. The Nanjing Massacre of 1937–38 was one of its most notorious episodes of mass killing, sexual violence and terror against civilians and prisoners.
1928–1945 · EuropePenicillin and antibioticsFleming’s observation and the later development of penicillin opened the antibiotic era, making many bacterial infections treatable for the first time.