By the beginning of the twentieth century, America already had a reputation for stock speculation, but the Roaring Twenties set new records.
Unusually heavy rainfall led to widespread flooding in the Mississippi Valley in 1927. The Coolidge Administration's Secretary of Everything, Herbert Hoover, was tasked with flood relief. What kind of relief you got depended heavily on your skin color.
Meanwhile, a different sort of flood was rising on the New York Stock Exchange.
Five years into his premiership, Mussolini ruled over a one-party state. He projected an image of il Duce, the tireless, indispensable leader of the Italian people as he cracked down on dissent at home and unrest in Libya.
Although Mussolini had come to power by legal means, he soon cast the moment as a Fascist revolution, and pushed for changes to the electoral system that would tighten the Fascist grip on the country.