5 points
On a sunny day in early March 1921, Warren G. Harding took the oath to
a
become the 29th president of the United States. He had won a landslide
election by promising a "return to normalcy." The nation still reeled from
the shock of (A), the explosion of racial violence and political repression in
1919, and, a lingering (B) sparked by the Russian Revolution of 1917. More
than 115,000 American soldiers had lost their lives in barely a year of
fighting in Europe. Then, between 1918 and 1920, nearly 700,000
Americans died in a flu pandemic that hit nearly 20% of the American
population. After wartime controls and production fell, the economy went
into a (C). The war's end was accompanied by labor turmoil, as workers
demanded union recognition, shorter hours, and raises exceeding the
inflation rate. Over 4 million workers--one fifth of the nation's workforce--
participated in (D) in 1919. Many Americans turned their back on political
and economic reform, denounced America's shifting demographics,
stifled immigration, and revived the Ku Klux Klan with millions of new
members. Congress responded to the nation's growing (E) by passing the
Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and National Origins Act of 1924. The 1920s
were a decade of conflict and tension. But whatever it was, it was not
"normalcy."