1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act. The WPA, the Public Works Administration and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the United States in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone. Jobs ranged from building highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds, to restored theaters. The WPA also built the ski lodge at Oregon’s Mt. Hood, hired actors, writers and other creative arts professionals for federally funded plays and art projects, such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. The ecnoomy had rebounded by 1940 and by 1943 Congress suspended the WPA and many other ERA Act programs.
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