Journalist Tom Brokaw called the generation of Americans that lived through the Great Depression and fought the Second World War the “Greatest Generation.”  Is there something about the Depression that made those people more motivated to sacrifice for the rest of the world by the 1940s?

The largest and most extensive economic downturn in the 20th century is referred to as the Great Depression. The period known as the Great Depression coincided with America's involvement in the second world war. Various economic crises, such as the stock market collapse & banking issues, happened during the time of the Great Depression. This Great Depression is frequently cited by historians & scholars as being one of the biggest devastating economic crises of the twentieth century.