The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval engagement between Japan and a combined US and Australian force. It was the first battle in which the opposing fleets never sighted or fired on each other, because both sides attacked from carriers over the horizon. Japan aimed to seize Port Moresby and Tulagi to secure its southern flank, but the US had learned of the plan through signals intelligence. Both sides lost aircraft and carriers were damaged or sunk, and the Japanese recalled their invasion fleet. Although Japan sank more ships, the battle is usually seen as a strategic Allied win because it halted a major Japanese advance for the first time.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.