On March 21, 2010 – President Obama’s much anticipated victory on health reform was passed. This carries enormous consequences for American business, the economy, social policy and politics. Costing the US government hundreds of billions of dollars.
Many times we (the American public) is fed a story that tries to justify an action. However, knowledge as to whether or not this story is the sole reason or for that matter or even the most important one is often unattainable. Capitalism has a large influence on world events and should be taken into account when analyzing them.
The history of America can be said to be the history of the struggles of black people in America. Out of the many symbolic items out there, none can be as symbolic as the southern cotton fields, which served as the social and economical prison for many black slaves for generations.
On August 6th and 9th of 1945, United States dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15th, Japan had announced its surrender to the Allied Powers.
Women fought a long and hard battle to gain the right to vote. It wasn’t until 1920 that women were guaranteed the suffrage with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
The Vietnam War cost American taxpayers about $150 billion (historic). Over 2 million men and women served during the war and about 58,000 were killed as a result of the war. Many soldiers came home disabled for life, some lost limbs and some were poisoned by chemicals like Agent Orange. Others returned from the war addicted to drugs and many suffered mental problems as a result of their participation in the war.
The stock market crash on October 24, 1929 is remembered as one of the most devastating event in Wall Street history. In the weeks leading up to the crash, the market was very unstable.A record of 12.9 million shares were traded on that day .The Dow Jones Industrial Average partially recovered in November- December 1929 and early 1930; however reversed and crashed again.The crash began a 12 year depression that would plague the nation. People came to remember this day as Black Thursday in America and Black Friday in Europe. Combined the stock market crash and the Great Depression caused the biggest financial crisis of the 20th century.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of most important presidents in American history. His New Deak saved American people from the great depression in 1940, because of that he became the only one president who had three presidency in American history.
Barack Obama who is the 44th and current President of the United States. Also he is the first African American President in the history of United States.
In 1961, the United States enters the Vietnam War allied with Southern Vietnam to fight off the communistic Northern Vietnam. The United States wanted to contain and stop communism from expanding. This later goes in history as America’s first loss in a war.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed this bill , which brought huge numbers of new immigration from non-European nations and changed the ethnic make-up of the US.
Every so often, a piece of information comes along that, for whatever reason, triggers my interest in a manner just slightly different than the rest of the nonsense that floats by my mind day in and day out. From the looks of it, Eric Foner’s review of David Blight’s “Race and Reunion” very well just may be one of those sparks (whether or not Foner is just that good of a writer… well, that we’ll just have to wait and find out).
I’d never given much thought to the idea that history is so dependent on the memory of whoever writes it, or the extent to which it can be ‘manipulated’ by any particular bais – that, even what we’ve always regarded as fact can also have 2 (or more) sides to the story. What I found to be the clearest example of this was when Foner writes of the “Ironies”, that, “Abounded in the triumph of the reconciliationist outlook.” Particularly that, “Even Memorial Day, which had begun in 1865 when thousands of black South Carolinians laid flowers on the graves of Union soldiers, soon became an occasion for expressions of white nationalism and reconciliation.”
As far as I can see from this review, Blight seems to portray quite strongly the idea that History really is only as true as the memory of those who win the battle of having their side of the story brought to, believed, and accepted by the masses; and that may just be what it was about this review that seemed to spark my interest.
-C. Salama
The United States gained Puerto Rico and Guam form the Spanish-American War, and emerged from the Spanish-American War with new international power.
In Sept 11, 2001 the clash of the Twin Tower marked an important turning point of American History. Not only it took away about 3000 civilians’ life, it also led to the invasion of Iraq; the War of Terror; nation’s recession and many other indirect results.
The war was “cold” only in the sense that because they had nuclear weapons the two superpowers never confronted one another directly in open warfare. however, their global competition led to frequent world crises and regional confrontation on every continent.
Civil Rights Movement was an important turning point in American history because it resulted in significant changes for minority groups, such as passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 and others.
David Blight’s book sounds very interesting to me. I feel that if I open David Blight’s book I will be open to many different opinions as opposed to just the truth. One of the things that caught my own is when Blight claims that History is written by the people who won the war. This quote made me believe that everything I read in highschool was written by a biased opinion and this novel contains the truth about history and what happend behind closed doors. I believe this book is good for anyone who is interested in history or for someone who is open minded enough to hear the other side of the story and not just the usual stuff you learn in class.
The book review informs us that history needs to be written down in order for it to pass down in a truthful manner. As I mentioned earlier, many things we learn in History are biased and are written down by the people who were victorious. Blight explains that history makes the loser seem sort of like “the villain.”
An example of history that is remembered in many different ways is the war in Gaza between Israel and the Arabs. Many people who heard about the conflict from news stations such as CNN would believe that Israel had no right to defend itself, however many people would understand the situation and see that Hamas was launching Missiles into Israel at least 60 times a day. Today there are still many opinions regarding this conflict.
Different memories are politically motivated an example of this is World War 2. The Germans believed they were right while back in the U.S. Americans believe they had a right to join the war.
The Great Depression is an important turning point in American History because it had an heavy impact on all American lives. Unemployment,starvation, lack of shelter affected many people in America both mentally and physically.
