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Rise of computers/the internet
The public was introduced to the concepts that would lead to the internet in the 1950s. A message was sent over the ARPANet from the University of California, Los Angeles. The internet was commercialized in 1995, allowing everyone to use it. -
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Energy Crisis
The Energy Crisis of the 1970s was a period of time where the economies of major industrial companies worldwide were heavily affected and faced a lot of petroleum shortages and raised prices.
The event was important in that the peak of this crisis in 1979 was a cause of the Iranian Revolution, the oil exports being inconsistent and at a lower volume. -
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Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States and the only president to resign from office.
Richard Nixon was important due to the Watergate Scandal he was a part of in his presidency, dealing a major blow to his credibility and leading him to be the only president to ever resign from office -
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Watergate Scandal
The watergate scandal was a political scandal that involved people breaking and entering the Democratic National Comittee headquarters at the Watergate complex, and the Nixon adminstration's attempted cover-up.
This event was important as the ending result of this results in the only instance where a president has resigned from office -
Munich Olympics Massacre
During the 1972 Olympics in Munich Germany 11 members of the Israeli olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed alongside a German police officer by a palestinian group called "Black September" demanding the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails. -
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Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford was the 38th president of the United States. He is especially known as being the only person who became both the vice president and the president without being appointed by the electoral college. He presided over the worst economy since the Great Depression and made a controversial move of pardoning Richard Nixon -
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Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States. His accomplishments of his presidency include a treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the Panama Canal treaties, and the establishment of US diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.
Jimmy Carter championed human rights throughout the world during his presidency. -
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Iran Hostage Crisis
The Iran Hostage Crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the US where 52 americans were held hostage for 444 days after a group of Islamist students and militants in support of the Iranian Revolution invaded the US embassy in Tehran.
The event was very important in the US as it was seen as a breach of international law that granted diplomats immunity from arrest, it was broadcasted how many days the hostages were being held every day on the news. -
The "Miracle on Ice" Olympic Hockey team
The 1980s olympic hockey team was comprised of only amateurs and collegiate players, and they unbelievably defeated the Soviet team, who had won neatly every world championship and olympic tournament since 1954. The US team went on to win the Gold Medal by beating Finland afterwards -
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Discovery of AIDS
AIDS was first observed in 1981, with a bunch of drug users and homosexuals suffering very rare diseases only supposed to be afflicting people with compromised immune systems, while these people had no known cause of impaired immune systems. It was originally called GRID, which was called gay related immune deficency, however after seeing these conditions happen in non homosexual people, the term AIDS was introduced and used in 1982. -
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Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. He was very popular partly due to his previous roles in movies, being an avid actor. He dealt with a lot in his presidency, including surviving an assassination attempt, ending the cold war, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. He still ranks highly in public opinion polls of US presidents. -
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Iran-Contra affair
The Iran-Contra affair was a political scandal involving the Reagan administration. The US governemnt was selling arms to Iran despite an arms embargo that was being issued for Iran. The scandal started out initially as a way to trade for American hostages. After investigation, they could not prove Reagan knew anything about this, though people still wonder if "Big, strong Reagan" could resist an opprtunity to save american hostages. -
Challenger explosion
The space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into flight, leading to the deaths of all 7 of the crew members on board. The disintegration of the craft was caused by a simple O-seal coming loose, allowing the hot gas to get outside the vessel, some of the crew survived the initial disintegration, but the impact into the ocean was too violent to be survivable. Due to this accident, the shuttle program was put on a 32 month hiatus. -
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident and the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. The fight to contain the contamination costed over 18 billion rubles and had 500,000 men working on it, and the long term effects are still being felt today in europe and western USSR. -
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George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush was the 41st President of the United States. Foreign policy was the main concern of Bush, with military operations in Panama and the Gulf, the Berlin Wall being torn down, and the Soviet Union dissolving. However he went back on one of his campaign promises, raising taxes when he said he wouldn't and essentially opening up the way for his next opponent, Bill Clinton, to take his second term away from him. -
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Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall occurred in Novemeber 9 1989 when the East German Government announced that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. This was due to the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in nearby pro-soviet governments. People began chipping away at the wall, paving way for German Reunification which was formerly concluded on october 3, 1990 -
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Operation Desert Storm
Operation Desert Storm was initiated after Operation Desert Shield, when Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iran, invaded Kuwait and in turn, Saudi Arabia. The UN would not stand for this, and 500,000 american troops were deployed in the Saudis in case of attack. After an ultimatum to leave Kuwait was ignored by Saddam, Desert Shirld became Desert Storm as the US airbombed and later began ground fighting, Within 100 hours of the ground fighting Kuwait was declared as liberated.