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Road to Present Day
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Oklahoma City Bombing
A truck bomb destroyed the Alfred Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people and injuring 600 more. This was work of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nicholas, associated with white nationalist groups. They tapped into the anger of whites on the right over taxes, immigration, and federal regulations of western lands. These men were military trained and had high powered weapons. This made the country consider the impacts of terrorist both foreign and domestic. ( -
Communications Decency Act (CDA)
This law was designed to regulate and monitor the content of their televisions to prevent kids from watching dangerous shows. It used a V-Chip that was $5. This is a way of censorship and bias because it censors free speech and provides excessive power over content. This also gave comfort to parents at home who did not want to expose certain ideas to their children. Since Clinton did not like same-sex marriage this was one way to censor this off of peoples television. (Kruse Zelizer 218) -
Clinton Impeached
Clinton was impeached after a long investigation and was one of two presidents at the time to be impeached. He was impeached by the House of Representatives because he had an affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Also, he was lying under oath and caused an obstruction of justice. Clinton gained a lot of accusations, but in the end he admitted to the personal affair but denied the criminal wrongdoings. (Kruse Zelizer 226) -
Y2K
The year 2000 was the fear and anxiety that was built up leading to the new year of 2000. People feared that the computers would have a bug and shut the entire system down, cause power outages, transportation would shut down and banks would start to close. Though this created a lot of fear there was no shut down of computers, but this anxiety did create problems such as the economy slowing down. (Kruse Zelizer 237) -
Bush v. Gore
This was the election between Gore and Bush. It was one of the closest elections in history because they were neck and neck and needed Florida vote to determine the winner. They made Florida recount the votes and it led to Bush winning the election. This race to win the election led to the country dividing further because of how many voters wanted either candidate. (Kruse Zelizer 241) -
9/11
9/11 was a horrific, large-scale attack on the twin towers in New York. This attack was a challenge for the psyche of the nation and a national security issue. The twin towers fell killing 3,000 people and injuring more from terrorist hijacking four airplanes. Planes hit New York City and Washington D.C. These attacks led to wars with Afghanistan and Iraq and was a turning point in US history. (Kruse Zelizer 243, 250) -
Patriot Act
This was a law that was passed in response of 9/11 terrorist attack. It was a law that expanded the ability of the government to monitor people to prevent future terrorist attacks. This was passed by the house and at first Americans liked the security btu then they started to worry about how much they government could see from the citizens. This act proved how the American government is willing to take the measures to protect its national security. (Kruse Zelizer 257-259) -
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
This was a law that was put in place to help fund education. NCLB made sure schools went through rigorous standards with subjects, so all children met the same goal. Schools have to meet an achievement level or else they will lose federal funding. The law passed through the house by a wide margin but later Bush cuts its funding and people started to questions the governments care and commitment to public education. (Kruse Zelizer 248) -
Hurricane Katrina
This was a category 5 hurricane that struck the gulf coast. After the hurricane it was proved the most expensive natural disaster estimated to be $180 billion and deadliest with 1,833 deaths. The emergency help was slow, and relief centers were very poorly made. Most people that were affected by the hurricane were blacks and poor people. Since emergency help was slow people started the question the governments care for protecting citizens after a natural disaster. (Kruse Zelizer 281) -
10. LGBTQ Rights / Same-Sex Marriage
LGBTQ Rights have grown more liberal but also this called for a fight for marriage equality. The Bush administration wanted to keep it as it was before and wanted to ban same-sex marriage. In Obergefell v. Hodges court case, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples has the conditional right to get married in all 50 states. This was a big step for the LGBTQ community. (Kruse Zelizer 270-273)