-
Period: to
Present
-
Collapse of the Soviet Union
In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Sov -
Third Party Candidates
Responding to stepped-up criticism from Republicans and Democrats that he would use his vast wealth to buy the election, Ross Perot said today that he had achieved parity with the major Presidential contenders while spending less than one-tenth of what they had. "The Democrats have spent $17 million so far," Mr. Perot told a crowd of about 3,000 supporters gathered at an abandoned bank building here. "The Republicans have spent $17 million. All of you put together have spent $1.4 million." -
Greenpeace
In 1971, motivated by their vision of a green and peaceful world, a small team of activists set sail from Vancouver, Canada in an old fishing boat. These activists, the founders of Greenpeace, believed a few individuals could make a difference. -
Sierra Club
For most of the first four decades of the twentieth century, the Sierra Club encouraged and developed new and more sophisticated techniques for wilderness recreation. In the 1930s Club members began to discuss the right uses for this technology. For instance, David Brower criticized skiers who "admired their apparel, while the peaks went unnoticed . . . Now men ski superbly," he wrote, "but what have they lost?" Ski resorts were, after all, practice slopes for something better. -
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States -
WTO
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. -
Sonya Sotomayor
Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. Sotomayor is the Court's 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice. -
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which commits its Parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of "common but differentiat -
Donald Rumsfield
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. -
International Criminal Court
The history of the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) spans over more than a century. The “road to Rome” was a long and often contentious one. While efforts to create a global criminal court can be traced back to the early 19th century, the story began in earnest in 1872 with Gustav Moynier – one of the founders of the International Committee of the Red Cross – who proposed a permanent court in response to the crimes of the Franco-Prussian War. The next serious call for an i -
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 -
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. -
Hilary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat who was the 67th United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, serving under President Barack Obama. She was previously a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. -
9/11
The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th, or 9/11[nb 1]) were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks launched by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. area on September 11, 2001.
Four passenger airliners were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists so they could be flown into buildings in suicide attacks. Two of those planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashe -
USA Patriot Act
The purpose of the USA PATRIOT Act is to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes, some of which include to strengthen U.S. measures to prevent, detect and prosecute international money laundering and financing of terrorism subject to special scrutiny foreign jurisdictions, foreign financial institutions, and classes of international transactions or types of accounts that are susceptible to crim -
Hurricane Katrina
Early in the morning on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. When the storm made landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale--it brought sustained winds of 100–140 miles per hour--and stretched some 400 miles across. The storm itself did a great deal of damage, but its aftermath was catastrophic. Levee breaches led to massive flooding, and many people charged that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the peo -
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2008
On February 13, 2009, in direct response to the economic crisis and at the urging of President Obama, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- commonly referred to as the "stimulus" or the "stimulus package." Four days later, the President signed the Recovery Act into law. The three immediate goals of the Recovery Act are create new jobs and save existing ones spur economic activity and invest in long-term growth and foster unprecedented levels of accountability and -
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of al-Qaeda, the militant Islamist organization that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous
