Era 11
Contemporary United States
(1992 to Present)
Scaffolding
Era 11 – Contemporary United States
(1992 to Present) Lesson Plan
•
May 15 and 16 - Instructor will scaffold all of the standards, topic areas.
Basic preview.
•
May 16- 27- Students will pick 5 topics - 1 topic from each of the 5
Standards and begin research. You will have 5 in class days to
research and 1 day to finish the I-Movie and put it in the correct You
Tube Channel.
•
Project will be an I-Movie, and you must voice over. Music as a back
ground is acceptable, but you must voice over- use a script. The Media
Center Computer lab is at our disposal for a quiet place to record.
•
It must last between 5-10 min. (Max).
•
Starting on May 27 - Projects must be placed in Mr. Cook’s You Tube
Channel- cook americanhistory channel file for class viewing by Mr.
Cook and the rest of your classmates. Check your Canvas and my
website for the link
•
Projects are due on the Semester test day. Worth 100 points
•
All students must view and peer evaluate 12 I-Movies of their class
mates on the Semester test day. This will be worth 24 points. Check
Canvas and my website for the link.
•
The following is a very good website to help you get started on the
information for your presentation.
•
http://stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net/timelines/Timeline_US_hist_1990pres.html
Points for Project and Peer Evaluations.
Era 11- Presentation Rubric
Name -______________________________________________________
Period-_____________________________
Total time-_________________________________________ (5-10 min.)
Standard #1
20
15
10
5
0
15
10
5
0
15
10
5
0
15
10
5
0
15
10
5
0
Standard #2
20
Standard #3
20
Standard #4
20
Standard #5
20
Total - ______/100_____
Grade-_______________
Comments:
Peer Evaluation is worth 24 points- 2 points per peer observation.
Era 11 – Contemporary United States
You Tube channel instructions
Do not put your movie into the Mr. Cook’s You Tube channel before May 27. We want to make sure
you are doing it correctly. I
Direction for the Era 11 Project
•
Create an I-Movie on the 5 topics from Era 11- This will be explained in detail on May 15Thurs.
•
Once the I-Movie is completed you must \upload your I-Movie to our class YouTube channel.
We will begin this process on May 27. Period 5 and 7 must have their I-Movie uploaded by
class time on May 29th. Periods 2 and 4 must have their I-Movie uploaded by class time on
May 30th.


User name- cookamhistory@gmail.com
Password- gohawks2014
•
Video settings: Title of the video is your last name and period (ex.- Smith period 2)
•
Recommended- that you use the large size.
•
Make the video public
•
Share your video. It will take some min. to share. So leave it alone to load.
Semester Test day- Period 5 and 7- Thurs May 29:
Period 2 and 4- Friday May 30
•
On the semester test date you will go to our classroom YouTube channel to view and
evaluate 12 of your peers' I-Movies. Do not do this beforehand or you will be redoing it
on paper on the semester test date!!!
•
Only periods 2 and 4 Trapshooting and FFA will be allowed to do this form before Friday
May 30th

To go to the classroom YouTube channel.- Click on this link
 To provide the feedback for the 12 random peer videos from your class, you will fill out
a Google Form.
•
•
•
•
Periods 5 and 7, you need to complete this feedback on Thurs. May 29th of people just in your
period.
Periods 2 and 4 you will need to complete this form on May 30th of people just in your period
If you are in trapshooting or FFA you must complete this form by Friday May 30 by 12:00 noon(you may use any periods I-Movies).
To get to the form - Click on this link-
Standard 1 - Recent developments in foreign
events/policies
•
Benchmark 1A. The student understands the causes of global conflict
and its impact on the United States. Including and not limited to the
following areas:
 Persian Gulf Wars- 1 and 2 ( Desert Storm and Iraqi
Freedom- WMD’s) Sadaam Hussein and Iraq
 War in Afghanistan
 World Terrorism-, Libya- Quaddaffi, World Trade Center.
Yemen, Al Qaeda- Osama, Taliban, Boston Marathon
•
Benchmark 1B. The student understands the role of the United States
as it relates to various contemporary global initiatives. Including and not
limited to the following areas:






Nelson Mandela- apartheid
Noriega and Panama-Operation Just Cause
Somalia
Rwanda Genocide
Kosovo- Bosnia
Chechnya- Chechen Republic
Persian Gulf War- #1 – Operation Desert Storm
The Persian Gulf War was an International conflict triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in
August 1990.
•
Though justified by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on grounds that Kuwait was historically
part of Iraq, the invasion was presumed to be motivated by Iraq's desire to acquire
Kuwait's rich oil fields and expand its power in the region.
•
The United States, fearing Iraq's broader strategic intentions and acting under UN
auspices, eventually formed a broad coalition, which included a number of Arab
countries, and began massing troops in northern Saudi Arabia.
•
When Iraq ignored a UN Security Council deadline for it to withdraw from Kuwait, the
coalition began a large-scale air offensive (Jan. 16–17, 1991).
•
Saddam responded by launching ballistic missiles against neighboring coalition states
as well as Israel.
•
A ground offensive by the coalition (February 24–28) quickly achieved victory.
•
Estimates of Iraqi military deaths range up to 100,000; coalition forces lost about 300
troops. The war also caused extensive damage to the region's environment.
•
The Iraqi regime subsequently faced widespread popular uprisings, which it brutally
suppressed.
•
A UN trade embargo remained in effect after the end of the conflict, pending Iraq's
compliance with the terms of the armistice.
•
The foremost term was that Iraq destroy its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons
programs.
•
The embargo continued into the 21st century and ceased only after the Iraq War started
in 2003.
Map
Transparency
22.3
The Persian Gulf War1991
• Interactive Map- page 712
 http://my.hrw.com/ss2/ss06_07_08/student/flash/
husace_fd_pergul2/map_viewer.html
Persian Gulf War- Iraqi Freedom- WMD’s, Sadaam Hussein
and Iraq today.
•
The war in Iraq began on March 19, 2003. It is now the longest military
conflict to involve the United States other than the Vietnam War.
•
It toppled the brutal authoritarian government of Saddam Hussein, but
unleashed a massive sectarian civil war. Shiite Arabs v. Sunni.
•
The war in Iraq has cost some 90,000 Iraqi lives.
•
It has taken the life of 4,298 coalition troops, among whom almost 4,000
Americans.
•
It has cost American taxpayers almost $700 billion and may cost up to $2
trillion if the occupation lasts another five years.
•
In 2002 and 2003, President George Bush cited the reasons for invasion as,

the possibility of Saddam Hussein acquiring weapons of chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons- but found none. WMD’s
 Hussein had direct ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization founded by
Osama bin Laden.
•
2007- Bush decided to increase troop levels in the country to 168,000.
Commonly called "the surge," the increase in troops helped General
Petraeus push forward with a strategy to set up small operating bases in
some of the most violent neighborhoods in Baghdad, contributing to the drop
in violence in those areas.
•
President Bush began lowering troop levels in late 2007
•
This conflict is still in progress.
War in Afghanistan
•
After 9/11, President George W. Bush gave the rulers of Afghanistan an ultimatum: hand
over the terrorists responsible for 9/11, or “share in their fate.”
•
The Taliban—the Islamic fundamentalists who ruled the country—refused to surrender
their ally, terrorist leader Osama bin-Laden.
•
Air strikes began on 10/7/01, less than a month after 9/11.
•
American, British and other soldiers fought together with Afghans opposed to the
Taliban. The goals: remove the Taliban from power, find bin-Laden and his lieutenants,
and destroy his organization, known as Al-Qaeda.
•
With the Taliban forced out of Kabul, with U.S. support a new government was installed,
Hamid Karzai as President.
•
The Taliban gradually rebuilt its fighting forces and carried out attacks against the new
government and American soldiers.
•
On 12/1/09, President Obama announced a new strategy: the rapid deployment of
30,000 additional troops, to break the Taliban’s momentum and turn the war around.
•
The Taliban has proven difficult to uproot. Nevertheless, after the assassination of
Osama bin-Laden in May, 2011, President Obama announced he would accelerate the
withdrawal of that American forces—reflecting, in part, America’s war-weariness and
lingering economic woes.
•
Three separate incidents during the early months of 2012 inflamed Afghans against the
American military.



First, four American Marines were videotaped urinating on the corpses of Taliban
insurgents.
Next, copies of the Koran were thrown into a trash incinerator on a U.S. military base—
inadvertently, a spokesman said. That incident set off violent riots, leaving 30 people
dead, including two American officers.
Finally, in March 2012, an American soldier went from house to house, murdered 16
Afghan villagers (many of them women and children), and burned some of their bodies. In
response to the incident, President Karzai demanded that the U.S. pull its troops out of
Afghan villages, back to military bases
World Terrorism- Libya- Gaddafi, World Trade Center
bombing. Yemen, Al Qaeda- Osama, Taliban; Boston
Marathon bombing
Muammar Gaddafi- Libya's dictator from 1969 to 2011. Gaddafi has provoked several incidents
with the US, one of which led to an American retaliatory bombing raid on his headquarters in Tripoli
on April 15, 1986. Gaddafi escaped with only minor injuries but his infant daughter was killed. In 1988
Libyan intelligence agents exploded a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing
over 200 people.
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, Gaddafi worked to improve his relationship
with the West. In exchange for his help in tracking down Islamic militants his government received
concessions from the West, including the easing of various restrictions placed against it due to his
terrorism of the 1980s.
In 2011, as part of the "Arab Spring", major civil unrest broke out in Libya aimed at removing Gaddafi
from power. Gaddafi began a violent and repressive campaign against his own people and a civil war
ensued, with Gaddafi forces on one side and rebels--a combination of students, ordinary people and
army defectors-with air and logistical support from NATO, on the other. After an eight-month civil war,
Gaddafi was captured by rebels in his hometown of Serte and soon afterward he was executed.
World Trade Center bombing- February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the
North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, NY. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–
hydrogen gas enhanced device[1] was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the
South Tower (Tower Two), bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people.[2][3] It
failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured more than a thousand. No connection to Al Qaeda or
Sadaam in Iraq.
Yemen- SEVENTEEN people died and 39 were injured in an attack on the American guided missile
destroyer, USS Cole, in Aden harbour, Yemen, on October 12, 2000. While the ship was refuelling
offshore, a small craft with two men on board - presumed to be suicide bombers - approached the
ship and exploded. The small boat is believed to have been packed with 400-700 pounds of
explosives, and the blast blew a 40-foot hole in the side of the USS Cole. In the months since the
bombing, there was been growing evidence that the attack had been orchestrated by Usama bin
Laden's al-Qa'ida network.
World Terrorism- Libya- Gaddafi, World Trade Center
bombing. Yemen, Al Qaeda- Osama, Taliban; Boston
Marathon bombing
Al Qaeda- Osama bin Laden- March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011- 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 other mass-casualty attacks
against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.
1979, when he joined the mujahideen forces in Pakistan against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the mujahideen by
funneling arms, money and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, also gaining popularity from many Arabs. In 1988, he
formed al-Qaeda. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of
bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted
Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was believed responsible for
the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001 and other terrorist acts.From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War
on Terror, with a US$25 million bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[ On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed
inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare
Development Group and Central Intelligence Agency operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack
Obama.
Taliban- is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan. It spread into Afghanistan and formed a government,
ruling as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until December 2001, While in power, it enforced its strict
interpretation of Sharia law, and leading Muslims have been highly critical of the Taliban's interpretations of Islamic law. The
Taliban were condemned internationally for their brutal treatment of women. Al Qaeda also supported the Taliban with regiments
of imported fighters from Arab countries and Central Asia. Saudi Arabia provided financial support. The Taliban and their allies
committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians and conducted a policy of
scorched earth, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes during their rule from 1996-2001.
Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee to United Front-controlled territory, Pakistan, and Iran. After the attacks of
September 11, 2001 the Taliban were overthrown by the American-led invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban have been accused
of using terrorism as a specific tactic to further their ideological and political goals.
Boston Marathon bombing-During the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, two pressure cooker bombs exploded at 2:49 p.m.
EDT (18:49 UTC), killing 3 people and injuring 264. The suspects were identified later that day as the brothers Dzhokhar and
Tamerlan Tsarnaev (/ˌdʒoʊˈxɑr ˌtsɑrˈnaɪ.ɛf/ djoh-khar tsahr-ny-ef, /ˌtæmərˈlɑːn/ ta-mər-lahn). Shortly after the FBI released the
images, the suspects allegedly killed an MIT police officer, carjacked an SUV, and initiated an exchange of gunfire with the police
in Watertown, Massachusetts. During the exchange, an MBTA police officer was critically injured, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed,
and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was injured and escaped. An unprecedented manhunt ensued on April 19, with thousands of police
searching a 20-block area of Watertown. During an initial interrogation in the hospital, Dzhokhar said Tamerlan was the
mastermind. He said they were motivated by extremist Islamist beliefs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that they were
self-radicalized and unconnected to any outside terrorist groups, but that they had learned how to build explosive devices from an
online magazine of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He said that he and his brother had decided after the Boston bombings to
travel to New York City to bomb Times Square. Dzhokhar was charged on April 22, while still in the hospital, with use of a weapon
of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death.
Nelson Mandela- apartheid
•
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela- South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and
politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He
was the first black South African to hold the office, and the first elected in a
fully representative, multiracial election. His government focused on
dismantling the legacy of apartheid.
•
Mandela served 27 years in prison, first on Robben Island, and later in
Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. An international campaign
lobbied for his release, which was granted in 1990.
•
Controversial for much of his life, right-wing critics denounced Mandela as a
terrorist and communist sympathiser. He has nevertheless received
international acclaim for his anti-colonial and anti-apartheid stance, having
received over 250 awards, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S.
Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Soviet Order of Lenin. He is held in
deep respect within South Africa as the "Father of the Nation" and is often
known under his Xhosa clan name of Madiba.
•
Apartheid- "the status of being apart") was a system of racial segregation
enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) governments, who
were the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, of South Africa, under which the
rights of the majority black inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and
white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained.
•
Non-white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and
starting in that year black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally
becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands
called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The
government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public
services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white
people.
Noriega and Panama-Operation Just Cause
The United States Invasion of Panama, code-named Operation Just Cause, was the invasion
of Panama by the United States in December 1989. It occurred during the administration
of U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and ten years after the Torrijos–Carter Treaties
were ratified to transfer control of the Panama Canal from the United States to Panama
by January 1, 2000.
During the invasion, de facto Panamanian leader, general, and dictator Manuel Noriega was
deposed, president-elect Guillermo Endara sworn into office, and the Panamanian
Defense Force dissolved.
The official U.S. justification for the invasion was articulated by President George H. W. Bush
on the morning of December 20, 1989, a few hours after the start of the operation. Bush
listed four reasons for the invasion:
1.
Safeguarding the lives of U.S. citizens in Panama. In his statement, Bush claimed that
Noriega had declared that a state of war existed between the U.S. and Panama and
that he threatened the lives of the approximately 35,000 U.S. citizens living there.
There had been numerous clashes between U.S. and Panamanian forces; one U.S.
Marine had been killed a few days earlier.
2.
Defending democracy and human rights in Panama.
3.
Combating drug trafficking. Panama had become a center for drug money laundering
and a transit point for drug trafficking to the U.S. and Europe.
4.
Protecting the integrity of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties. Members of Congress and
others in the U.S. political establishment claimed that Noriega threatened the neutrality
of the Panama Canal and that the U.S. had the right under the treaties to intervene
militarily to protect the canal.
Somalia
•
•
•
•
•
The United States Army has a long tradition of humanitarian relief.
No such operation has proven as costly or shocking, however, as
that undertaken in Somalia from August 1992 to March 1994.
Greeted initially by Somalis happy to be saved from starvation,
U.S. troops were slowly drawn into interclan power struggles and
ill-defined "nation-building" missions. The American people woke
up one day in early October 1993 to news reports of dozens of
our soldiers killed or wounded in fierce fighting in the streets of
the capital city Mogadishu. These disturbing events of a decade
ago have taken on increasing meaning after the horrific attacks of
11 September 2001.
The Army began by assisting in relief operations in Somalia, but
by December 1992 it was deeply engaged on the ground in
Operation RESTORE HOPE in that chaotic African country.
In the spring of the following year, the initial crisis of imminent
starvation seemed to be over, and the U.S.-led Unified Task
Force (UNITAF) turned over the mission to the United Nations,
leaving only a small logistical, aviation, and quick reaction force
behind to assist.
The American public seemed to forget about Somalia. That sense
of "mission accomplished" made the evens of 3-4 October 1993
more startling, as Americans reacted to the spectacle of dead
U.S. soldiers being dragged through the streets by cheering
Somali mobs-the very people Americans thought they had
rescued from starvation.
Rwanda Genocide
•
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of
Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by the Hutu dominated
government under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately
100 days, or more, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on April 6
through mid-July, at least 500,000 people were killed, according to the estimate
of Human Rights Watch. As the brutal killings continued, the world stood idly by
and just watched the slaughter
•
Other estimates of the death toll have ranged between 500,000 and
1,000,000,[2] (a commonly quoted figure is 800,000), or as much as 20% of the
total population of the country.
•
In 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group, composed mostly of
Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda. The Rwandan Civil War,
fought between the Hutu regime, with support from Francophone nations of
Africa and France itself, and the RPF, with support from Uganda, vastly
increased the ethnic tensions in the country and led to the rise of Hutu Power.
•
As an ideology, Hutu Power asserted that the Tutsi intended to enslave Hutus
and thus must be resisted at all costs. Despite continuing ethnic strife, including
the displacement of large numbers of Hutu in the north by the rebels and
periodic localized extermination of Tutsi to the south, pressure on the
government of Juvénal Habyarimana resulted in a cease-fire in 1993 and the
preliminary implementation of the Arusha Accords.
•
The assassination of Habyarimana in April 1994 was the proximate cause of the
mass killings of Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus. They were carried out primarily by
two Hutu militias associated with political parties: the Interahamwe and the
Impuzamugambi. The genocide was directed by a Hutu power group known as
the Akazu. The killing also marked the end of the peace agreement meant to end
the war and the Tutsi RPF restarted their offensive, eventually defeating the
army and seizing control of the country.
Kosovo- Bosnia
The Bosnian War, sometimes referred to as the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Civil War,
was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1 March 1992 and 14
December 1995. The war involved several factions. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and those of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, who were led and supplied by Serbia and
Croatia respectively.
The war came about as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian
secessions from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was inhabited by Muslim Bosniaks (44 percent), Orthodox Serbs (31 percent)
and Catholic Croats (17 percent), passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992. This was
rejected by the political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs, who had boycotted the referendum and
established their own republic. Following the declaration of independence, the Bosnian Serbs, supported by
the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), mobilized their forces
inside the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to secure Serbian territory, then war soon broke out
across the country, accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Bosniak population, especially in
eastern Bosnia.
It was principally a territorial conflict, initially between the Serb forces mostly organized in the Army of
Republika Srpska (VRS) on the one side, and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH)
which was largely composed of Bosniaks, and the Croat forces in the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) on the
other side. The Croats also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian. The war was
characterized by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing and systematic
mass rape, mostly led by Serb and, to a lesser extent, Croat forces. Events such as the Siege of Sarajevo and
the Srebrenica massacre would become iconic of the conflict.
The Serbs, although initially superior due to the vast amount of weapons and resources provided by the JNA,
eventually lost momentum as the Bosniaks and Croats allied themselves against the Republika Srpska in
1994 with the creation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Washington agreement.
After the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, NATO intervened in 1995 with Operation Deliberate Force
targeting the positions of the Army of the Republika Srpska, which proved key in ending the war. The war was
brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and
Herzegovina in Paris on 14 December 1995. Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalized
on 21 December 1995. The accords are now known as the Dayton Agreement.[18]
A 1995 report by the Central Intelligence Agency found that Bosnian Serb forces were responsible for 90% of
the war crimes committed during the conflict. As of early 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia had convicted 45 Serbs, 12 Croats and 4 Bosniaks of war crimes in connection with the war
in Bosnia. The most recent figures suggest that around 100,000 people were killed during the war. In
addition, an estimated total of 20,000 to 50,000 women were raped, and over 2.2 million people were
displaced, making it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.
Chechnya- Chechen Republic
•
Later, in 1994, the First Chechen War began. It was lasting for more than two
years. Main reason of the war from Russian side was to stop Chechnya from
seceding while Chechens were fighting for their independence.
•
Russian army had advantages in manpower, artillery, air support but it was
unable to control effectively mountainous areas of the region with plenty of
Chechen guerrilla raids.
•
In 1996, Boris Yeltsin (the first Russian President) declared a ceasefire and
peace treaty was signed in 1997. In 1997, Aslan Maskhadov was elected the
new President of Chechnya.
•
He continued to maintain the sovereignty of Chechnya while asking Moscow
to help Chechnya to be rebuilt after the war. Russia was sending money for
rebuilding the republic, pensions and funds for hospitals and schools.
•
Later, in August 1999, Chechen forces began unsuccessful attack on
neighboring Dagestan republic trying to help Shura of Dagestan who wanted
Dagestan to be independent from Russia.
•
In September 1999, several bombs were blown in apartments building in
Moscow and other cities of Russia. Chechens were blamed for the explosions
and the Second Chechen War began.
•
That time the Russian army was organized better. The army could establish
control over all regions of Chechnya. Grozny was captured in February, 2000.
Russia could successfully install pro-Moscow regime.
•
Chechen rebel movement is almost disabled but some acts of terror still
happen in North Caucasus region.
.
Standard 2 - Recent developments in domestic
events/policies
Benchmark 2A- The student understands the impact of recent natural
disasters on the lives and economy of the United States. Including and not
limited to the following areas:




Katrina
Gulf Oil Spill
Hurricane Sandy
North Texas and Oklahoma tornadoes of 2013
Benchmark 2B- The student understands the impact of recent acts of
violence on the citizens of the United States. Including and not limited to
the following areas:
 Waco Standoff Texas
 9/11
 Shootings- Columbine, Virginia Tech, N. Illinois, Sandy Hook, Aurora Movie
Theater; Gabby Gifford
Benchmark 2C- The student understands the impact of policy changes
brought about in the United States by domestic events. Including and not
limited to the following areas:
 Patriot Act
 Department of Homeland Security
 Gun Control
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was one of the strongest storms to impact the
coast of the United States during the last 100 years. With
sustained winds during landfall of 125 mph (110 kts) (a strong
category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale) and minimum
central pressure the third lowest on record at landfall (920 mb)
Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Aug. 29,
2005, destroying beachfront towns in Mississippi and Louisiana,
displacing a million people, and killing almost 1,800. When
levees in New Orleans were breached, 80% of the city was
submerged by the flooding. About 20% of its 500,000 citizens
were trapped in the city without power, food, or drinking water.
Rescue efforts were so delayed and haphazard that many were
stranded for days on rooftops and in attics before help arrived.
The city became a toxic pool of sewage, chemicals, and
corpses, and in the ensuing chaos, mayhem and looting became
rampant—about 15% of the city's police force had simply walked
off the job. The 20,000 people who made their way to the
Superdome, the city's emergency shelter, found themselves
crammed into sweltering and fetid conditions. At a second
shelter, the convention center, evacuees were terrorized by
roaming gangs and random gunfire. Relief workers, medical
help, security forces, and essential supplies remained profoundly
inadequate during the first critical days of the disaster.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
The Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil-drilling rig, exploded on the night of April
20, 2010 while working on a well on the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexic, killing 11
workers on the rig and spilling tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil into the
Gulf of Mexico
The blast occurred 41 miles from the Louisiana coast. For nearly three months,
oil leaked from the Macondo well at a rate estimated between 35,000 and
60,000 barrels per day. (There are 42 gallons in a barrel, so that’s equal to 1.4 to
2.5 million gallons per day.) Repeated attempts to stop the flow failed until midJuly, when a tighter-fitting cap sealed the well head. In all, the well spilled 4.9
million gallons: the biggest offshore oil spill in history. With devastating
consequences for Gulf Coast communities and the fragile wetlands, bayous, and
coastal waters on which they depend.
The oil company BP (formerly British Petroleum), which was leasing the rig, has
promised to pay for the cleanup and to compensate individuals for their losses,
and has set up a $20 billion fund for that purpose.
The spill, which was estimated to be more than 130 miles long and 70 miles
wide, has impacted the coastlines of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Florida.
As of September 2010 the well had been effectively sealed. Long-term effects on
marine life in the Gulf remain to be seen. The release of crude oil from BP’s
leaking continues to threaten hundreds of species in the Gulf of Mexico,
including critical habitat for endangered species, such as whales, sea turtles,
and migratory birds.
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy will always be remembered for its
devastating affects through several states across the
northeastern United States. Although, before Sandy
became a historic and tragic reminder of the power of
Mother Nature, it wreaked havoc along the southeast Florida
coast as it paralleled the coastline on its trek to the north.
Although Sandy did not make landfall across south Florida, it
did have a significant impact, most notably with regard to the
large swells produced by Sandy’s large wind field and their
impacts on coastal flooding.
At least 285 people were killed along the path of the storm
in seven countries. The severe and widespread damage the
storm caused in the United States, as well as its unusual
merge with a frontal system, resulted in the nicknaming of
the hurricane by the media and several organizations of the
U.S. government "Superstorm Sandy"
Waco, Texas Standoff
The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre, was a siege of a
compound belonging to the religious group Branch Davidians by
American federal and Texas state law enforcement and military
between February 28 and April 19, 1993.
The Branch Davidians, a Christian sect led by David Koresh, lived at
Mount Carmel Center ranch in the community of Elk, Texas, nine miles
(14 kilometers) east-northeast of Waco. The group was suspected of
weapons violations and a search and arrest warrant was obtained.
The incident began when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (ATF) attempted to raid the ranch. An intense gun battle
erupted, resulting in the deaths of four agents and six Branch
Davidians. Upon the ATF's failure to raid the compound, a siege was
initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the standoff
lasting 51 days. Eventually, the FBI launched an assault and initiated a
tear gas attack in an attempt to force the Branch Davidians out. During
the attack, a fire engulfed Mount Carmel Center and 76 men, women,
and children, including David Koresh, died.
Controversy ensued over the origin of the fire; a government
investigation concluded in 2000 that sect members themselves had
started the fire at the time of the attack. Timothy McVeigh cited the
Waco incident as a primary motivation for the 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing.
9/11
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda
hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States.
Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a
third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a
field in Pennsylvania. Often referred to as 9/11, the attacks resulted in extensive death and
destruction, triggering major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism and defining the presidency
of George W. Bush. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attacks in New York City and
Washington, D.C., including more than 400 police officers and firefighter
It was the first multiple hijacking in the United States, and the first in the world in more than
thirty years. On September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists boarded four commercial jetliners,
all transcontinental flights, carrying a maximum load of 11,400 gallons of jet fuel. Their
objective was to take control of the planes once they were airborne and turn them into flying
weapons of destruction.
Four targets had been chosen, all iconic American buildings that would send a clear
message of the depth of their hatred for the United States. All four planes crashed, killing all
on board—terrorists, crew members, and passengers, along with hundreds who were killed
inside the structures, on the ground, and the men and women who ran into collapsing
buildings in an effort to try and save others.
Only one of the four planes did not find its target. Thanks to cellular phones, passengers
heard of the other crashes and chose to sacrifice themselves rather than let another plane
devastate a fourth target, killing even more innocent people.
What little is known of actual events on board the four flights comes from brief radio
communications, observation by witnesses on the ground and phone calls made by crew and
passengers. The scenario on all four flights seems to have been basically the same.
Shootings- Columbine, Virginia Tech, N.
Illinois, Sandy Hook, Aurora Movie
Theater; Gabby Gifford;
Columbine- Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting which
occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an
unincorporated area of Jefferson County in the State of Colorado. Two senior students,
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered a total of 12 students and one teacher. They
injured 21 additional students, with three other people being injured while attempting to
escape the school. The pair then committed suicide.
Although their motives remain unclear, the personal journals of the perpetrators
document that they wished their actions to rival the Oklahoma City bombing. The
attack has been referred to by USA Today as a "suicidal attack [which was] planned as
a grand – if badly implemented – terrorist bombing." The Columbine High School
massacre is the deadliest mass murder committed on an American high school
campus, and is noted as one of the first and most serious of a series of high profile
spree shootings which have since occurred.
The massacre sparked debate over gun control laws, the availability of firearms within
the United States and gun violence involving youths. Much discussion also centered
on the nature of high school cliques, subcultures and bullying, in addition to the
influence of violent movies and video games in American society. The shooting
resulted in an increased emphasis on school security, and a moral panic aimed at goth
culture, social outcasts, gun culture, the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by
teenagers, teenage Internet use and violent video games.
Shootings- Columbine, Virginia Tech, N.
Illinois, Sandy Hook, Aurora Movie
Theater; Gabby Gifford;
Virginia Tech- Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on
April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in
Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, shot
and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others in two separate attacks, approximately
two hours apart, before committing suicide (another six people were injured escaping
from classroom windows). The massacre is the deadliest shooting incident by a
single gunman in U.S. history.
The attacks received international media coverage and drew widespread criticism of
U.S. gun culture.[8] It sparked intense debate about gun violence, gun laws, gaps in
the U.S. system for treating mental health issues, the perpetrator's state of mind, the
responsibility of college administrations,[9] privacy laws, journalism ethics, and other
issues. Television news organizations that aired portions of the killer's multimedia
manifesto were criticized by victims' families, Virginia law enforcement officials, and the
American Psychiatric Association.
The massacre prompted the state of Virginia to close legal loopholes that had
previously allowed Cho, an individual adjudicated as mentally unsound, to purchase
handguns without detection by the National Instant Criminal Background Check
System (NICS). It also led to passage of the first major federal gun control measure in
more than 13 years. The law strengthening the NICS was signed by President George
W. Bush on January 5, 2008.
Shootings- Columbine, Virginia Tech, N.
Illinois, Aurora Movie Theater; Gabby
Giffords, Sandy Hook ;
Northern Illinois -The Northern Illinois University shooting was a school shooting that took place
on February 14, 2008. Steven Kazmierczak shot multiple people on the campus of Northern Illinois
University in DeKalb, Illinois, killing five people and injuring another twenty-one, before committing
suicide.
The incident happened at the campus's Cole Hall at approximately 3:05 p.m. local time.[3] The school
placed the campus on lockdown; students and teachers were advised to head to a secure location,
take cover, and avoid the scene and all buildings in the vicinity of the area.[4] Six people died in the
incident, including the perpetrator, tying it with the University of Iowa shooting as the fifth-deadliest
university shooting in United States history.
Aurora Movie Theater - On July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside of a Century movie
theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. A gunman,
dressed in tactical clothing, set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms,
killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.[2] The sole suspect is James Eagan Holmes, who was
arrested outside the cinema minutes later.
Gabby Giffords – Gabrielle Dee "Gabby" Giffords (born June 8, 1970) is an American politician. As
a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, she represented Arizona's 8th
congressional district from 2007 until her resignation on January 25, 2012, having been elected to
Congress three times. On January 8, 2011, a week into her third term, Giffords was a victim of a
shooting near Tucson, which was reported to be an assassination attempt on her, at a supermarket
where she was meeting publicly with constituents. She was critically injured by a gunshot wound to the
head; thirteen people were injured and six others were killed in the shooting, among them federal
judge John Roll.[4] Giffords was later brought to a rehabilitation facility in Houston, Texas, where she
recovered some of her ability to walk, speak, read and write. On January 22, 2012, Giffords
announced that she would be resigning from her congressional seat in order to concentrate on
recovering from her wounds, but promised to return to public service in the future.
Shootings- Columbine, Virginia Tech, N.
Illinois, Aurora Movie Theater; Gabby
Giffords, Sandy Hook ;
Sandy Hook- On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, fatally
shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in
Newtown, Connecticut. Before driving to the school, Lanza had shot
and killed his mother Nancy at their Newtown home. As first
responders arrived, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the
head.
The incident is the second deadliest mass shooting by a single
person in American history, after the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.
It is the second deadliest mass murder at an American elementary
school, after the 1927 Bath School bombings in Michigan. It is the
most deadly school shooting in any public school in the United
States.
The shootings prompted renewed debate about gun control in the
United States, and a proposal for new legislation banning the sale
and manufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and
magazines with more than ten rounds of ammunition.
Patriot Act
The Patriot Act is a U.S. law passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Its
goals are to strengthen domestic security and broaden the powers of law-enforcement agencies
with regards to identifying and stopping terrorists. The passing and renewal of the Patriot Act
has been extremely controversial. Supporters claim that it's been instrumental in a number of
investigations and arrests of terrorists, while critics counter the act gives the government too
much power, threatens civil liberties and undermines the very democracy it seeks to protect.
Main Provisions of the Patriot Act
The Patriot Act's full title is Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. It's split into 10 parts, and it covers a
lot of ground. Here is a summary.
Title I - This section pertains to the protection of civil liberties. It authorizes federal money to
accomplish much of the act's provisions and authorizes the Secret Service to create a
nationwide electronic crime task force. This section also gives the president the authority to
confiscate the property of any foreign person who is believed to have aided in a war or attack
on the United States. Such seizures can be submitted secretly to courts as evidence.
Title II - This section broadens the ability of law-enforcement agencies to conduct surveillance
on "agents of foreign powers." It allows the interception of communications if they're related to
terrorist activities and allows law-enforcement agencies to share information related to terrorist
activities with federal authorities. In addition, Title II authorizes roving surveillance -- that is, a
court order allowing surveillance on a particular person allows officers to use any means
available to intercept that person's communications, regardless of where the person goes.
Previously, a court order would only allow a wiretap on a specific line in one location. Further, it
allows the government to order files from the providers of communications services with details
about specific customers' use of the service. For example, an Internet service provider can be
ordered to provide information on IP addresses, login times and sites visited. Title II also allows
delayed notification of search warrants, meaning a suspect's house could be searched while the
suspect isn't present, and the suspect would not be notified of the search until after it was
carried out. The wide-ranging Title II included many other relatively minor clauses. Title II also
contained the sunset clause that would have caused many of the act's provisions to expire in
2005 had they not been renewed.
Department of Homeland
Security
The Department of Homeland Security has a vital mission: to secure the
nation from the many threats we face. This requires the dedication of more
than 240,000 employees in jobs that range from aviation and border
security to emergency response, from cybersecurity analyst to chemical
facility inspector. Our duties are wide-ranging, but our goal is clear keeping America safe.
The vision of homeland security is to ensure a homeland that is safe,
secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards.
The Core Missions
There are five homeland security missions:
1. Prevent terrorism and enhancing security;
2. Secure and manage our borders;
3. Enforce and administer our immigration laws;
4. Safeguard and secure cyberspace;
5. Ensure resilience to disasters;
Gun Control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict
or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or
use of firearms.
Gun control laws and policies vary greatly around the world. Some
countries, such as the United Kingdom, have very strict limits on gun
possession while others, such as the United States, have relatively
modest limits.
In some countries, the topic remains a source of intense debate with
proponents generally arguing the dangers of widespread gun
ownership.
Opponents have argued that gun control does not reduce gun-related
injuries, murder, or suicide, that gun control is an instrument of
repression used by totalitarian governments, and that such regulation
would violate individual liberties, including the right of self-protection
and resistance against state-sponsored genocide.
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Pub.L. 103–159, 107
Stat. 1536, enacted November 30, 1993) is an Act of the United States
Congress that instituted federal background checks on firearm
purchasers in the United States.
It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 30, 1993,
and went into effect on February 28, 1994. The Act was named after
James Brady, who was shot by John Hinckley, Jr. during an attempted
assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981
Standard 3 – Economic developments
in contemporary United States
Benchmark 3A - The student understands
economic developments and their impacts on the
United States since 1992. Including and not
limited to the following areas:
 NAFTA
 WTO
 Recession in the 2000’s
 “Occupy Movement”
 Outsourcing
 Obama Care- Health Care Reform Act.
NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreement signed by
Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North
America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the
Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Canada
The goal of NAFTA was to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between
the US, Canada and Mexico.
The implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994 brought the immediate
elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of Mexico's exports to the U.S. and
more than one-third of U.S. exports to Mexico.
Within 10 years of the implementation of the agreement, all US-Mexico tariffs
would be eliminated except for some U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico that
were to be phased out within 15 years.
Most U.S.-Canada trade was already duty free.
NAFTA also seeks to eliminate non-tariff trade barriers and to protect the
intellectual property right of the products.
In the area of intellectual property, the North American Free Trade Agreement
Implementation Act made some changes to the Copyright law of the United
States, foreshadowing the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 by restoring
copyright (within NAFTA) on certain motion pictures which had entered the
public domain.
WTO- World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that
intends to supervise and liberalize international trade.
•
The organization officially commenced on 1 January 1995
under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced
in 1948.
•
The organization deals with regulation of trade between
participating countries; it provides a framework for
negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute
resolution process aimed at enforcing participants'
adherence to WTO agreements, which are signed by
representatives of member governments:fol.9–10 and
ratified by their parliaments
•
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.
Recession in the 2000’s
The early 2000s recession was a decline in economic activity which
mainly occurred in developed countries. The recession affected the
European Union during 2000 and 2001 and the United States in 2002
and 2003. The UK, Canada and Australia avoided the recession, while
Russia, a nation that did not experience prosperity during the 1990s, in
fact began to recover from said situation.[citation needed] Japan's
1990s recession continued. This recession was predicted by
economists, because the boom of the 1990s (accompanied by both low
inflation and low unemployment) had already ceased in East Asia
during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The recession wasn't as
significant as either of the two previous worldwide recessions. Some
economists in the United States object to characterizing it as a
recession since there were no two consecutive quarters of negative
growth.
The Great Recession- (also referred to as the Lesser Depression, the
Long Recession, or the global recession of 2009) is a marked global
economic decline that began in December 2007 and took a particularly
sharp downward turn in September 2008. The initial phase of the
ongoing crisis, which manifested as a liquidity crisis, can be dated from
August 7, 2007, when BNP Paribas, citing a "complete evaporation of
liquidity," terminated withdrawals from three hedge funds. The bursting
of the U.S. housing bubble, which peaked in 2006, caused the values
of securities tied to U.S. real estate pricing to plummet, damaging
financial institutions globally.
“Occupy Movement”
The Occupy movement is an international protest
movement against social and economic inequality, its
primary goal being to make the economic and political
relations in all societies less vertically hierarchical and
more flatly distributed. Local groups often have
different foci, but among the movement's prime
concerns is the claim that large corporations and the
global financial system control the world in a way that
disproportionately benefits a minority, undermines
democracy and is unstable.
The Occupy movement is partly inspired by the Arab
Spring, and the Spanish Indignants, as well as the Tea
Party movement. The movement commonly uses the
slogan We are the 99%, the #Occupy hashtag format,
and organizes through websites such as Occupy
Together.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the contracting out of an internal business
process to a third-party organization. The term "outsourcing"
became popular in the United States near the turn of the
21st century. Outsourcing sometimes involves transferring
employees and assets from one firm to another, but not
always.
The definition of outsourcing includes both foreign and
domestic contracting, and sometimes includes offshoring,
which means relocating a business function to another
country. Financial savings from lower international labor
rates is a big motivation for outsourcing/offshoring.
The opposite of outsourcing is called insourcing, which
entails bringing processes handled by third-party firms inhouse, and is sometimes accomplished via vertical
integration. However, a business can provide a contract
service to another business without necessarily insourcing
that business process.
Obama Care- Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act
ObamaCare, Obama Care and health care reform are all the same thing. The
official name for "ObamaCare" is the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care
Act, a bill signed into law to reform the health care industry.
ObamaCare's goal is to provide affordable health insurance for all US citizens and
to reduce the growth in health care spending.
•
ObamaCare does not replace private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid.
•
The Fact is ObamaCare gives 47 million women access to preventive health
services and makes it illegal to charge women different rates than men. Get
more ObamaCare Women's Health Services Facts
•
ObamaCare gives seniors access to cheaper drugs, free preventive care,
reforms Medicare Advantage, and closes the Medicare Part D 'donut hole. The
AARP agrees, costs won't rise because of ObamaCare, if anything, the
improvements to the system will decrease the average cost of health care for
seniors.
•
1 in 2 Americans have a "pre-existing" condition they could be denied health
insurance for. ObamaCare chips Away at pre-existing conditions until 2017
when there are no more pre-existing conditions for anyone, including high-risk
customers.
•
54 million Americans with private health insurance now have access to
preventive services with no cost sharing due to the new minimum standards of
ObamaCare.
•
ObamaCare doesn't ration health care; it protects consumers from the health
care rationing insurance companies have been doing for ages.
•
ObamaCare reduces the growth in healthcare spending. The current $2.8
trillion U.S. healthcare system costs almost $9k a year for every man, woman,
and child.
Standard 4 - Social, and cultural
developments in contemporary United
States.
•
Benchmark 4A - The student understands major social/cultural events and
their impacts on the United States since 1992. Including and not limited to
the following areas:






•
Michael Jackson
Rodney King- 1991
O.J. Simpson
Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia
International Space Station
Steroids in Sports
Benchmark 4B - The student understands major social/cultural impacts of
women in politics on the United States since 1992. Including and not limited
to the following areas:




Sarah Pallin
Hillary Clinton
Supreme Court Justices
Nancy Pelosi
•
Benchmark 4C - The student understands the impact of major technological
advances in the United States since 1992. Including and not limited to the
following areas:
 Internet
 Social Media- Facebook, Twitter, My Space, etc.
 IPad and IPhone
Michael Jackson
Mini Biography
American superstar Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, on August 29, 1958, and entertained
audiences nearly his entire life. His father, Joe Jackson, had been a guitarist but was forced to give up his
musical ambitions following his marriage to Katherine (Scruse).
A musical prodigy, Michael's singing and dancing talents were amazingly mature, and he soon became the
dominant voice and focus of The Jackson 5. An opening act for such soul groups as the O-Jays and James
Brown, it was Gladys Knight (not Diana Ross) who officially brought the group to Berry Gordy's attention, and
by 1969, the boys were producing back-to-back chart-busting hits as Motown artists ("I Want You Back,"
"ABC," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Got to Be There," etc.). As a product of the 1970s, the boys emerged as
one of the most accomplished black pop/soul vocal groups in music history, successfully evolving from a group
like The Temptations to a disco phenomenon.
Solo success for Michael was inevitable, and by the 1980s, he had become infinitely more popular than his
brotherly group. Record sales consistently orbited, culminating in the biggest-selling album of all time, "Thriller"
in 1982. A TV natural, he ventured rather uneasily into films, such as playing the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978),
but had much better luck with elaborate music videos.
In the 1990s, the downside as an 1980s pop phenomenon began to rear itself. Michael grew terribly child-like
and introverted by his peerless celebrity. A rather timorous, androgynous figure to begin with, his physical
appearance began to change drastically, and his behavior grew alarmingly bizarre, making him a consistent
target for scandal-making, despite his numerous charitable acts. Two brief marriages -- one to Elvis Presley's
daughter Lisa Marie Presley -- were forged and two children produced by his second wife during that time, but
the purposes behind them appeared image-oriented. Despite it all, Michael Jackson's passion and artistry as a
singer, dancer, writer and businessman are unparalleled, and it is these prodigious talents that will ultimately
prevail over the extremely negative aspects of his seriously troubled adult life.
For it all to end on June 25, 2009, with his sudden death at age 50 of a drug-induced cardiac arrest, just as he
was coming out of a four-year reclusive period and rehearsing for a sold-out London concert "comeback" in
July, seems uncommonly cruel and tragic. Millions upon millions of dedicated fans will remember where they
were "the day Michael died".
Rodney King- 1991
Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was an African-American construction
worker who, while on parole for robbery, became nationally known after being beaten with
excessive force by Los Angeles police officers following a high-speed car chase on March 3,
1991. George Holliday, a resident in the nearby area, witnessed the beating and videotaped
much of it from the balcony of his nearby apartment.
The videotaped footage shows five Los Angeles area officers surrounding King and several
of them striking him repeatedly. During the struggle to subdue King, other officers stood by,
without seeming to take action to stop King from being struck. A portion of the footage was
aired around the world, inflaming public outrage in Los Angeles and other American cities
where racial tension was often high. The videotape also increased public sensitivity to, and
anger about, police brutality, racism, and other social inequalities throughout the United
States.
Four of the police officers from the LAPD who engaged in the incident were charged in Los
Angeles County Superior Court with assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive
force for their conduct during the incident.. The jury deadlocked at 8-4 in favor of acquittal.
The acquittals are generally considered to have triggered the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in
which 53 people were killed, and over two thousand were injured. The riots ended after
soldiers from the United States Army National Guard, along with United States Marines from
nearby Camp Pendleton, California, were called in to assist local authorities and quell the
riots.
On August 4, 1992 a Federal Grand Jury after hearing evidence from federal prosecutors,
indicted the four officers on charges of violating King's civil rights. The four men were put on
trial on February 25, 1993 in the United States District Court for the Central District of
California located in downtown Los Angeles. On April 16, 1993 the trial ended with two of the
police officers, (Koon and Powell) found guilty, and subsequently imprisoned. The other two
officers, (Wind and Briseno) were acquitted.
During the riots, King appeared on television and offered what would later be his famous
plea, "Can we all get along
O.J. Simpson
Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson (born July 9, 1947), nicknamed "The
Juice", is a retired American football player and actor. Simpson was the
first professional football player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a
season, a mark he set in 1973. While six other players have passed
the 2,000 rush yard mark, he stands alone as the only player to rush
for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game season (professional football
changed to a 16-game season in 1978). He holds the record for the
single season yards-per-game average, which stands at 143.1 ypg.
Simpson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.
After retiring from professional football, Simpson had a successful
career as a football broadcaster and actor.
In 1995, he was acquitted of the 1994 murder of Nicole Brown
Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a lengthy and internationally
publicized criminal trial, the People v. Simpson. In 1997, a civil court
awarded a judgment against Simpson for their wrongful deaths; to date
he has paid little of the $33.5 million penalty.
In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, and
charged with numerous felonies, including armed robbery and
kidnapping. In 2008, he was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years'
imprisonment, with a minimum of nine years without parole. He is
serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock,
Nevada.
Space Shuttle Challenger
and Columbia
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28,
1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger (mission STS-51-L) broke apart
73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew
members. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the
coast of central Florida at 11:38 EST (16:38 UTC). Disintegration of the
entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster
(SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB
joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket
motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB
attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation
of the right-hand SRBs aft attachment and the structural failure of the
external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003,
when shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission,
STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and
Louisiana during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in the
death of all seven crew members. Debris from Columbia fell to Earth in
Texas. A debris field has been mapped along a path stretching from
south of Fort Worth to Hempill, Texas, as well as into parts of
Louisiana.
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is a habitable artificial satellite in
low Earth orbit. It follows the Salyut, Almaz, Skylab and Mir stations as
the ninth space station to be inhabited. The ISS is a modular structure
whose first component was launched in 1998.
Now the largest artificial body in orbit, it can often be seen at the
appropriate time with the naked eye from Earth. The ISS consists of
pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other
components. ISS components have been launched by American
Space Shuttles as well as Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets.[9]
Budget constraints led to the merger of three space station projects
with the Japanese Kibō module and Canadian robotics.
In 1993 the partially built components for a Soviet/Russian space
station Mir-2, the proposed American Freedom, and the proposed
European Columbus merged into a single multinational programme.
The ISS is arguably the most expensive single item ever constructed,
and its existence and operation is in result of one of the most
significant instances of international cooperation in modern history.
Steroids in Sports
The use of banned performance-enhancing drugs in
sport(s) is commonly referred to as doping,[Note 1]
particularly by those organizations that regulate
competitions. The use of drugs to enhance
performance is considered unethical by most
international sports organizations and especially the
International Olympic Committee, although ethicists
have argued that it is little different from the use of new
materials in the construction of suits and sporting
equipment, which similarly aid performance and can
give competitors an unfair advantage over others. The
reasons for the ban are mainly the alleged health risks
of performance-enhancing drugs, the equality of
opportunity for athletes, and the alleged exemplary
effect of "clean" ("doping-free") sports for the public.
Sarah Pallin
Sarah Louise Palin (i/ˈpeɪlɨn/; née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an
American politician, commentator and author who served as the 9th
Governor of Alaska, from 2006 to 2009. As the Republican Party
nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election alongside
Arizona Senator John McCain, she was the first Alaskan on the
national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated
for the vice presidency. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two
million copies. Since January 2010, she has provided political
commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's
Alaska. Five million viewers tuned in for the first episode, a record for
TLC.
. The youngest person and first woman to be elected Governor of
Alaska, Palin held the office from December 2006 until her resignation
in July 2009.
She has since endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement,
as well as several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections.
From the time of her Vice Presidential nomination in 2008, Palin was
considered a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election until
she announced in October 2011 that she would not run.
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (pron.: /ˈhɪləri
daɪˈæn ˈrɒdəm ˈklɪntən/; born October 26, 1947)
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. As the
wife of President Bill Clinton, she was also the
First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001.
In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading
candidate for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
Women Supreme Court Justices
Female U.S. Supreme Court Justices
September 10, 2010
Three women currently serve on the U.S. Supreme
Court: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia
Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
The first woman ever appointed to the Court, Sandra
Day O’Connor, retired in January 2006 after
serving as an Associate Supreme Court Justice for
more than 24 years.
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi (pron.:
/pəˈloʊsi/; born March 26, 1940) is the Minority
Leader of the United States House of
Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker
of the United States House of Representatives
from 2007 to 2011. She was the first woman to
hold the office and to date is the highest-ranking
female politician in American history.
Internet
The Internet started in the 1960s as a way for government researchers to share
information. Computers in the '60s were large and immobile and in order to
make use of information stored in any one computer, one had to either travel to
the site of the computer or have magnetic computer tapes sent through the
conventional postal system.
Another catalyst in the formation of the Internet was the heating up of the Cold
War. The Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred the U.S. Defense
Department to consider ways information could still be disseminated even after a
nuclear attack. This eventually led to the formation of the ARPANET (Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network), the network that ultimately evolved into
what we now know as the Internet. ARPANET was a great success but
membership was limited to certain academic and research organizations who
had contracts with the Defense Department. In response to this, other networks
were created to provide information sharing.
January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet. Prior to this,
the various computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with
each other. A new communications protocol was established called Transfer
Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP). This allowed different kinds of
computers on different networks to "talk" to each other. ARPANET and the
Defense Data Network officially changed to the TCP/IP standard on January 1,
1983, hence the birth of the Internet. All networks could now be connected by a
universal language.
Social Media- Facebook, Twitter,
My Space, etc.
Social media are Internet sites where people interact freely, sharing
and discussing information about each other and their lives, using a
multimedia mix of personal words, pictures, videos and audio.
At these Web sites, individuals and groups create and exchange
content and engage in person-to-person conversations.
They appear in many forms including blogs and microblogs, forums
and message boards, social networks, wikis, virtual worlds, social
bookmarking, tagging and news, writing communities, digital
storytelling and scrapbooking, and data, content, image and video
sharing, podcast portals, and collective intelligence.
There are lots of well-known sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn,
MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, WordPress, Blogger, Typepad,
LiveJournal, Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Wikidot, Second Life, Del.icio.us,
Digg, Reddit, Lulu and many others.
IPad and IPhone
Standard 5 – Political/Presidential
developments in contemporary United
States.
• Benchmark 5A - The student understands the
impact of Presidential Politics in the United States
since 1992. Including and not limited to the following
areas:
 President GHW Bush
 President Clinton- Clinton Impeachment
 President GW Bush - Bush/Gore election 2000
 Obama President
 27th Amendment
 Tea Party
 Harmful automatic budget cuts — known as the
sequester
President- GHW Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12,
1924) is an American politician who served as the
41st President of the United States (1989–1993).
A Republican, he had previously served as the
43rd Vice President of the United States (1981–
1989), a congressman, an ambassador and
Director of Central Intelligence; he is currently the
oldest surviving former President.
President Clinton- Clinton
Impeachment
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19,
1946) 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. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president
of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat.
Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of
governance. Before becoming president he was the Governor of Arkansas
serving two non-consecutive tenures from 1979 to 1981 and from 1983 to 1992.
Clinton was elected president in 1992, defeating incumbent president George H.
W. Bush. As president, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime
economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American
Free Trade Agreement. He implemented Don't ask, don't tell, a controversial
intermediate step to full gay military integration. After the failed Clinton health
care plan attempt, the Republican Party won control of the Congress in 1994 for
the first time in 40 years. Two years later, the re-elected Clinton became the first
member of the Democratic Party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full
term as president. He successfully passed welfare reform and the State
Children's Health Insurance Program, providing health coverage for millions of
children. Later, he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a
scandal involving a White House intern, but was acquitted by the U.S. Senate
and served his complete term of office. The Congressional Budget Office
reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three
years of Clinton's presidency.
Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S.
president since World War II
President GW Bush - Bush/Gore
election 2000
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd
President of the United States from 2001 to 2009.
He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas
gubernatorial election.
Bush was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election, becoming the fourth president to
be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than his opponent.
Bush is the second president to have been the son of a former president, the first being John Quincy Adams..
Eight months into Bush's first term as president, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred. In
response,
Bush announced the War on Terror, an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan
launched in 2001 and the war in Iraq launched in 2003.
In addition to national security issues, Bush also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education,
and social security reform. He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act,
the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors. His tenure saw national
debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and enhanced interrogation techniques. He
announced the U.S. would not implement the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which had been signed by
the previous administration but never ratified by the Senate.
Bush successfully ran for re-election against Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004, in another relatively
close election.
In December 2007, the United States entered its longest post–World War II recession, often referred to as the
"Great Recession", prompting the Bush Administration to enact multiple economic programs intended to
preserve the country's financial system.
Nationally, Bush was both one of the most popular and unpopular presidents in history, having received the
highest recorded presidential approval ratings in the wake of 9/11, as well as one of the lowest approval
ratings during the 2008 financial crisis.
Internationally, he was a highly controversial figure, with public protests occurring even during visits to close
allies, such as the United Kingdom.
President Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President
of the United States, the first African American to hold the office.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he
was president of the Harvard Law Review.
He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running
unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000.
In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States
Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National
Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November.
He began his presidential campaign in 2007, and in 2008, after a close primary campaign against Hillary
Rodham Clinton, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential
nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated
as president on January 20, 2009.
Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
He was re-elected president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney, and was sworn
in for a second term on January 20, 2013.[4]
Early in his first term in office, Obama signed into law economic stimulus legislation in response to the Great
Recession in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief,
Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. O
ther major domestic initiatives in his presidency include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often
referred to as "Obamacare";
the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act;
the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010; t
The Budget Control Act of 2011; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
In May 2012, he became the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support same-sex marriage and in 2013 his
administration filed briefs which urged the Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex couples in two highprofile cases.
In foreign policy, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased troop levels in
Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in
Libya, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.
27th Amendment
The Twenty-seventh Amendment provides that any change in
congressional salaries may take effect only after the beginning
of the next term of office for Representatives. Sometimes called
the "Congressional Compensation Amendment of 1789", the
"Congressional Pay Amendment", and the "Madison
Amendment", it was intended to serve as a restraint on the
power of Congress to set its own salary—an obvious potential
for conflict of interest.
This amendment was actually suggested by a number of
states. During the 1788 North Carolina convention, assembled
to consider the original Constitution itself, the following
amendment, among others, was requested of Congress:
The laws ascertaining the compensation of senators and
representatives, for their services, shall be postponed in their
operation until after the election of representatives immediately
succeeding the passing thereof; that excepted which shall first
be passed on the subject.
Tea Party
The Tea Party movement is an American political movement
that advocates strict adherence to the United States
Constitution, reducing U.S. government spending and taxes,
and reduction of the U.S. national debt and federal budget
deficit. The movement has been called partly conservative,
partly libertarian, and partly populist. The movement has
sponsored protests and supported political candidates since
2009.
The name of the movement is derived from the Boston Tea
Party of 1773, an iconic event in American history. Anti-tax
protesters in the United States have often referred to the
original Boston Tea Party for inspiration. References to the
Boston Tea Party were part of Tax Day protests held
throughout the 1990s and earlier.
By 2001, a custom had developed among some
conservative activists of mailing tea bags to legislators and
other officials as a symbolic act.
Latest news- IRS targets Tea Party- 2013
Harmful automatic budget cutsBudget sequestration in 2013.
In the United States federal budget, the sequester or sequestration refers to
budget cuts to particular categories of federal spending that began on March 1,
2013 as an austerity fiscal policy. The cuts were enacted by the Budget Control
Act of 2011 and initially set to begin on January 1 but that date was postponed
by two months by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. The spending
reductions are approximately $85.4 billion during fiscal year 2013, with similar
cuts for years 2014 through 2021. However, total federal outlays will continue to
increase by an average of $238.6 billion per year during the next decade,
although at a somewhat lesser rate because of the sequester.
The cuts are split evenly (by dollar amounts) between the defense and nondefense categories. Some major programs like Social Security, Medicaid,
federal pay (including military pay and pensions) and veterans' benefits are
exempt. Medicare spending will be reduced by 2% per year versus the planned
levels. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the sequester would
reduce 2013 economic growth by about 0.6 percentage points (from 2.0% to
1.4% or about $90B) and affect the creation or retention of about 750,000 jobs
by year-end.
Over the 2014–2023 period, the sequester would reduce planned spending
outlays by $995 billion with interest savings of $228 billion or a total of over $1.2
trillion in debt reduction. The blunt nature of the cuts has been criticized, with
some favoring more tailored cuts and others arguing for postponement while the
economy improves.