The Millenium Bug

The Y2K bug, or millenium bug, was a possible computer flaw that people feared would cause problems once the year hit 2000. Computer engineers thought that the date might turn to 1900 rather than 2000, destroying many systems they had in place. For example, banks and power plants depended on computers for interest rates and safety levels, respectively. Transportation, such as airlines and trains, required correct time. The problem became so widespread that countries like Australia invested millions of dollars in preparation for Y2K. Other countries like Russia barely invested any, so Australia recalled most of its embassy staff from Russia in fears that they might lose contact with them. The United States is another example of a country that spent millions of dollars to combat the Y2K bug. Eventually, when the year reached 2000, there were problems but very few. A nuclear energy facility in Japan had a fail in its radiation equipment.

Team Work Makes the Dream Work : Apple and microsoft

When the co-founder of the company Apple, Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997 the beginning of Apple's resurrection was just beginning.  After twelve entire years of complete financial loss, Gil Amelio was ousted from the CEO position. Jobs took the position over and his task to complete was to restructure the company back to success. This is where the partnership with Microsoft was formed The Apple-Microsoft deal was revealed at the 1997 Macworld Expo. Both Gates and Jobs made the public announcement of Microsoft office and the $150 million investment in Apple. During this expo, Steve Jobs stated ¨If we want to move forward to see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.¨ This was the end of a long-lasting competition between the two major tech industries.

Macintosh

THE MACINTOSH

The 1990s were known for the increase in technology because the electronics went through all sorts of phases until it reached practicality for users with no experience beforehand. Most importantly, it was the year where Apple Inc. could really stand out in the market and offer their customers a revolutionary way to change the perspective on the computers. 

Steve Jobs was met with critiques after launching his first computer and made the adjustments that his customers had asked for; the "Macintosh line had become too complex, Apple consolidated nearly twenty models in mid-1997." Thus, introducing the iMac G3 in August 15, 1998, which became popular and saved the company from bankruptcy.  

2000 Presidential Election

In 2000 Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore ran for the presidency of the United States. Both men had to reach 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, and it came down to the last state (Florida). Bush had 246 electoral votes and Gore had 266. Florida would ultimately give the presidency to one of these men, giving 25 electoral votes to the winner. With the election coming down to one state there was lots of controversy surrounding the voting process. Each state had the power to decide how votes could be selected. In the state of Florida on the ballot, voters were supposed to puncture a hole in the ballot. Bush was ahead of gore by only a couple thousands to win Florida, Gore saw that he was about to lose the presidency and demanded a recount. The recount was underway and Gore was starting to catch up to Bush. Bush panicked and went to Congress and demanded that the recount is stopped. He claimed that it was a violation of the 14th amendment of the Equal Protection Clause. The supreme court later on ruled in favor of Bush and stopped the recount giving Bush the electoral votes in Florida and the Presidency. If the recount weren't stopped many believed that Gore would've won the presidency, he was only a couple of hundred votes behind and they had only gotten through half of the ballots.

Footage techniques: For a vulnerable crowd

Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez writer and director of The Blair Witch Project created an audience that believed their ¨Real footage¨ of witches to be true. Lots of ingenious offscreen threats were discussed on camera, creating immediate suspense for the audience, this was a very unique film in the 19th century as it was the first to use such techniques. The backstory for the film is a legend fabricated by these two men which are detailed in Curse of the Blair Witch, a mockumentary broadcast on the SciFi Channel in 1999 prior to the release of the Blair Witch Project. This film was nonetheless cobbled together on an unbelievably low budget, using what they portrayed as ¨found footage¨ which in that century was only popular in cult films, with this a marketing campaign in the cinema world was created and outdid any other film that was put out in 1999.

9/11 - The Aftermath

Americans were in shock as they woke up on the morning of September 11, turned on the news, and saw photos of national landmarks billowing up in smoke. No one could believe that we, the strongest and most developed nation in the world, was watching their nation go up in flames. Initially, after only the first attack,  everyone believed that the crash was a mistake. The thought was that the navigation systems on the plane broke and that it lost control, flying too low and hitting the towers.

As soon as the second building was hit, everyone in the country knew that America had been the target of a terrorist attack. It was now obvious that the threats from Al Qaeda were legit. Right away, the FBI started the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, needing the man who caused our country so much pain.

News Coverage During the Iraq War

In the years leading up to the Iraq war, Fox News was the number one most watched news station. CNN was always trailing behind a little bit when compared to Fox. However, once CNN got exclusive coverage on many of the things that were happening in the Iraq war, they got a huge bump in their ratings.

The Iraq war was one of the first wars that Americans were able to watch unfold in real time on their television screens, so of course CNN had a lot more people tuning in to see what was happening. People could see what their family members and friends were seeing. This not only bumped up ratings for CNN, but increased the moral of the United States. Many people at home were seeing the war as video game-like and were impressed with what the U.S. military was capable of.

This amazement with the power that the military had led to many changes in common American fashion and technology. People wanted to buy Jeeps, which were previously only seen as military vehicles, and games and movies were being made about the war. There was a sort of fashion that came from the Iraq war that still hasn’t left the American people. Who knows if or when people would’ve gotten so infatuated with a war if it weren’t for CNN’s ability to cover this war thoroughly.

2008 Election

           The presidential election of 2008 was groundbreaking in many ways. The Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, represented the Democratic party and ran against the Republican party nominee John McCain, a Senator from Arizona.
           Because of this, it was the first time since 1952 that the sitting President or Vice President wasn't either major party's nominee. Biden defeated Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney among others for the Republican ticket which Obama contested against Senator Hillary Clinton. She was able to become the first woman to ever win a major party's presidential primary by winning the New Hampshire primary. Senator Barack Obama would go on to become the first African American to be elected president, winning 365 electoral votes in 28 states against McCain's 173 votes in 22 states. With close to 69.5 million votes, it was the largest percentage of a popular vote for a democrat since Lyndon B Johnson in 1964.
           Keys issues of the election reflected the ongoing issues of the time. McCain endorsed the war in Iraq while Obama opposed it. Sitting president Bush endorsed McCain but by the end of his presidency, he had only a 30% approval rating. The election showed contrast on every level, Obama's push for change in the government and new ideas like universal health care versus McCain's longtime service in the Senate and US Military, and this was shown in the high youth turn out of 51%. In polls, the percentage of people for whom race became a bigger issue in this election rose, with around 2% saying race made them more likely to vote for Obama and 4% saying it made them less likely to do so. The rest did not think race was an important factor. On the other hand, 17% said that they were enthusiastic about Obama being the first black president while 13% had reservations or were uncomfortable because of race.
         

Extremest hate towards the US

Today we know about many extremists like Osama bin laden who was the leader Al-Qaeda found their hate for world super powers who were to big and strong for their own good. Many Muslims fought against the soviet union during the cold war and had support from the US. They didn't like the soviet union expanding in such a way and after the soviet union fell the last super power left was the US. The US was supporting Israel very heavily and had participated in many external conflicts. People like bin laden did not like Israel for being Jewish and keeping the holy land away from Muslims, he also doesn't like how the US is involved in world wide conflicts. He also believed that Americans are infidels, they were not following Islam and their way of life is toxic. This hate builded up and after the US declares war on terror generations after generations of Muslims had hate towards the US for their involvement in the middle east and killing of their people.

Operation Ranch Hand

This operation took place during the Vietnam War as part of the herbicide program that was sprayed over at least 20% of Vietnam's forest to "deprive Viet Cong of food and vegetation cover". Their main motto was "Only you can prevent a forest". The Rainbow Herbicides, talked about in another older blog post by me, was one of the primary weapon used in the operation. It contained about 65% or more of poisonous substance, most of them a known human carcinogen. The operation was based in a place called Bien Hoa Air Base and began its spraying in August 10 of 1961 to test out how well the spray works against the vegetation. (Once again, refer to the Rainbow Herbicide blog post for more details regarding information about the types of sprays.) As for the impact on people in Vietnam, it left a variety of things behind, such as health defects, ecological defects, and etc. Some of the obvious immediate damages are deforestation, increased cancer risks caused by dioxin (found in many different herbicides, made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and chlorine atoms, their toxicity dependent on the position of which the atoms arrange itself), violation of the Geneva Records, and etc. This was definitely one of the war tactics proven to be unethical because of the way it may have accidentally involved innocent civilians by spraying the herbicides over vegetation that may or may not have Viet Cong hiding in them.

History of Argade Games

Arcade Games played a huge factor on society during the late1970's and the mid 1980's. The arcade games or the "coin-op" to others was the entertainment side of things during this time period. The arcade games  since they started to grow in popularity since they were the first of its kind in technology that helped and allow people to interact with the virtual world in a way and that they could have complete control over actions that were occuring in the games. During the 1930s the first coin-operated pinball machines started to emerge and grow in popularity. With the coin-op games there were many other types of games that emerged around the same era and from the same concept of it. The other games that started to emerge were video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers. All of these starting games that were emerging from this time period caused the emergion of the newer and more recent video games. The games that were emerged during the late1970's and the mid 1980's could be considered to building blocks and structures for games that we consider today.

Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

It is well known to the public that there might have been some kind of relationship between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the past. The case between the President having an affair with someone when he swore to never having one in the first case. There was a debate on weither Bill Clinton should be impeached or not since he was going against his owth or he was going against what he had said in the past. The to see if Bill Clinton had an affair and if it should be able to cause the right to impeach him went in trial to if he was going to get impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. The outcome of the trail had caused mixed opinions towards the people. Some of teh supporters of Bill Clinton were glad of the outcome while the others were frustrated with the outcome and there were some that were skeptical towards the judgement of the court. He was found not guilty and was never kicked from his position as president but he was also fined $90,000 at the end other trial. The license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years and then he was not allowed to make cases to the supreme court. Till this day people argue if the outcome of the trial was considered just or unjust.

Y2K

   The Year 2000 Problem, nicknamed Y2K or Millennium bug was an issue that was related to the formatting and storage of calendar dates and data on computers. This issue came about, because many programs represented our 4 digit years with just the 2 last digits of that year. This made the year 2,000 indistinguishable from the year 1900. This led to a huge freak out, as many people across the nation believed that it would lead to various errors on computers and that people would lose control over their devices. As many programmers attempted to reset as many codes as possible in preparation for the date, to minimize the damage that they though would be done, but the reality was that not all codes could be changed since there were so many. People thought that there would not be any control over electronic devices such as computers, phones, traffic lights or things like that. There was the speculation that trains would stop, traffic lights would malfunction, and all the controls would stop working. This was a real issue for the military. People were nervous that the military would lose control of the missiles and other lethal weapons, as the controls for those were on the computer. Everybody was in a desperate attempt to save what they thought would brake. However, on New Year's eve as people were anticipating a nationwide blackout, as everything would shut down, people were pleasantly surprised to see that everything was fine. Traffic lights and computers didn't malfunction and everybody still had control over their devices, and the military could still control their weapons. Luckily this event was just a perceived disaster, and never truly became an issue.

9/11

   The September 11th attacks, also known as the 9/11 attacks were a series of terrorist attacks by the Islamic fundamentalist group al-Qaeda. In these attacks, nearly 3,000 people died and 6,000 were injured. As a part of these attacks 19 hijackers were onboard a series of planes that were operated by 2 major U.S passenger airlines. The hijackers decided to take over cross-country flights as they contained more fuel, creating more fire and a bigger explosion once crashed. Of these planes, 2 crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center complex, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and a 4th plane, which originally was flown towards the White House was crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers were aware of the hijackers. After the first plane crash, many people thought that it was just a terrible accident that happened. However, minds quickly changed once the second plane flew into the World Trade Center minutes later. As this was happening, the government was suspicious that it was al-Qaeda. The US responded to this attack by launching the War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan. The mission was to extradite Osama bin Laden- one of the main coordinators of this attack and a large presence in al-Qaeda- and also to remove the terrorist group from Afghanistan. Initially, bin Laden denied any affiliation with the group, but later on in 2004, he claimed responsibility for the the attacks. The US remained searching for bin Laden, and later found him in May 2011, when he was killed. This attack still remains the largest terrorist attack that the United States has faced, and it motivated the American government, along with other countries' governments to tighten their laws against terrorism, along with strengthen their defense against terrorists. From these horrific attacks, it is important that we learn that we all have an impact against these terrorist groups. For example, the 4th plane was supposed to crash into the White House, but just regular civilians had the ability to take the plane down and crash it into an open field rather than the White House. This shows that we all can take a stance on terrorism and make an impact, no matter what our position in society is.

Columbine

      The Columbine massacre was a high school shooting that took place in April, 1999 at Columbine High School. While the plan was executed as just a school shooting, the planned attack involved bombs and propane tanks in order to achieve as much damage as possible. However, while the perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were executing their plan, the bombs and propane tanks failed to ignigte, so they went through with just shooting their peers and teachers.
    While some people believe that this attack was a spur of the moment thing, the reality was that the two killers had done a lot of planning and preparation. The morning of the attack, Klebold and Harris placed a small bomb about 3 miles away from Columbine as a way to divert the attention away from the school, and toward the bomb. Right as those bombs were set to go off, the two boys arrived at their high school, they set their car bombs to go off at noon and gathered their propane bombs before entering the cafeteria. They went out to set up the propane tanks, hidden in duffel bags and begin their mission. However, when the bombs failed to explode, the two boys walked into school and began throwing pipe bombs. After they threw the bombs, the boys took out their guns and began shooting in the hallway and made their way to the cafeteria. The shooting continued until the police arrived about 5 minutes later. However, the police were not able to stop the boys as they continued shooting into the library. After Harris and Klebold left the library, they threw a pipe bomb into the science area of the school and attempted to detonate one of the propane tanks. After a failed attempt to ignite the tanks, the two boys committed suicide by gunshot later. After the boys died, there was an abundance of bomb squad, police officers and swat team members aiding the investigation. Despite popular belief, this shooting was not the first major school shooting in our American history. It was one of many in this case. However, it is important that all of these shootings are remembered and learned from, especially in our current day society as there has been a large increase in gun violence.

BATH TOWNSHIP SCHOOL BOMBING

BATH TOWNSHIP SCHOOL BOMBING 

When talking about the shooting of Columbine High, it was brought up that there were many other deaths at schools caused by people setting bombs off or going on a killing spree. Meaning that Columbine's tragedy wasn't the first of the many others to come in the future because of our gun law.

One particular school who faced the same outcomes if not worst, was, in fact, a school in Bath Township, Michigan. The bombing occurred in 1927 making it the "deadliest school massacre in U.S. history" The Bath Consolidated School was originally set in a "rural village of 300 people," known as Bath Township. Only 314 students from farmer families attended the school, and on May 18 "it was the last day of classes for that year." 

When 8:45 comes around, however, the 3-story school building was bombed by Andrew Kehoe. That action could be heard from a mile away according to the residents. "There was a pile of children about five or six under the roof and some of them had arms sticking out, some had legs, and some just their heads sticking out. They were unrecognizable because they were covered with dust, plaster, and blood.” The perpetrator, Kehoe who was a treasurer for a school board, however, didn't just bomb a school because of the taxes for the school. He "killed his neighbor’s dog, beat one of his horses to death" as well as his wife.

Death of Princess Diana

The car accident of "the people's princess" was awful for the entire world. Many Americans followed her life and the life of British Royalty, and were crushed by her death. The car accident was due to the incessant paparazzi as she was traveling. As the paparazzi followed her, the chauffeur sped up and crashed into a wall, killing all of them.

Many people blame the paparazzi for the incident, and her death brought up the topic of how to control the media and add limitations. The crash happened in Paris, and blamed on the driver Henri Paul who lost control of the Mercedes due to intoxication with alcohol and prescription drugs.

Flowers were left outside of Kensington palace in tribute of Diana,real tons of them because of her general popularity. At her funeral, 11,000 light bulbs were turned off in mourning. She was so loved because she broke the rules and standards as the Princess of Whales. She was continuously watched by Americans who loved keeping up with the royal family.

Osama bin laden - Al Qaeda

Osama Bin laden held multiple interviews both before and after the attacks on the twin towers. He was surprisingly open to telling the United States of his plans of mass destruction and hatred. His first interview was barely seen by Americans, and, in fact, didn't get him any more American attention.

Most people didn't see him as a threat, though they should have. He had access to millions of dollars, had signs of a global terrorist network, and divulged his plans to attack major buildings and kill as many Americans as possible.

Now, the FBI knew a surprising amount of information on Bin Laden, terrorism, and the network even in America itself. They received hint after hint, and sign after sign that 'hey this guy is dangerous and has tons of money'. This money he got from his father, who was wealthy off of the oil business.  His main control center was in Afghanistan, where corruption reigned the street.

It is the civilians who fought alongside him against the Russians who made the initial Al Qaeda group. Not only were they brought together by fighting, but the Americans gave them weapons to help defeat the Russians. So now they had weapons, money,. a team, and a leader; the recipe for global terrorism

dorothy dandridge

Dorothy dandridge was an African American film actress, dancer, and singer. She is the most famous African American actress to have made it big time in hollywood. She performed in vocalist venues such as the cotton club and Apollo Theatre.

She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award in 1959. Her first on screen appearance was on a short comedy called Our Gang, and then in a hit 1941 musical. She recieved attention for wearing what was considered revealing by the Motion Picture Code, and was cause of some public attention.

She ended up on the Ed Sullivan Show after many performances in films that got hits in the United States. She stopped acting for three years, and reappeared on a movie that became extremely controversial for interracial relationships. She was acting in love with a white actor, and gave the movie a lot of good and bad reviews.

Margaret Thatcher- The Cold War

Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time of Reagan's presidency, had strong views that affected the end of the Cold War. She served from 1979 to 1990, and the cold war went from 1985 to 1995.

She met with President Reagan to try to call off his Star Wars (SDI) idea, and her main idea were based on MAD. MAD was Mutually Assured Destruction. This is the idea that if both sides in a war had so much ammunition to be able to destroy 25 percent of the other side's population.

She was a figurehead of conservative ideology, and the first female prime minister of Britain. her views made her controversial. During her three terms, she cut welfare, reduced union power, and made some industries private. Her fellow conservative ally was our fellow conservative President, Ronald Reagan.