Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, America was at a glorious age. Global superiority, winning the Space Race, and with the economy doing well gave an America a sense of assurance and confidence. In the 1920s, many thought of it as an era of change. With new radios, cars, and many more goods. At the time of the 1930s, America experienced deep troubles with the Stock Market crash on October 29th, 1929 which left many Americans with an impression of loss and anxiety. The 1940s were known for WW2 which left millions dead and was caused by Germany electing Hitler as the Chancellor. But soon in the 50s, the rise of suburbs outside cities led to an expansion of the middle class, thus allowing more Americans to enjoy the luxuries of life. Not only was …show more content…
From 1970 to the end of the decade, Americans role became more defamatory. In 1970, 60% of drug overdoses were suicides, while 31% were accidental. Drug use rose considerably in the 1970s. In 1970, there were 350,000 arrests for drug abuse. People were taking drugs because they were less moral. They were becoming less moral because they weren’t religious. People started to abandon their religion. To people of religion, the public that was taking drugs took them because they were immoral. Also from 1970 to 1979, the total reported crime rate went up by 51%, while the population only went up by 8%. Another big issue was abortions. From 1970 to 1979, the legal abortion rate rose 535%. During In 1979, there were 1,497,670 legal abortions in the United States Women began to have more abortions, mostly due to the facts that they weren’t married to their partner, the pregnancy was result of rape, the woman didn’t have enough money, or because of religion. Many religious people were against this, and they believed that these women were slaughtering babies by having abortions. One of the most well-known crimes occured in the White House, with President Richard Nixon’s scandal. Richard Nixon was the 37th president who served from January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994. Nixon was involved in a scandal that fell on June 17, 1972 that involved a break in at the Watergate …show more content…
They often introduced new duties. They introduced new customs such as equal treatment of both men and women, land reforms, and the promotion of atheism. Many conservative and traditional Afghans were strongly against this, so the PDPA began arresting, torturing, and murdering members of the Afghan elite. In 1979, the Soviets overthrew the Afghan president and established a puppet state ruled by Moscow. Russian troops were in the country at the time and took over many government buildings. The United States saw the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a threat to American interests in the Middle East and Asia. If the Soviets came to power over Afghanistan, the U.S. feared that that might influence Iran and Pakistan, which would lead to an interference with the oil supply. Jimmy Carter and Islamic nations began supplying the Afghan resistance with military assistance China also began to supply weapons and train Afghanistan’s fighters. Soviet soldiers would destroy villages, farms, crops, and animals in an attempt to wipe out all of the resistance soldiers in an area; this tactic did not work very well, however, because it inspired more Afghans to join the resistance. By the mid-1980s, over 5 million refugees had immigrated to Iran and Pakistan to avoid the fighting. The Afghan resistance was known as Mujahideen, or “Soldiers of God”. During the first years of the
During the "Roaring Twenties" people were living up to the modern standards of society. Then the Great Depression began and the joy and excitement disappeared and tension manifested. In the time period of 1920-1941 America experienced major global events that occurred in extremely short rapid intervals of time. From the end of World War I in 1918 to the Roaring Twenties, straight to the Great Depression in 1929, into the beginning of World War II in 1939, and all the way to the horror of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, America faced these occurrences with difficulty and confusion. But with the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, quick and immediate responses were made to stabilize America. Among his responses
The 1930’s were a time of poverty in America. The Great Depression hit the United States hard and it would take years to recover, but presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, although he did not solve everyone’s problem, would help a lot. Roosevelt brought America back from the brink and helped a lot of people, but so many others were left without jobs or money or food. 1930 to 1941 were difficult years for America and it was not until World War II that we started to make some progress.
The American home front during World War II is recalled warmly in popular memory and cultural myth as a time of unprecedented national unity, years in which Americans stuck together in common cause. World War II brought many new ideas and changes to American life. Even though World War II brought no physical destruction to the United States mainland, it did affect American society. Every aspect of American life was altered by U.S. involvement in the war including demographics, the labor force, economics and cultural trends. During the Great Depression, the American birth rate had fallen to an all-time low due to delayed marriages and parenthood.
I do not believe this world will ever be completely free. People living on this planet would take advantage and make this beautiful place a complete shit hole. Gore Vidal introduces the topic of giving humans the freedom to take any single drug they want. He tells us that we should label these drugs with the side effects and allow anyone to take them at their own risk. His whole point is to let people in our society do what they want with their own body. Flannery O’Connor takes on the subject of making the younger generation of students learn the about the past. She is upset at the fact that this generation of students are only interested in learning about what is now and are uninterested in learning about the past. O’Connor truly believes
The years berween 1929 and 1933 were trying years for people throughout the world. Inflation was often so high money became nearly worthless. America had lost the prosperity it had known during the 1920's. America was caught in a trap of a complete meltdown of economy, workers had no jobs simply because it cost too much to ship the abundance of goods being produced. This cycle was unbreakable, and produced what is nearly universally recognized as the greatest economic collapse of all times. These would be trying years for all, but not every American faced the same challenges and hardships. (Sliding 3)
The 20th century brought about many changes, with several events molding society in the way we know of it today. With the Great Depression, World War 2 , and the Cold War, America faced many internal and external threats, that endangered the American way of life and forced the country to reshape it’s views to move past events that seemed, at the time, to be the lowest points.
Despite his loss to JFK in the 1960 presidential election, in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was elected as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. He was praised by many for his comeback after previously losing an election and seemed to be an admirable man. While in office, Nixon made many achievements and followed through with all of his promises made during his campaign. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the American people had finally elected a leader who seemed unquestionably trustworthy – or so they thought. Unfortunately, shortly after Nixon was elected to his second term of presidency in 1972, the Watergate Scandal changed America forever by creating a sense of mistrust toward the government for the American people because of The Nixon Administration’s actions.
Out of some of the most turbulent times in history have come the greatest ages of success and prosperity. The 1920’s and 1950’s are two eras that exemplify the spirit of triumph and wealth. In both decades, a nation thrilled by the victorious conclusion of war and the return of their loved ones from war entered into an age of capitalism and materialism, bolstering the economy and with it national pride. Some of the features most common to the 20’s and 50’s were consumerism and the accompanying optimistic mindset, the extent to which new ideas entered society, and discrimination in terms of both sexism and racism. On the heels of war, new technology caused a decrease in prices of goods in the 1920’s and in the 1950’s the GI Bill increased income.
During the years between 1920 and 1960, America saw change in many aspects of life. The United States was a part of two major wars and a crash of the banking system that crippled the economy greater than ever seen in this country’s history. Also the country had new insecurities to tackle such as immigration and poor treatment of workers. These events led to the change of America lives socially, economically, and politically. The people of America changed their ideas of what the country’s place in the world should be. The issues challenging America led the country to change from isolation to war, depression to prosperity, and social change. The threats to American way of life, foreign and domestic, were the changing forces to the country in the twenties to the sixties.
Nixon’s run as an international crook finally caught up to him in 1972, when burglars were caught and arrested inside of the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington. Nixon attempted to cover it up, but eventually he was found caught in his own web of lies, and was forced to resign in 1974 (Lecture 30, December 12). Nixon’s promises of a return to normalcy were shattered with these revelations. The confidence in the Presidency that he had hoped to restore was even lower than it was when he entered office. If the 1960’s were defined by political and social instability, then Richard Nixon did nothing but further the sixties into the 1970’s. The 1960’s truly ended with the pardon of Richard Nixon by President Ford in 1974. After doing so, Ford declared: “our long national nightmare is over”.
During the post WWII period in America, the face of the nation changed greatly under the presidency of Truman and Eisenhower. America underwent another era of good feelings as they thought themselves undefeatable and superior over the rest of the world. Communism was the American enemy and American sought to rid the world of it. Because of the extreme paranoia caused by Communism, conformity became an ideal way to distinguish American Culture from the rest. Conformity became a part of every American Life to a large extent. It became evident through the medium of culture, society and politics throughout the era of the 50s.
Drug in the American Society is a book written by Eric Goode. This book, as the title indicates, is about drugs in the American Society. It is especially about the misuse of most drugs, licit or illicit, such us alcohol, marijuana and more. The author wrote this book to give an explanation of the use of different drugs. He wrote a first edition and decided to write this second edition due to critic and also as he mentioned in the preface “there are several reason for these changes. First, the reality of the drug scene has changed substantially in the past dozen or so years. Second much more information has been accumulated about drug use. And third, I’m not the same person I was in 1972.”(vii). The main idea of this book is to inform readers about drugs and their reality. In the book, Goode argued that the effect of a drug is dependent on the societal context in which it is taken. Thus, in one society a particular drug may be a depressant, and in another it may be a stimulant.
“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
At the turn of the century many things were happening that would affect America in ways that would have never been expected. The 1900-1940 era would have truly been an exciting time to live in. Over these four decades Americans would face some of the
Drug use and abuse is as old as mankind itself. Human beings have always had a desire to eat or drink substances that make them feel relaxed, stimulated, or euphoric. Humans have used drugs of one sort or another for thousands of years. Wine was used at least from the time of the early Egyptians; narcotics from 4000 B.C.; and medicinal use of marijuana has been dated to 2737 BC in China.