Paige Lange | Contributing Writer
For Collide’s “100 Years at a Glance,” APU history professor Brian Plummer contributes his thoughts of different themes throughout time that are playing out in today’s politics:
Dec. 23, 1913 – Establishment of the Federal Reserve System: This reform of the banking system is authorized by the U.S. Congress.
April 6, 1917 – Congress declares war: The U.S. joins forces with the allies and declares war against Germany, and in June of the same year, the first U.S. troops enter Europe and engage in World World I.
Jan. 16, 1919 – The 18th Amendment prohibits the distribution of alcoholic beverages throughout the U.S.
June 28, 1919 – World War I ends and the Treaty of Versailles is signed.
Aug. 18, 1920 – The 19th Amendment: Women are given the right to vote.
July 21, 1925 – The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes: This ends with the ruling that teachers are not allowed to teach evolution in schools.
“If you’re outside the hallowed halls of APU, you can’t talk creation, you can’t even talk intelligent design because that’s not ‘real science,’” says Plummer. “And of course there’s been reaction against that. I think that if we were to establish some sort of theocracy, we would have a struggle between what it really means to be a Christian and do what’s right in God’s eyes versus freedom, which is what this country was founded on, because you can’t really have the two necessarily at the same time.”
Oct. 29, 1929 – Stock market crash: The stock market losses are around $50 billion between 1929 and 1931, heralding the Great Depression.
March 4, 1933 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration. With the catchphrase, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself,” Roosevelt continues to address the public with “Fireside Chats” and tackle the issues of the Great Depression.
March 9-June 16, 1933 – The New Deal is put into place.
March 31, 1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps is founded, working with the Federal Unemployment Relief Act to provide work for 2.5 million men on many projects across the U.S.
Dec. 5, 1933 – The 21st Amendment: This amendment ends Prohibition.
Dec. 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor: Japanese fighter planes attack a Marine base in Hawaii. A total of 1,177 soldiers die in the attack and the next day, the U.S. declares war on Japan, entering into WWII. Four days later, the U.S. declares war on both Germany and Italy in response to their declaration against America.
Feb. 19, 1942 – Japanese Internment Camps: Executive Order 9066 leads to the confining of over 110,000 Japanese Americans, who were then relocated. The camps last three years.
June 6, 1944 – D-Day: The Normandy Invasion, when the beaches of Frances are stormed, becomes the largest amphibious military operation in history.
April 12, 1945 – President Roosevelt dies and Vice President Harry Truman takes over.
Aug. 6, 1945 – President Harry S Truman approves the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, the second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrenders Aug. 15.
April 4, 1949 – NATO, the North American Treaty Organization: This is formed as an alliance that any attack against one nation would be considered an attack against them all.
Feb. 9, 1950 – McCarthyism: Accusations over suspicions of communism begin to affect different people’s roles as many are suspected of being communist and persecuted because of it.
According to Plummer, something to consider is “how nostalgia reshapes how we think about the past. If you say ‘the ‘50s,’ a lot of people think of Elvis, ‘I Love Lucy’ and bobby socks, but [within] the same era, there is this terrible fear that McCarthyism would spawn, but we conveniently forget that because it’s not as pleasant as Elvis, per se.”
This prompts the question of whether or not society is influenced and in some ways controlled by external forces.
“Someone else is deciding what you can actually believe, even though technically, legally, anyone has the right to believe in whatever economic or whatever system they want,” says Plummer.
June 25, 1950 – The Korean War begins: This leads to U.S. involvement only two days later. In November, United Nations forces retreat when Communist Chinese troops joins North Korea’s.
July 27, 1953 – The Korean War ends with an armistice involving China, the U.S., North Korea and South Korea.
May 17, 1954 – Brown vs. the Board of Education: This rules that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
Dec. 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks: This day, a black woman refuses to give her bus seat to a white man.
Oct. 14, 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis: This is a result of offensive missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy orders a naval blockade. This potential conflict ends after 38 days.
Aug. 28, 1963 – March on Washington: This is the day of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which more than 200,000 people attended.
Nov. 22, 1963 – JFK was shot and killed in downtown Dallas, Texas.
Aug. 6, 1965 – The Voting Rights Act: This outlaws the literacy test for voting and provides registration of voters in locations where fewer than 50 percent are registered.
June 29, 1966 – Vietnam War begins.
April 4, 1968 – The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray.
June 28, 1969 – Stonewall uprising: The first resistance of the gay community against the police force in Manhattan, New York.
“It comes down to who determines what it means to be ‘a woman’ or ‘a man.’ And, of course, that is played out most vocally through gay rights. Who determines your identity?” Plummer says. He explains that in light of the Stonewall riots, people say, “‘It’s high time that we stand up for who I am. Whatever our orientation is, we stand up for it.’”
Nov. 15, 1969 – Vietnam Protest: Over 250,000 anti-war demonstrators march on Washington, D.C.
June 17, 1972 – The Watergate crisis: Four men are arrested as they break into Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building.
Jan. 22, 1973 – Roe vs. Wade: This ruling is that a woman can have an abortion within the first six months of pregnancy.
Aug. 9, 1974 – President Richard M. Nixon resigns the office to avoid impeachment. He also admits his role in Watergate. Gerald Ford takes up the presidency.
Nov. 4, 1979 – The Iran Hostage Crisis: Sixty-three Americans are taken at the American Embassy in Tehran. A later rescue fails and eight Americans are killed in Operation Eagle Claw in a mid-air collision.
Jan. 20, 1981 – The inauguration of Ronald Reagan is followed by the release of the 52 Americans still held hostage in Tehran.
Oct. 19, 1987 – Black Monday: The stock market crashes with a 22.6 percent drop in one day.
Jan. 12, 1991 – Operation Desert Storm: Congress approves the use of force to liberate Kuwait and Iraq and in turn sends eight Scud missiles into Israel.
Feb. 27, 1991 – The Gulf War ends: Iraq withdraws forces and sets oil fields on fire. A cease-fire is declared. The United Nations Security Council soon passes Resolution 687, which calls for destroying chemical and biological weapons as well as ballistic missiles.
Feb. 26, 1993 – The World Trade Center attack: It is bombed by Islamic terrorists when a van under the North Tower explodes. Six people are killed and over 1,000 injured.
Sept. 11, 2001 – World Trade Center collapses: Islamic-extremist terrorists hijack four planes and crash them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. One goes down as passengers crash it as they learn it is to destroy either the Capitol or White House. This attack is organized by al-Qaida and led by Osama Bin Laden.
March 19, 2003 – The U.S. war in Iraq begins.
Dec. 13, 2003 – Saddam Hussein is captured.
Dec. 1, 2009 – Thirty thousand additional troops are sent to Afghanistan.
March 25, 2010 – The Affordable Care Act is passed.
May 2, 2011 – Osama Bin Laden is killed in Pakistan after 10 years on the run during a raid by U.S. Navy Seals.
Dec. 15, 2011 – Last combat troops leave Iraq.
April 15, 2013 – Boston Marathon Bombing: Two bombs explode near the finish line, killing three and injuring hundreds in the terrorist attack.
June 5, 2014 – The U.S. begins a bombing campaign against ISIS.
Sept. 30, 2014 – The first case of Ebola in U.S. comes as a result of travel in Liberia and West Africa. In Africa, the virus spreads to 22,000 people and kills 9,000.
More recently, with issues of personal freedom coming up around Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Internet and privacy have become major topics of conversation.
“If you would have asked the Founding Fathers 200-plus years ago about personal privacy and the 21st century, they couldn’t have foreseen the Internet, they couldn’t have foreseen cellphones and smartphones and so on, so those sort of issues are not addressed by the major law codes that our country is based on,” Plummer says, “and that question of who actually decides what your freedoms are and what my freedoms are … whose choice is that? Is it yours or is it some old white guy in a black robe?”