1969

I had quite a few ideas for this english post, ranging from the Great Depression, to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and even to the Beatles disbanding. While that particular event might seem insignificant now, there were plenty of people in that day who felt that was a sign of the world ending, though most of them were probably teenage girls. In the end, I couldn't decide what to write about so I took Dr. McCann's advice and picked the year my father was born, 1969. I was pretty surprised by how much went on that year. In this seemingly obscure year, China tested its first hydrogen bomb, the US and USSR proposed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, racial riots broke out in Detroit, , Rochester, Birmingham, New Britain, and New York City's Spanish Harlem, and Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African American US Supreme Court justice. That's quite a load for the American people in one year. Not only did they have to problems outside their borders with multiple foreign nations, they dealt with much internal strife as well. I feel as though the American citizens' fears about the uncertainty of the future was made much worse by the amount of violence and conflict occuring inside the borders. While we today do still deal with conflicts and violence throughout the nation, it is not on the same level. The fact that so much happened in a year that previously had little importance to me proves to me there are always problems and uncertainties in the world. In some ways these problems are remedied as time goes on, as can be seen by the decline in racial violence. In other ways these problems are only exacerbated with the passage of time. With the substantial increase of knowledge in the sciences, warfare has become more deadly than ever, with advanced weaponry and explosives that can erase entire nations. There always has been and always will be problems and uncertainties in this world, but as the past has shown, we will always find a way to get by.