My History Vs the U.S.'s

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Politics/images-5/clinton-impeachment.jpg

Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the U.S., was impeached by the House of Representatives on two charges, one of perjury, which is the willful act of swearing a false oath in a judicial setting, and one of obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998. These charges arose from the Lewinsky Scandal and the Paula Jones lawsuit. The Lewinski scandal was a political sex scandal that emerged in 1998 between Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinski. The Paula Jones lawsuit was a suit between Jones, a former Arkansas state employee and Clinton, where she sued him for sexual harassment. The lawsuit was dismissed before it went to trial due to Jones not being prove damages, but Clinton payed her $850,000 in an out-of-court settlement. But it was not the end of controversy for Clinton.

In his testimony for the lawsuit, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinski. This is where the charges arose, for it was later discovered that Clinton did in fact have reaction with Lewinski. The impeachment trial started on January 7, 1999 and ended on February 12, 1999. The Senate acquitted him of all charges. It was only the second impeachment of a president in U.S. history; the other being Andrew Johnson, who was also acquitted of all charges.

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/399/cache/september-9-11-attacks-anniversary-ground-zero-world-trade-center-pentagon-flight-93-second-airplane-wtc_39997_600x450.jpg

This is the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history. On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked 4 passenger airlines. The planes’ targets were the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and supposedly the U.S. Capital or the White House. The attacks started at 8:46 a.m. when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center and soon was followed by United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower. Within 2 hours, both buildings collapsed to the ground leaving nothing but some steel frames and lots of rubble. American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse in its western part and panic throughout. The 4th plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was targeted at the U.S. Capital or White House, but it crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. after its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. Although the actual attacks only lasted for less than 3 hours, the fear and carnage from them went on for hours, days, months, and even years.

The mental, physical and emotional toll of this attack was devastating for the US. 2,996 people were murdered on that day; 2,606,in the World Trade Towers, 246 in the airplanes (no one survived that were on any of the flights), and 125 in the Pentagon. Many more were injured also these causalities included both civilians and brave policemen and firemen who gave their lives trying to save others. The cost of damages was over 3 billion dollars, but the nonphysical damage was much worse. Many people are still haunted by the horrors witnessed on 9/11. The attacks caused a wave of fear to cast over the nation for months preceding the ordeal. Some have yet to recover, and many more never will be able to because they didn’t survive the attacks. But the U.S. pulled together as a nation and started to rebuild. All though many lives were lost and the nation was changed, something good came out of it. It united America as a nation and made stricter rules for travel to prevent future attacks.

http://www.susssu.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dcsnipers.jpg

Also known as the D.C. Sniper Attacks, these were a series of coordinated shooting that took place during 3 weeks in October 2002 in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. 10 people were killed and 3 other victims were critically injured in several locations throughout the D.C. metropolitan area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia. 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo and adult John Allen Muhammad perpetrated the rampage. The two men’s plan was to spread fear across the nation, and they succeeded.

The two of them drove around in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, and through a hole cut at the rear, shot they shot innocent victims with a single bullet. Boyd had admitted that Muhammad had conducted a plan with 3 phases. The first was the plan to shot 6 white people a day for 30 days. The next phase involved shooting a pregnant in the stomachs to kill her, then shooting a police officer, and finally setting off bombs at the officer’s funeral. The last stage’s goal was o extort millions of dollars from the U.S, government that would be used to recruit young orphaned boys and send them out on shootings across the U.S. But they were unable to complete these stages, fortunately. Unfortunately. The men may have also been responsible for other shooting across the U.S. Their goal was to emit terror, and for 23 days, they did. But justice prevailed; when the men were caught sleeping in the car they committed the crimes in. Muhammad received the death penalty and was executed in 2009 while Malvo received multiple life sentences without the chance of parole.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2013/01/09/19-Columbia-DisasterNASA_620x496.jpg
This catastrophe occurred when the Space Shuttle Columbia, shortly before it was scheduled to complete mission STS-107, disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all 7 crew members aboard. The loss of the vessel was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation the size of a small briefcase broke off the shuttle’s external tank. The debris damaged the left wing, also damaging the shuttle’s thermal protection shield, which shield the shuttle from intense heat generated when re-entering the atmosphere. The astronauts aboard were unaware of the problem and even though some engineers at NASA on the ground suspected a problem, the investigation was limited because it was believed everything would be all right if they actually were a problem; but everything was not ok.

During re-entry, the damages area allowed ht gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure, causing the entire vehicle to rapidly breakup into pieces. Following the loss of the Columbia, the space shuttle program was suspended for over 2 years. The accident lead to major changes to shuttle operations, including the requirement of a thorough on-orbit inspection of each shuttle and a designated rescue mission at the ready incase of irreparable damage to a shuttle, to ensure that what happened to the Columbia would not occur again. The Columbia disaster was tragic, but the astronauts did not die in vain; the event allowed NASA to learn from their mistakes to ensure that future launches would be safer so that the hope of space exploration by humans could live on.

http://www.saybrook.edu/newexistentialists/sites/www.saybrook.edu.newexistentialists/files/images/posts/virginia-tech-cho-seung-hui.jpg

This was the deadliest shootings by a single gunman in U.S. history. It all started at 7:15 a.m., when Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University walked in to West Amber Johnston Hall and opened fire. He entered his room, and killed 2 students. He then left the scene and returned to his dorm room. He disposed of his cell phone and hard drive and then walked to a post-office. Here, he mailed a package of writings and video recordings to NBC News, but his reign of terror was far from over.

Almost 2 ours after the initial shooting, Cho entered Norris Hall, which houses the Engineering Science and Mechanics program, among others and chained the 3 main entrance doors shut. He placed notes claiming that if the doors opened, bombs would go off. Cho the started up again. He walked into several different classrooms and killed professors and students, and wounded others. He then shot himself at 9:51 a.m., ending the nightmare. When it was all over, 5 staff and 27 students had been killed. 23 others people were injured. Both the University and the nation remembered the victims of the shooting in different ways, and steps were taken to try to prevent something as tragic from happening again.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130117160738-inaug-history-2009-obama-horizontal-gallery.jpg
The first inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the U.S. took place on Tuesday, January 20,2009. The inauguration marked the commencement of the first African-American president in U.S. history and set a record attendance for any event held in Washington D.C. The theme of the inauguration was “ A New Birth of Freedom”, a phrase from the Gettysburg Address. This was chosen commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth year of Abraham Lincoln. Obama referred to Lincoln’s ideas in his speeches and homage was payed to Abe throughout the ceremony. Although the ceremony was in honor of “honest Abe’, the real “star was Obama.

He was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu Hawaii. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Obama worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago, where he also served 3 terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He ran fro president in 2008, and defeated republican nominee John McCain. 9 months later, he was named the Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Obama was recently re-elected as president for a second term, defeating republican nominee Mitt Romney and was sworn in on January 20, 2013. His campaign slogans were “Change” and “Yes We Can”, and his victories have proven that many people think he is the change the U.S. needs. His presidency has brought new hope and opened up new doors for people of different races.

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/burning-oil-rig-explosion-fire-photo11.jpg

This is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. It is also refereed to as the BP Oil Spill or the BP Oil Disaster. The Deepwater Horizon was a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico being carted by oil giant BP. At 9:45 p.m. on April 20, 2010, high-pressure methane gas rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded, engulfing the platform. 126 crew members were aboard the rig, and of these, 11 were killed and 17 were injured. But this was just the beginning of the disaster.

2 days after the explosion, it was discovered that there was an oil leak when a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. The oil continued spilling into the gulf for 87 days, before the seafloor gusher was capped on July 15, 2010. The total discharge of oil is estimated at 4.9 million barrels, or 210 million gallons. The spill was also called “the worst environmental disaster the U.S. had ever faced” by White House Energy Advisor Carol Brower, and for good reason. The spill killed over 8000 birds, mammals, marine species, and other animals in the 6 months after it. It changed the lives of many other animals’ whose habitats were damaged or destroyed, or who were injured by the oil, but humans felt the impact too. 16,000 total miles of coastline were affected, including the costs of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. The economies of these stated were hurt also because of a blow to the fishing industry, and major part o the economy in the Gulf region. Many volunteers showed up to help, and they are still trying to pick up the pieces and trying to bring their world back to how it was before the spill.

http://www.biographyonline.net/images/steve-jobs.jpg

Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur and inventor, best known as the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Apple is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronic. It is one of the most profitable companies in the world, with revenue of $156.508 billion in 2012. Millions of people around the U.S. and the world own at least one apple product. Products such as the iPhone and MacBook have become the hot item to have. But if it wasn’t for Jobs, millions of people would not be listening to music on their iPods or surfing the internet on their Macs.

Steve was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He is said to have transformed, “one industry after another, from, computers to smartphones, to music and movies.” Jobs helped design and create the famous products and program that so many use today. But these products might never have been created, if Jobs had not brought the company back from the bankruptcy it fell to in 1996. Jobs and left to world at Pixar, but he returned and the company was reverted back to profitability by 1998. His reinvigoration of the company is considered one of the greatest turnarounds in business history. But the genius of a man was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. Hid health declined throughout the years and he died on October 5, 2011 of respiratory arrest caused by his cancer. Job’s inventions helped shape the modern consumer electronic age and his legacy continues to live on as people all around the U.S. and the world incorporate his inventions into their everyday lives.