The
Trail of Tears was the relocation and movement of Native Americans,
including many members of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw
nations among others in the United States, from their homelands to
Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States.
The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw
Nation in 1831. Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease,
and starvation while en route to their destinations, and many died,
including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee. By 1837, 46,000 Native
Americans from these southeastern nations had been removed from their
homelands thereby opening 25 million acres for settlement by European
Americans.
2. The Dred Scott Decision 1857
The Dred Scott Decision was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants—whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process.
3. The battle of Antietam 1862
The
battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg,
Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the
first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern
soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with
about 23,000 casualties. The Union had 12,401 casualties with 2,108
dead. Confederate casualties were 10,318 with 1,546 dead. This
represented 25% of the Federal force and 31% of the Confederate. More
Americans died on September 17, 1862, than on any other day in the
nation’s military history. Several generals died as a result of the
battle, including Maj. Gens. Joseph K. Mansfield , Israel B. Richardson
and Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman on the Union side (all mortally wounded),
and Brig. Gens. Lawrence O. Branch, William E. Starke on the
Confederate side (killed).
4. The Stock Market Crash 1929
A
massive drop in value of the stock market helped trigger the Great
Depression which lasted until the increased economic activity spurred by
WW2 got us going back in the right direction. The Great Depression had
devastating effects in virtually every country, rich and poor. Personal
income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, and international trade
plunged by a half to two-thirds. Unemployment in the United States rose
to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the
world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry.
Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural
areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60 percent.
The
US government came to the conclusion that interning Japanese-American
citizens was the best of a number of bad options. Roughly a hundred
thousand Japanese-Americans ended up in camps. U.S. President Franklin
D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 on February 19, uprooting
Japanese Americans on the west coast to be sent to Internment camps. The
order led to the internment of Japanese Americans or AJAs (Americans of
Japanese Ancestry) in which some 120,000 ethnic Japanese people were
held in internment camps for the duration of the war. Of the Japanese
interned, 62% were Nisei (American-born, second-generation Japanese
American and therefore American citizens) or Sansei (third-generation
Japanese American, also American citizens) and the rest were Issei
(Japanese immigrants and resident aliens, first-generation Japanese
American).
6. Dropping of the Bomb 1945
A
decision was taken to drop atomic bombs on Japanese civilians killing
roughly 200,000 people in total to ‘shorten’ the war. ( It completely
ignored the fact that war is between armies, not civilians). On Monday,
August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the nuclear bomb ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on
Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, directly killing
an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation
brought total casualties to 90,000-140,000. Approximately 69% of the
city’s buildings were completely destroyed, and about 7% severely
damaged. On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was the target of the world’s
second atomic bomb attack (and second plutonium bomb; the first was
tested in New Mexico, USA) at 11:02 a.m., when the north of the city was
destroyed and an estimated 40,000 people were killed by the bomb
nicknamed “Fat Man.” According to statistics found within Nagasaki Peace
Park, the death toll from the atomic bombing totaled 73,884, as well as
another 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased
and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.
7. Bay of Pigs. 1961
Kennedy’s
decision to go forward with the invasion and then deny them air support
doomed the entire enterprise to failure. Today, 44 years later, Fidel
Castro, a diehard enemy of the United States, is still in power. The
plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F.
Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed
forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile
combatants in three days. Bad Cuban-American relations were made worse
by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The invasion is often criticized as
making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the
support for his economic policies. Following the initial attacks by 8
CIA-owned B-26s on Cuban airfields, he declared the revolution
“Marxist-Leninist”. There are still yearly nationwide drills in Cuba
during the ‘Dia de la Defensa’ (Defense Day) to prepare the population
for an invasion.
8. Vietnam 1960s
The
United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South
Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. Military
advisors arrived, beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the
early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again
in 1962. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities,
including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million
Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers. The Case-Church
Amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the anti-war
movement, prohibited direct U.S. military involvement after August 15,
1973. U.S. military and economic aid continued until 1975. The capture
of Saigon by North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of
Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.
9. 9/11 2001
Terrorist
madmen attack the Twin Towers and Pentagon, kill nearly 3000 Americans,
and set off a war on terrorism. (Some accounts suggest it was an inside
job, or a horrific case of neglect). Afghanistan invaded to destroy the
groups (Taliban & al Qaeda) America itself made, trained &
armed to fight the Russian invasion. The campaign is still going on and
has spilled into neighboring Pakistan, India & Iran, highlighting
the inability of American forces to contain the war. The initial attack
removed the Taliban from power, but Taliban forces have since regained
some strength. T he war has been less successful in achieving the goal
of restricting al-Qaeda’s movement than anticipated. Since 2006,
Afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased Taliban-led
insurgent activity, record-high levels of illegal drug production, and a
fragile government with limited control outside of Kabul
10. Iraq 2003
The ‘Invasion of Iraq’ on the basis of alleged reports saying Iraq possesses WMD’s. Nothing found but hundreds of thousands of lives shattered. Bush later admitted that “[my] biggest regret of the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. In 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency released a report saying that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by some traditional U.S. allies, including France, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada. Their leaders argued that there was no evidence of WMD and that invading Iraq was not justified in the context of UNMOVIC’s February 12, 2003 report. On February 15, 2003, a month before the invasion, there were many worldwide protests against the Iraq war, including a rally of three million people in Rome, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever anti-war rally. According to the French academic Dominique ReyniĆ©, between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war, but the decision remained & Iraq was invaded.
Source: terselubung.blogspot.com
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