Trying to remember what I could recall about and also considering historical treatments of the 1990s, I came up with these four major issues that fit with some of the themes of this course:

• Desert Storm
• Operation Restore Hope
• Nelson Mandela
• Dolly and the Clone Wars
• "The end of the Cold War?"

Desert Storm

DWell, from my perspective, I wondered what the heck the US was doing there, but then again, Kuwait was big money.  The Operation took place while I was up to my neck in trying to finsh my dissettation, so I took a bit of a look each night on the lat enight tv of what happened, but frankly I had bigger concerns.

So, what do we know about the "success" that was Desert Storm.

Some key dates:

• January 1969, President Nixon took office.
• November 1969, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) began.
• On 12 April 1971 the American ping-pong team (and journalists) became the first Americans to visit communist China since 1949.  This became the start of what was later known as "ping-pong diplomacy," as it indicated that something was underfoot in the relationship between the United States and China.  After Nixon's visit to China in 1972, a communist Chinese ping-pong team visited the US in  that April.  (See the ping-pong scenes in the movie, Forrest Gump, 1994.)
• 9 July 1971, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor, visited China.
• 21 February 1972, President Nixon went to communist China (the People's Republic of China.), the first time any U.S. President had visited there.
• 6 May 1972, Nixon traveled to Moscow. (He had, of course, been there before as vice-president!).
• 26 May 1972, President Nixon and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
• 27 January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed ending American involvement in the Vietnam War (technically ending the conflict, but that did not happen).
• 17 June 1973, Brezhnev came to Washington.
• 27 June 1974, Nixon returned to Russia.

Somalia

Another event that was off my charts, but it proved to have a hughe worldwide impact because it further convinced the US not to get involved in peace-keepin goperations

1. No doubt about it, detente was over-sold both to Americans and Russians.  Despite friendly talk and nice state visits, there still remained a lot of nuclear missiles pointed at both sides, and most of the same military infrastructure that had deployed those missiles remained in place with their "cold war warrior" mentalités intact.
2. On 3 January 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which required that any future expansion of trade between the US and USSR--primarily grain sales by American farmers to Russia--be dependent on improvements of human rights conditions within the Soviet Union.  That irritated Russia.
3. Throughout the 1970s, there was continuing communist activity around the world: Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand (insurgency), Somalia, Ethiopia, Angola, Central America, El Salvador, Yemen, Benin, Mozambique, etc.  That irritated America.
4. Russian support for Arab nations such as Syria in the Middle East.  That irritated America.
5. President Carter's call for the observance of human rights around the world, especially in communist Eastern Europe.  That irritated Russia.
6. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution and subsequent hostage crisis appeared to show the United States powerless on the world stage.  That bothered America.
7. On 25 December 1979 (Christmas day!), the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to support the communist regime there. That bothered America.
8. Because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.  That bothered Russia.
9. Also as a result of events in Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter increased the U.S. defense budget and financing of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan began.  That irritated the Russians.
10. The 1980 American presidential election was won by Ronald Reagan who opposed further "concessions" to the Russians in the SALT II negotiations.

Nelson Mandela

Could there not hav ebeen a greater story than that triumph of nelson mandela after alifetime's wort of struggle.

From his inaugural address, he spoke:

The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun--not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights.  (Avalon Project)

Begin, Carter and Sadat at Camp David

The Clone

It was not only hte first clone it was also the human genome project.

The end of the Cold War and Georgia

Funny, that I shoul dtalk about this last, especailly ince it happened first in the decade.
Well, I think that the war was over long ago, with the first handshake between k and Eisenhoer and the idea of Peaceful coesixtance.
The rest of the story was just waswted money, and men.

By the end of the decade, there was a cable TV station, C-Span, that allowed Americans to actually watch what was going on in the US House of Representatives.

Web pages within the course relevant to the 1990s

• Henry Kissinger
• Richard Nixon
• Camp David Accords
• Kent State Shootings
• Earth Day
• Bangladesh
• Landsat
• Mao Zedong
• The PC Revolution
• Afghanistan
• Iranian Revolution
• 
  

Some suggestions for further research