~ Events That Changed The World ~

[MysteRy]

President Barack Obama Elected(2008)



Barack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007. On August 27, 2008, he was declared nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2008 presidential election. He was the first African American in history to be nominated on a major party ticket. On August 23, 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign announced that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware would be the Vice Presidential nominee.

On November 4, 2008, Obama won the election, making him the President-elect and the first African American elected President of the United States. He is the third sitting Senator, after Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy, to be elected President. His constitutional election to the office was completed with the meeting of the Electoral College on December 15, 2008, and the subsequent certification of the college’s vote by the Joint Session of the United States Congress on January 8, 2009. Based on the results of the electoral vote count, Barack Obama was declared the elected President of the United States and Joseph Biden was declared officially as the elected Vice President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election.

[MysteRy]

Hurricane Katrina(2005)



Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. At least 1,836 people died in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane; total property damage was estimated at $81 billion (2005 USD), nearly triple the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most significant number of deaths occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed; in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland. Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks. However, the worst property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as all Mississippi beachfront towns, which were flooded over 90% in hours, as boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, with waters reaching 6–12 miles (10–19 km) from the beach.

[MysteRy]

9/11 Terrorist Attacks(2001)



The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/11) were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally crashed two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. Hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth jet, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to take control before it could reach the hijacker’s intended target in Washington, D.C. Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks.

Suspicion quickly fell on al-Qaeda, and in 2004, the group’s leader Osama bin Laden, who had initially denied involvement, claimedresponsibility for the attacks. Al-Qaeda and bin Laden cited U.S. support of Israel, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, andsanctions against Iraq as motives for the attacks. The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror, and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which had harbored al-Qaeda members. Many countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. In May 2011, after years at large, bin Laden was found and killed.

The destruction of the twin towers caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattan and had a significant impact on global markets. Cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, and the Pentagon was repaired within a year. Numerous memorials were constructed, including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, the Pentagon Memorial, and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. Adjacent to the National Memorial, the 1,776 feet (541 m) One World Trade Center is expected to be completed in 2013

[MysteRy]

Death of Princess Diana(1997)



On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz W140, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Fayed’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor. Although at first the media pinned the blame on the paparazzi, the crash was ultimately found to be caused by the reckless actions of the chauffeur, who was the head of security at the Ritz and had earlier goaded the paparazzi waiting outside the hotel. An 18-month French judicial investigation concluded in 1999 that the crash was caused by Henri Paul, who lost control of the car at high speed while drunk. His inebriation may have been made worse by the simultaneous presence of an anti-depressant and traces of a tranqulizing anti-psychotic in his body.

From February 1998, Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al-Fayed (the owner of the Hôtel Ritz, for which Paul worked) claimed that the crash was a result of a conspiracy, and later contended that the crash was orchestrated by MI6 on the instructions of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His claims that the crash was a result of a conspiracy were dismissed by a French judicial investigation and by Operation Paget, a Metropolitan police inquiry that concluded in 2006.

An inquest headed by Lord Justice Scott Baker into the deaths of Diana and Dodi began at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, on 2 October 2007 and was a continuation of the original inquest that began in 2004.On 7 April 2008, the jury released an official statement that Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed by the “grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles and of the Mercedes” adding that additional factors were “the impairment of the judgment of the driver of the Mercedes through alcohol” and “the death of the deceased was caused or contributed to by the fact that the deceased was not wearing a seat-belt, the fact that the Mercedes struck the pillar in the Alma Tunnel, rather than colliding with something else”.

[MysteRy]

  First Cloned Sheep(1996)



Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh inScotland. She was born on 5 July 1996 and she lived until the age of six; unfortunately she suffered from a progressive lung disease. She has been called “the world’s most famous sheep” by sources including BBC News and Scientific American. The cell used as the donor for the cloning of Dolly was taken from a mammary gland, and the production of a healthy clone therefore proved that a cell taken from a specific part of the body could recreate a whole individual. On Dolly’s name, Wilmut stated “Dolly is derived from a mammary gland cell and we couldn’t think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's”.

[MysteRy]

Invention of the World Wide Web(1991)



The World Wide Web (WWW) was created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Robert Cailliau later joined in 1990.

The name “World Wide Web” was given in May 1990. The first communication over the Internet between an HTTP client and HTTP server (now more popularly known as a web server) was successfully tested on December 25th, 1990. The first Web site was publicly announced on August 6th, 1991. The first web server in the US went online at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in December 1991. There were 26 web servers in the world by November 1992. By October 1993 there were over 200 web servers. Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (also called ‘W3C’) in October, 1994. The W3C organization maintains the official standards for communication between web servers and web browsers.
It was not actually invented. It more of just came about. Mainly hackers started it when accessing other computers.

[MysteRy]

Founding of Pixar Studios(1986)



Pixar Animation Studios,  is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide.  It is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images.

Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm before it was acquired by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs in 1986. The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion; the transaction made Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney.

Pixar has produced twelve feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995. It was followed by A Bug’s Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999,Monsters, Inc. in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007, WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009,Toy Story 3 (to date, the highest-grossing animated film of all-time, grossing over $1 billion worldwide) in 2010, and Cars 2 in 2011. Eleven of the films have received critical and financial success, with the notable exception being Cars 2, which received substantially less praise than Pixar’s previous films. The $602 million average gross of their films is by far the highest of any studio in the industry.

All the films produced by Pixar are among the fifty highest grossing animated films of all time. Finding Nemo, Up and Toy Story 3 made it to the top 50 list of highest-grossing films of all time, with Toy Story 3 at #7, Finding Nemo at #26, and Up at #43.

All eight Pixar films released since the inauguration of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001 have been nominated for that award, commencing with Monsters, Inc.. Six of the eight have won the award: Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E,Up and Toy Story 3. Up and Toy Story 3 are among the only three animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

[MysteRy]

Fall of the Berlin Wall(1989)



The fall of the Berlin Wall had begun with the building of the Wall in 1961.
However it took about three decades until the Wall was torn down.
Several times people in the Communist countries rised up against the Communist system but they failed.
The victims of the uprisings against the Communist dictatorship in Berlin 1953, Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968 will never been forgotten.
In 1989 the first free labor union was founded in the communist Poland. The end of the communist system had begun.
The Soviet Union could control their satellites yet but with the new leader Gorbatshov their politics changed in 1984.
Gorbatshov’s reforms, Perestroika and Glasnost should renew the stalinistic system in the Soviet Union but not replace the communist system.
The reforms in the Soviet Union also had its effects on the other communist countries, especially in Poland and Hungary.
On August 23, 1989 Hungary opened the iron curtain to Austria.
Months before East German tourists used their chance to escape to Austria from Hungary  and in September 1989 more than 13 000 East German escaped via Hungary within three days. It was the first mass exodus of East Germans after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Mass demonstrations against the government and the system in East Germany begun at the end of September and took until November 1989.
Erich Honecker, East Germany’s head of state had to resign on October 18, 1989.
The new governement prepared a new law to lift the travel restrictions for East German citizen.

[MysteRy]

Alarm Sounds on Hole in Ozone Layer(1985)



The Antarctic ozone hole was discovered in 1985 by British scientists Joesph Farman, Brian Gardiner, and Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey.

The ozone “hole” is really a reduction in concentrations of ozone high above the earth in the stratosphere. The ozone hole is defined geographically as the area wherein the total ozone amount is less than 220 Dobson Units. The ozone hole has steadily grown in size (up to 27 million sq. km.) and length of existence (from August through early December) over the past two decades.

After a series of rigorous meetings and negotiations, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was finally agreed upon on 16 september 1987 at the Headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.

The Montreal Protocol stipulates that the production and consumption of compounds that deplete ozone in the stratosphere—chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),  halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform—are to be phased out by 2000 (2005 for methyl chloroform). Scientific theory and evidence suggest that, once emitted to the atmosphere, these compounds could significantly deplete the stratospheric ozone layer that shields the planet from damaging UV-B radiation.

 Man-made chlorines, primarily chloroflourobcarbons (CFCs), contribute to the thinning of the ozone layer and allow larger quantities of harmful ultraviolet rays to reach the earth.

[MysteRy]

Apple Inc. is Founded(1976)



Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL; formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company’s best-known hardware products include the Macintoshline of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package;Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; the Safari web browser; and iOS, a mobile operating system. As of July 2011, the company operates 357 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software products are sold. As of September 2011, Apple has recently been the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization, and the largest technology company in the world by revenue and profit.

Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California, and incorporated January 3, 1977, the company was previously named Apple Computer, Inc., for its first 30 years, but removed the word “Computer” on January 9, 2007, to reflect the company’s ongoing expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers. As of September 2010, Apple had 46,600 full time employees and 2,800 temporary full time employees worldwide[ and had worldwide annual sales of $65.23 billion.

For reasons as various as its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to its distinctive advertising campaigns, Apple has established a unique reputation in the consumer electronics industry. This includes a customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand, particularly in the United States. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008 and in the world in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The company has however received widespread criticism for its contractors’ labor, environmental, and business practices.

[MysteRy]

Founding of Microsoft(1975)



Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT and NYSE: MSFT) is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems.

Microsoft would also come to dominate the office suite market with Microsoft Office. The company has diversified in recent years into thevideo game industry with the Xbox and its successor, the Xbox 360 as well as into the consumer electronics and digital services market withZune, MSN and the Windows Phone OS. The ensuing rise of stock in the company’s 1986 initial public offering (IPO) made an estimated three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees (Forbes 400 list revealed that in March 2011 both Jon Shipley and Nathan Myhrvold lost their billionaire status). In May 2011, Microsoft Corporation acquired Skype Communications for $8.5 billion dollars.

Primarily in the 1990s, critics contend Microsoft used monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal and tying, put unreasonable restrictions in the use of its software, and used misrepresentative marketing tactics; both the U.S. Department of Justice and European Commission found the company in violation of antitrust laws.  Known for its interviewing process with obscure questions, various studies and ratings were generally favorable to Microsoft’s diversity within the company as well as its overall environmental impact with the exception of the electronics portion of the business.

[MysteRy]

US Troops Leave Vietnam(1973)



Saigon, South Vietnam, March 29 — The last American troops left South Vietnam today, leaving behind an unfinished war that has deeply scarred this country and the United States.

There was little emotion or joy as they brought to a close almost a decade of American military intervention.

Remaining after the final jet transport lifted off from Tan Son Nhut air base at 5:53 P.M. were about 800 Americans on the truce observation force who will leave tomorrow and Saturday. A contingent of 159 Marine guards and about 50 military attaches also stayed behind.

The fighting men were gone, but United States involvement in South Vietnam was far from ended.

When Gen. Frederick C. Weyand presided over the furling of the colors of the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, this afternoon, he told a handful of American servicemen, “You can hold your heads up high for having been a part of this selfless effort.”

In a second address later on in the afternoon, delivered in halting Vietnamese, General Weyland declared: “Our mission has been accomplished . I depart with a strong feeling of pride in what we have achieved, and in what our achievement represents.”

As the last American commander in Vietnam said good-bye to the huge white tropical building that was sometimes called Pentagon East, a force of 7,200 American civilians employed by the Department of Defense was standing under the eaves.

A majority of these civilians are technicians who are already at work with the South Vietnamese armed forces, trying to fill the gap in special skills that the Vietnamization program has been unable to provide. Many are repairing helicopters, jet fighter-bombers, radar systems and computers, and some are instructing the Vietnamese in these tasks.

[MysteRy]

Man Lands on the Moon(1969)



The First Moon Landing both the USA and the former USSR (Russia) were determined to be the first nation to land a man on the moon. In May 1961 US President John F Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Apollo 11 was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre on 16 July, 1969. On board were Neil Armstrong, the Commander of the Mission, Michael Collins, the command module pilot, and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, lunar module pilot. The top part of the rocket was the Command Module Columbia. It held the three men and was the control centre for the mission. It was the vehicle for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The Lunar Module, Eagle was the vehicle designed to take the men from the Command Module to land on the moon. It had a descent module, with the engine that brought them from the Command module, and an ascent module, which took the astronauts back to the Command module. It had four legs, a storage area and a ladder for the crew to climb down onto the moon’s surface. On 20 July, 1969,  the Lunar Module, Eagle, landed on the moon, in a place called the Sea of Tranquillity. Commander Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. As he stepped off the ladder and put his foot on the moon’s surface, he said, ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Armstrong was joined on the moon by Buzz Aldrin, and together they spent two and a half hours on the moon’s surface.

They performed a number of experiments and collected rocks and soil to bring back to Earth. They left an American flag on the moon. This historic visit was broadcast live on TV to the world, watched by approximately 600 million people. The top part of the Lunar Module Eagle took them back to the Command ModuleColumbia, which had remained in orbit around the moon, piloted by Michael Collins, while they explored.

The Columbia returned to Earth on 24 July, 1969. After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, parachutes opened to slow down the speed of the Columbia and to drop it gently into the Pacific Ocean. A helicopter lifted the crew out and took them to the recovery ship, the USS Hornet.

[MysteRy]

Assasination of President Kennedy(1963)



John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30UTC) on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was fatally shot while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and the latter’s wife, Nellie, in a Presidential motorcade.

The ten-month investigation by the Warren Commission, 1963–1964, concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and that Jack Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald before he could stand trial. These conclusions were initially supported by the American public; however, polls conducted from 1966 to 2004 found that as many as 80 percent of Americans have suspected that there was a plot or cover-up.

Contrary to the Warren Commission, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979 concluded that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The HSCA found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. While agreeing with the Commission that Oswald fired all the shots which caused the wounds to Kennedy and Governor Connally, it stated that there were at least four shots fired and that there was a “high probability” that two gunmen fired at the President. No gunmen or groups involved in the conspiracy were identified by the committee, but the CIA, Soviet Union, organized crime and several other groups were said to be not involved, based on available evidence. The assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios.

[MysteRy]

Launch of Sputnik 1(1957)



Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth’s orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1’s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age.

Apart from its value as a technological first, Sputnik also helped to identify the upper atmospheric layer's density, through measuring the satellite's orbital changes. It also provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Pressurized nitrogen in the satellite's body provided the first opportunity for meteoroid detection. If a meteoroid penetrated the satellite's outer hull, it would be detected by the temperature data sent back to Earth

Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR (now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The satellite travelled at 29,000 kilometers (18,000 mi) per hour, taking 96.2 minutes to complete an orbit, and emitted radio signals at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz which were monitored by amateur radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 22 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik 1 burned up on 4 January 1958, as it fell from orbit upon reentering Earth’s atmosphere, after travelling about 60 million km (37 million miles) and spending 3 months in orbit.