Sioux tribe

Name origins

The name "Sioux" is an abbreviated form of Nadouessioux.

Some of the tribes have formally or informally adopted traditional names: the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is also known as the Sičháŋǧu Oyáte, and the Oglala often use the name Oglála Lakȟóta Oyáte, rather than the English "Oglala Sioux Tribe" or OST.

 

History

First contacts with Europeans

The Dakota are first recorded to have resided at the source of the Mississippi River during the seventeenth century. By 1700 some had migrated to present-day South Dakota. Late in the 17th century, the Dakota entered into an alliance with French merchants. The French were trying to gain advantage in the struggle for the North American fur trade against the English, who had recently established the Hudson's Bay Company.

Red Cloud's War

Red Cloud's War (also referred to as the Bozeman War) was an armed conflict between the Lakota and the United States in the Wyoming Territory and the Montana Territory from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the Powder River Country in north central Wyoming.

The war is named after Red Cloud, a prominent Sioux chief who led the war against the United States following encroachment into the area by the U.S. military. The war ended with the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Sioux victory in the war led to their temporarily preserving their control of the Powder River country.

 

 

 Great Sioux War of 1876-1877

The great Sioux War comprised a series of battles between the Lakota and allied tribes such as the Cheyenne against the United States military. The earliest engagement was the Battle of Powder River, and the final battle was the Wolf Mountain. Included are the Battle of the Rosebud, Battle of the Little Bighorn, Battle of Warbonnet Creek, Battle of Slim Buttes, Battle of Cedar Creek, and the Dull Knife Fight. The Great Sioux War of 1876-77 was also known as the Black Hills War, and was centered around the Lakota tribes of the Sioux, although several Native Americans believe that the primary target of the United States military was the Northern Cheyenne tribe. The series of battles occurred in Montana territory, Dakota Territory, and Wyoming territory, and resulted in a victory for the United States military.

Culture

Reserves and First Nations

Later in the 19th century, the railroads hired hunters to exterminate the buffalo herds, the Indians' primary food supply. The Santee and Lakota were forced to accept white-defined reservations in exchange for the rest of their lands, and domestic cattle and corn in exchange for buffalo. They became dependent upon annual federal payments guaranteed by treaty.

In Minnesota, the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in 1851 left the Sioux with a reservation twenty miles wide on each side of the Minnesota River. Today, one half of all enrolled Sioux in the United States live off the reservation. Enrolled members in any of the Sioux tribes in the United States are required to have ancestry that is at least 1/4 degree Sioux (the equivalent to one grandparent).
In Canada, the Canadian government recognizes the tribal community as First Nations. The land holdings of the First Nations are called Indian Reserves.

The Guarani were one of the first peoples contacted after Europeans arrived in South America around 500 years ago. In Brazil, there are today around 46,000 Guarani living in seven states, making them the country’s most numerous tribe. Many others live in neighbouring Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.

The Guarani people in Brazil are divided into three groups: Kaiowá, Ñandeva and M’byá, of which the largest is the Kaiowá which means ‘forest people’.  They are a deeply spiritual people. Most communities have a prayer house, and a religious leader, whose authority is based on prestige rather than formal power.

The Guaraní language has been much cultivated, its literature covering a wide range of subjects. The language was also used in other tribes such as the Chaco in Paraguay. Several English words can be traced to Guaraní roots, such as "tapioca", "toucan" and "jaguar." Presently, the language is still the main binding characteristic of the Guaraní people. The Argentinian communities speak mainly Mbya-Guaraní, as opposed to the Tupi-Guaraní and Guaraní-Jopara spoken in Paraguay and Brazil. These varieties are mutually intelligible.

The history of the Guaraní people prior to contact with European explorers is not well documented. Their early history is based entirely on oral tradition, since they did not have a written language. Since the Guaraní people were a somewhat nomadic, decentralized society, there is little in the way of a reliable historical record.

 The history and meaning of the name Guaraní  are subject to dispute. Prior to their encounter with Europeans, the Guaraní referred to themselves simply as Abá, meaning "men" or "people”. The term Guaraní was originally applied by early Jesuit missionaries to refer to natives who had accepted conversion to the Christian religion.

Guaraní people today: The Guaraní people and culture persist. Nearly all the forest tribes on the borders of Paraguay are Guaraní. Many are descendants of mission exiles. In Paraguay, Guaraní lineage predominates in the population and the Guaraní language is spoken in most provinces to this day.

The problems are especially acute in Mato Grosso do Sul where the Guarani once occupied a homeland of forests and plains totaling some 350,000 square kilometers.

Maasai tribe

The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known of African ethnic groups, due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of East Africa. They speak Maa, a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family that is related to Dinka and Nuer, and are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania: Swahili and English. The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 453,000 in Kenya in the 2009 census, compared to 377,000 in 1989 and 400,000 in 2000.
The Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, but the people have continued their age-old customs. Recently, Oxfam has claimed that the lifestyle of the Maasai should be embraced as a response to climate change because of their ability to farm in deserts and scrublands. Many Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visits to their village to experience their culture, traditions, and lifestyle.

How do they live?

For the Maasai, cattle are what make the good life, and milk and meat are the best foods. Their old ideal was to live by their cattle alone – other foods they could get by exchange – but today they also need to grow crops.

They move their herds from one place to another, so that the grass has a chance to grow again; traditionally, this is made possible by a communal land tenure system in which everyone in an area shares access to water and pasture.
Nowadays Maasai have increasingly been forced to settle, and many take jobs in towns. Maasai society is organised into male age-groups whose members together pass through initiations to become warriors, and then elders.
They have no chiefs, although each section has a Laibon, or spiritual leader, at its head. Maasai worship one god who dwells in all things, but may manifest himself as either kindly or destructive. Many Maasai today, however, belong to various Christian churches.

What problems do they face?

One of the most immediate threats to the Maasai comes from game hunters in the Loliondo region of northern Tanzania. Here, Maasai villages have been burnt to the ground by the authorities, and thousands have brutally evicted to provide a company, Otterlo Business Corporation Ltd (OBC), with more access to land for game hunting.

The Loliondo Maasai are now homeless, and without access to water and grazing land their cattle are dying.
Most of what used to be Maasai land has already been taken over, for private farms and ranches, for government projects, wildlife parks or private hunting concessions. Mostly they retain only the driest and least fertile areas.
The stress this causes to their herds has often been aggravated by attempts made by governments to ‘develop’ the Maasai. These are based on the idea that they keep too much cattle for the land.
However, they are in fact very efficient livestock producers and rarely have more animals than they need or the land can carry. These ‘development’ efforts try to change their system of shared access to land.
While this has suited outsiders and some entrepreneurial Maasai who have been able to acquire land for themselves or sell it off, it has often denuded the soil and brought poverty to the majority of Maasai, who are left with too little and only the worst land.
The most immediate threat to the Maasai is against those from Loliondo, an area in northern Tanzania. Here, Maasai villages have been burnt to the ground, and thousands have been evicted, allegedly to provide a safari hunting company, Otterlo Business Corporation Ltd (OBC), with easier access to hunting land.

90's

Politics

The Gulf War – Iraq was left in severe debt after the 1980s war with Iran. President Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of flooding the market with oil and driving down prices. As a result, on 2 August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and conquered Kuwait. The UN immediately condemned the action, and a coalition force led by the United States was sent to the Persian Gulf. Aerial bombing of Iraq began in January 1991 (see also Gulf War), and a month later, the UN forces drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait in just four days. In the aftermath of the war, the Kurds in the north of Iraq and the Shiites in the south rose up in revolt, and Saddam Hussein barely managed to hold onto power. Until the US invasion in 2003, Iraq was cut off from much of the world.

                                         

Music

Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987. Nirvana went through a succession of drummers, the longest-lasting being Dave Grohl, who joined the band in 1990.

In the late 1980s Nirvana established itself as part of the Seattle grunge scene, releasing its first album Bleach for the independent record label Sub Pop in 1989. The band eventually came to develop a sound that relied on dynamic contrasts, often between quiet verses and loud, heavy choruses. After signing to major label DGC Records, Nirvana found unexpected success with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the first single from the band's second album Nevermind (1991). Nirvana's sudden success widely popularized alternative rock as a whole, and as the band's frontman Cobain found himself referred to in the media as the "spokesman of a generation", with Nirvana being considered the "flagship band" of Generation X.

Nirvana's brief run ended following the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, but various posthumous releases have been issued since, overseen by Novoselic, Grohl, and Cobain's widow Courtney Love. Since its debut, the band has sold over 30 million records in the United States alone, and over 75 million records worldwide.

Cinema

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Noted for its graphic and realistic portrayal of war, the film is especially notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944. Afterwards, it follows Tom Hanks as U.S. Army Captain John H. Miller and seven other men (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies) as they search for a paratrooper, Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who is the last-surviving brother of four servicemen.

Society

A pager (often called a beeper) is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call. Alphanumeric pagers are available, as well as two-way pagers that have the ability to send and receive email, numeric pages, and SMS messages.

The first practical pager was introduced in 1950 by physicians in the New York City area. The first pager system had a range of approximately 40 km and the physicians paid US$12 per month for the service(around $100 today from inflation). The actual pager device was developed and manufactured by Reevesound Company of New York and weighed approximately 200 grams.

Until the popular adoption of mobile phones in the 1990s, pagers filled the role of common personal and mobile communications. Today, pagers mainly support the "critical messaging" markets.

90's

Politics – Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata  Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades.

Society – Video games

Sony’s PlayStation becomes the top selling game console and changes the standard media storage type from cartridges to compact discs in consoles. Crash Bandicoot is released on 9 September 1996, becoming one of the most successful platforming series for the Sony PlayStation. Tomb Raider’s (PlayStation) Lara Croft became a video game sex symbol, becoming a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.

3-D graphics become the standard by end of decade. Although FPSs had long since seen the transition to full 3D, other genres begin to copy this trend by the end of the decade. Most notable first shooter games in the 1990s are GoldenEye 007 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.

The console wars, primarily between Sega (Mega Drive) and Nintendo (Super NES), sees the entrance of Sony with the PlayStation in 1994, which becomes the first successful CD-based console. By the end of the decade, Sega’s hold on the market becomes tenuous after the end of the Saturn in 1999 and the Dreamcast in 2002.

Mario as Nintendo’s mascot finds a rival in Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog with the release of original game on the Genesis in 1991.

Arcade games rapidly decrease in popularity.

Music –  Blink-182

Blink-182 is an American rock band consisting of vocalist and bass guitarist Mark Hoppus, vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. They have sold over 28 million albums worldwide since forming in Poway, California in 1992. With original drummer Scott Raynor they released their debut album Cheshire Cat in 1994 and achieved moderate success with its follow-up, 1997's Dude Ranch, which went on to sell over one million copies. Raynor was replaced by Barker midway through a 1998 tour.

The band achieved greater success with 1999's multi-platinum selling Enema of the State, which reached number 9 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of the singles "What's My Age Again?" and "All the Small Things", the latter of which became the highest-charting song of their career by reaching number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Blink-182 gained popularity for their irreverent sense of humor.

Movies- Star Wars Episode I

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms of story chronology. The Phantom Menace was also Lucas' first production as a film director after a 22-year hiatus following the original Star Wars film, and only his fourth overall.

The film follows the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi, who escort and protect Queen Amidala in traveling from the planet Naboo to the planet Coruscant in the hope of finding a peaceful end to a large-scale interplanetary trade dispute. The film also features a young Anakin Skywalker before he became a Jedi, introduced as a young slave boy who seems to be unusually strong with nascent powers of The Force, and must contend with the mysterious return of the Sith.

Lucas began production of this motion picture after he had concluded that the science of movie special effects had advanced to the level of what he wanted for his fourth film in the Saga. Its filming took place during 1997 at various locations including Leavesden Film Studios and the Tunisian desert. Its special effects included extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI), with some of its characters and its settings being completely computerized and not existing at all in the real world.

The Phantom Menace premiered in theaters on May 19, 1999, sixteen years after the 1983 premiere of the previous Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi. The film's premiere was accompanied by considerable hype, extensive media coverage and great anticipation, due to the large cultural following its predecessors had created. Despite mixed reviews by critics, who tended to praise the visuals and action sequences but criticize the writing, characterization and acting, it grossed $924.3 million worldwide during its initial run in theaters, making it the Star Wars film with the highest gross-income (unadjusted for inflation). A 3D reissue was released in February 2012, which has earned an additional $102.7 million at the box office, bringing the film's overall worldwide total to over $1 billion returning the film to the top ten highest grossing films of all time.

The 90's

Music

The 1990s were a decade of many diverse scenes in music. However, they are perhaps best known for grunge, gangsta rap, R&B, teen pop; eurodance, electronic dance music, the renewed popularity of punk rock. Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tree Cool. The band's rock opera, American Idiot (2004), reignited the band's popularity with a younger generation, selling five million copies in the United States. The group has won five Grammy Awards: Best Alternative Album for Dookie, Best Rock Album for American Idiot, Record of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".

Movies

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster film and becomes a cultural phenomenon throughout the world, and eventually becomes the highest grossing film of all time, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide. Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, it won eleven, including the awards for Best Picture and Best Director.

Society

Sony’s PlayStation becomes the top selling game console and changes the standard media storage type from cartridges to compact discs in consoles. Crash Bandicoot  is released on 9 September 1996, becoming one of the most successful platforming series for the Sony PlayStation. Tomb Raider’s (PlayStation) Lara Croft became a video game sex symbol, becoming a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.

Politics

George Herbert Walker Bush was     born on June 12, 1924, is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States (1989–93), a congressman, an ambassador, a Director of Central Intelligence, and currently the oldest surviving president.

80's

Society

The 1980s was also an era of tremendous population growth around the world, surpassing even the 1970s and 1990s, thus arguably being the largest in human history. Population growth was particularly rapid in a number of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian countries during this decade, with rates of natural increase close to or exceeding 4% annually.

Music

Alphaville is a German synthpop group which gained popularity in the 1980s.

The founding members were Marian Gold (real name Hartwig Schierbaum), Bernhard Lloyd (real name Bernhard Gößling), and Frank Mertens (real name Frank Sorgatz). The band was at first named Forever Young before changing to Alphaville.

They are best known for their two biggest hits, "Big in Japan" and "Forever Young". As of 1984, they had sold over 80 million albums. Most albums were sold in South America and Europe.

Film

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced, directed and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two marines of the platoon in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen.

The film was critically acclaimed and is now regarded widely as one of the greatest war films ever made as well as one of Stanley Kubrick's finest works. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Kubrick, Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford.

Politics

Nuclear threats

Operation Opera - a 1981 surprise Israeli air strike that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor being constructed in Osirak. Israeli military intelligence assumed this was for the purpose of plutonium production to further an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Israeli intelligence also believed that the summer of 1981 would be the last chance to destroy the reactor before it would be loaded with nuclear fuel.

President Reagan's decision to station intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe provoked mass protests involving more than one million people.