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.
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.
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.
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 tataMandela 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 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
Titanicis 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 wasborn 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.
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.
Madonna full name is Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. Professionally
she is an actor, singer, Song writer, Entrepreneur. She was born on 16 August
1958 in Bay City Michigan.
Her childhood was a very hard time for her as she lost
her mother very early when she was only five. She trained as dancer of
University of Michigan before she moved to the New York City to make her
career.
Initially she joined music groups "Emmy" and "Breakfast
Club". Her debut album was released in 1983 with the name Madonna. She got
more popularity from her next album "Like a Virgin" as compared to
her debut album although she had sold around 3 million copies of her first
debut. It's more than 20 years since she has sold about 300 million records
worldwide. Apart from albums she also appeared in "Desperately seeking
Susan" in 1985.
Movies – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven
Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert
MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote. It tells the story of Elliott, a
lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is
stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help the extraterrestrial return
home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.
The
concept for E.T. was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created
after his parents' divorce in 1960. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and
developed a new story from the stalled science fiction/horror film project Night
Skies. The film was shot from September to December 1981 in California on a
budget of US$10.5 million. Unlike most motion pictures, the film was shot in
roughly chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances
from the young cast. Released
by Universal Pictures, E.T. was a blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars
to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for ten
years. Critics acclaimed it as a timeless story of friendship, and it ranks as
the greatest science fiction film ever made in a Rotten Tomatoes survey. The
film was rereleased in 1985, and then again in 2002 to celebrate the film's
20th anniversary, with altered shots and additional scenes.
Politics – Indira Gandhi
Indira
Priyadarshini Gandhi was
an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three
consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). Gandhi was the second
female head of government in the world after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka,
and she remains as the world's second longest serving female Prime Minister as
of 2012. She was the first woman to become prime minister in India. Gandhi
was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent
India. She adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development
that had been begun by her father. Gandhi established closer relations with the
Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India’s long-standing conflict
with Pakistan. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared a state
of emergency in order to 'rule by decree' and the only Indian Prime Minister to
have been imprisoned after holding that office. She was assassinated by her
Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for ordering Operation Blue Star.
Society – Yuppies
Yuppie was a 1980s acronym for 'Young Upwardly Mobile
Professional Person'. The word was coined by the advertising industry to
capture the essence of a particular type of work hard, play hard, ambitious
minded city career person of either sex. The hectic lifestyle of a yuppie meant
that after long hours of work, rare free time was spent in a self indulgent way
frittering away the cash earned on anything, from expensive make up and
perfume, to a bottle of fine champagne. Conspicuouswastage was part of the
attitude.
For day Yuppies sported wide shouldered jackets and
for weekends they wore a Barbour to effect acountry aesthetic or a ball-gown
to assume the appearance of a more advantaged lifestyle
In the United States, MTV was
launched and music videos began to have a larger effect on the record industry.
Michael Jackson was a popular entertainer of the 1980s and his leather
jacket, glove and Moonwalk dance were often imitated. Jackson's 1982 album Thriller
became—and currently remains—the best-selling album of all time, with sales
estimated by various sources as somewhere between 65 and 110 million copies
worldwide.
Movies
Top Gun is a
1986 American action drama film directed by Tony Scott, and produced by Don
Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, in association with the Paramount Pictures
company. The film stars Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards,
and Tom Skerritt. Cruise plays Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a
young Naval aviator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. The film
depicts Maverick's progress through the training, his romance with a female
instructor (McGillis), his overcoming a crisis of confidence following a fatal
training accident, and the killing of several enemy pilots of unlisted
nationality in a dogfight. Top Gun is slated for a 3D theatrical re-release in
2012.
Society
Blessed Pope John Paulreigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his
death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first
non-Italian since 1523. John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most
influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending
communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe John Paul II
significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the
Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion.
Politics
The Iran-Iraq war
took place from 1980 to 1988. Iraq was accused of using illegal chemical
weapons to kill Iranian forces and against its own dissident Kurdish
populations. Both sides suffered enormous casualties, but the poorly equipped
Iranian armies suffered worse for it, being forced to use soldiers as young as
15 in human-wave attacks. Iran finally agreed to an armistice in 1988.
The opposition to the War in
Vietnam that began in the 1960s grew exponentially during the early 1970s. One
of the best-known anti-war demonstrations was the Kent State shootings. In 1970, university
students were protesting the war and the draft. Riots ensued during the weekend
and the National Guard was called in to maintain the peace. However, by Monday,
4 May 1970, tensions arose again, and as the crowd grew larger, the National
Guard started shooting. Four students were killed and nine injured. This event
caused disbelief and shock throughout the country and became a staple of
anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
Music
Bruce
Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born September
23, 1949, nicknamed "The Boss",
is an American singer-songwriter-performer who records and tours with the E
Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock,
poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.
Springsteen's
recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more
somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the
U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in
the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums
in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide and he has earned
numerous awards for his work, including 21 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and
an Academy Award. He is widely regarded by many as one of the most influential
songwriters of the 20th century.
Film
The Deer
Hunteris a
1978 drama film directed and co-written by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian
American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War.
The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl
Streep and George Dzundza. The story takes place in Clairton, a small working
class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh and then in Vietnam,
somewhere in the woodland and in Saigon, during the Vietnam War.
The film was
based in part on an unproduced screenplay called The Man Who Came to Play
by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker about Las Vegas and Russian Roulette.
Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired writer/director Michael
Cimino who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian
Roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over-budget
and over-schedule and ended up costing $15 million. The scenes of Russian
roulette were highly controversial on release.
Politics
During 1973 there was an oil embargo. The Arabs at
this time were fighting a war with the Israelis. The Arabs would soon lose this
war due to the intervention of the west in aiding the Israelis to victory. In
outrage the Arabs would put an oil embargo on the western hemisphere. This was
a tragic event as the negotiators of the US would frantically try to negotiate
with the Arabs. Due to this inflation rose and this would lead to a political
debate over the economy. This event was a huge impact to the west. This showed
that the west is so dependent on the Arabs that if they mess up politically
with their relations, they will be hurt if the Arabs refuse to give them oil.
This was a huge political event because it was an issue in the elections and
the economy would be at the top in political discussions.
The 1970s
started a mainstream affirmation of the environmental issues early activists
from the 1960s, such as Rachel Carson and Murray Bookchin had warned of. The moon
landing that had occurred at the end of the previous decade transmitted back
concrete images of the Earth as an integrated, life-supporting system and
shaped a public willingness to preserve nature. On April 22, 1970, the United
States celebrated its first Earth Day in which over two thousand colleges and
universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools
participated.
Politics –
Munich Massacre
The Munich Massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Olympic Games.
Eight Palestinian terrorists killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team and
then took nine others hostage. The situation was ended by a huge gunfight that
left five of the terrorists and all of the nine hostages dead. Following the
massacre, the Israeli government organized a retaliation against Black
September, called Operation Wrath of God.
Movies – Superman
Superman is a 1978 superhero
film based on the DC Comics character of the same name. Richard Donner directed
the film, which stars Christopher Reeve as Superman, as well as Marlon Brando.
The film depicts the origin of Superman, including his infancy as Kal-El of Krypton
and his youthful years in the rural town of Smallville. Disguised as reporter Clark
Kent, he adopts a mild-mannered attitude in Metropolis and develops a romance
with Lois Lane, while battling the villainous Lex Luthor.
The film was
conceived in 1973 by Ilya Salkind. Several directors, most notably, and
screenwriters associated with the project before Donner was hired to direct.
Donner brought Tom Mankiewicz to rewrite the script, feeling it was too campy.
Mankiewicz was credited as creative consultant. It was decided to film both Superman
and Superman II simultaneously.
Tensions
rose between Donner and the producers, and a decision was made to stop filming Superman
II and finish the first film. Donner had already shot 75% of the planned
sequel, eventually giving birth to Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. Superman
was released with critical acclaim and financial success. Reviewers noted
parallels between the film's depiction of Superman and Jesus and particularly
praised Reeve's performance. The film's legacy helped to foster the
establishment of the superhero film genre.
Music - Aerosmith Aerosmith is an American rock band, even if
they are known as a Boston, Massachusetts band, none of the members are from
the city, three of the members Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton had
originally met in Sunapee New Hampshire in the late 60's, but had not yet
formed a band with Tyler was from Yonkers, New York, Perry from Hopedale,
Mass., and Hamilton from New London, New Hampshire In 1970, the three decided
that they would form a band together and to Boston Massachusetts is the place
to do it later they met up with Joey Kramer (drums) and Brad Whitford (guitar)
The band had great popularity in the 1970s with rock anthems like "Dream
On" - but they shared the 1979-84 due to severe abuse and drugs.
