Rationale

In the past five years specific events have brought our country together and those events are what can be used to depict our country's views and will. It has been the events within the last five years that have reshaped our country. There may be conflict and differences within the United States, but in some cases that is what brings our country closer together along with the tragedies that affect us all. The events discussed in this text book are events that have affected most Americans in some way, shape, or form.

Chronologically, the first main event discussed in the text book was the tragic Hurricane Katrina. Katrina effected many people directly by desecrating homes and towns, injuring, and even killing the U.S residents who live in the respective areas of impact. It not only impacted their lives, but also the lives of family members who may live all throughout the United States. People have been effected by Katrina directly, but many people have been effected indirectly as well. Due to Katrina's impact on the oil industries based in the Gulf of Mexico, gas prices spiked in the States. This added on to the expenses paid by U.S residents who may already be effected by the recession that the United States of America is already in. This event did though bring our country together. People from all over donated money to the relief efforts and many people even went down to New Orleans to help rebuild the city. People everywhere had the same feelings towards the event and how devastating it was and the same feelings about how it affected the economy and gas prices. Although it was a tragic event, it did in fact bring our country close.

The next event chosen for the text book was the execution of Saddam Hussein. This event was important to Americans because it helped to boost the morale of most U.S citizens who witnessed the tyrant, Saddam, in power and the actions he took while leading Iraq. Saddam was a heartless man who, without remorse, threatened or killed all people he saw as possible threats to himself or the government he ran. Saddam was allies with the terrorist group responsible for the desecration of the World Trade Centers, thus another reason as to why he was an enemy of most Americans. Many Americans feared the possibility of another attack like the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and since Saddam Hussein ran an unstable government who was thought to have been hiding nuclear weapons, the country is much safer with him out of the way.

The Presidential campaign of 2008 is the next big event mentioned in the text book. This election was important to many people in many different ways. On one side of the ballot there was the young African American Democratic candidate Barack Obama, while on the other side there was the elderly yet experienced John McCain. Although this event caused much tension and debate within the country, it shattered all previous records of amount of citizens who voted within an election. This helped to show that people of our nation want their voices to be heard and that they have their own opinions on how the country should be run. This in turn brought our country together. In another aspect of the campaign, it allowed black people to see that the President of the U.S does not have to always be a white man. It gave people of all races a new perspective of how the country can be run, and that race is no longer a factor of deciding who can become president. This election helped to knock down racial barriers in the United States.

The inauguration of Barack Obama was the next major event and change that our country has under gone. The inauguration not only demolished the invisible racial barriers put up in the past restricting black men from taking the Presidential oath, but it also allotted for change in America. Barack Obama ran on slogans regarding change and that as a nation we can accomplish anything. The inauguration allowed for the tensions in the country to weaken. Since being in office, Obama has saved America from the depression that was looking inevitable. This is something that all Americans can be happy about. He has also taken troops out of Iraq, an action that effected families all over the United States that had loved ones over in Iraq. Although not everyone agrees with the actions Obama has taken, having him in office has indeed brought our country closer.

The final affair mentioned in the text book is the H1N1 epidemic. Swine flu has affected the entire country in one way or another. Many people have had or possibly even died from the slightly lethal flu including parents, children, brothers, sisters, and friends of many people in the U.S. People all over the United States have encountered the flu in some point in time, thus effecting everyone. Many people and organizations have donated money towards the creation of vaccines and research of Swine Flu. The flu was and is still a major part of people's lives.

Although these are important events that have happened in the past five years, there are other events that have happened that were not fit into the text book. For one, sports was not mentioned. Sporting events can be very important to Americans, but for the most part they only affect a particular group of people, like how the Philadelphia Phillies winning the 2008 World Series of Baseball may only be seen as important to Philadelphians. It in no way affects the majority of the country because people root for and support different teams in all sports throughout the U.S. so they do not share the same feelings when a specific team wins. Sporting events have not caused major controversy within the country nor have they brought the entire country together as a whole.

Another topic left out of the text book was popular culture. Music and technology are a big part of the U.S. at this point in time, but they do not depict the overall views of Americans. Music can bring people together, but it brings people together into different groups and separates Americans into different groups, but without any debate between the groups. For example, if a few kids really enjoy listening to Rock & Roll, and another group of kids enjoy listening to Rap, those kids may just separate away from each other. Music and technology have not affected the United States politically all that much either. The invention of the IPod may be seen as an important event for the United States, but in the long run a disaster in a town or loss of a loved one within a war or the loss of a job would affect a person much more.

It would be very hard to fit every event into the textbook that people may see as somewhat important, and so only the most important events to Americans made their way into this text book. Many events not mentioned in this textbook may be important to some, but only events that are important to everyone could be talked about. There is a consistent theme that connects the events that made it into this text book and only events that could link into that theme could stay in the text book. The theme being events that brought our country together as people and caused debate, only to make our country a stronger nation.