This document summarizes key events in recent American history from the 1990s to the 2010s. It discusses the Clinton and Bush presidencies, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the financial crisis and Obama's election, and trends in technology, society, culture and the environment. Partisanship increased during this time along with issues around immigration, same-sex marriage, and climate change. America's role in the world expanded through both military intervention and economic globalization.

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32: The Age of Globalization
Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation, 8th Edition

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
• Launching the Clinton Presidency
– Missteps and misfortunes
– New directions for tax policy
– Free-trade agreements
– NAFTA and GATT
– Bosnia

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
(Continued)
• The Republican Resurgence
– Republican control of House and Senate
– Newt Gingrich
– Budget battles
– 1996 election campaign
– Clinton reelected

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The Election of 1996
Ross Perot received many fewer votes in 1996 than he had in 1992, and President Clinton came much closer
than he had four years earlier to winning a majority of the popular vote. Once again, Clinton defeated his
Republican opponent, this time Robert Dole, by a decisive margin in both the popular and electoral votes.

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
(Continued, 2)
• Clinton Triumphant and Embattled
– Balanced budget
– The Starr Report
• Impeachment, Acquittal, and Resurgence
– Clinton acquitted
– Kosovo

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
(Continued, 3)
• The Election of 2000
– Florida disputed
– Supreme Court’s divisive ruling

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The Election of 2000
The 2000 presidential election was one of the closest and most controversial in American history. It also
starkly revealed a new pattern of party strength, which had been developing over the previous decade.
Democrats swept the Northeast and most of the industrial Midwest and carried all the states of the Pacific
Coast. Republicans swept the South, the plains states, and the mountain states (with the exception of New
Mexico) and held on to a few traditional Republican strongholds in the Midwest.

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
(Continued, 4)
• The Presidency of George W. Bush
– Bush tax cuts
– 2004 election
– Hurricane Katrina

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
(Continued, 5)
• The Election of 2008
– Financial crisis
– Great Recession of 2008
– Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
– Barack Obama’s historic victory

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The Election of 2008
The election of 2008 produced a decisive victory for Barack Obama. Democrats
won majorities in both the House and the Senate, only to see the Republicans
win a majority of the House two years later.

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A Resurgence of Partisanship
(Continued, 6)
• Obama and His Opponents
– Affordable Care Act
– Tea Party
– Occupy Wall Street
• Obama and the Challenge of Governing
– Election of 2014
– Sandy Hook shooting
– Immigration reform

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Science and Technology in the
New Economy
• The New Economy
– Resistance to unions
– Technological changes
• The Digital Revolution
– Personal computers
• The Internet
– ARPANET
– The Internet

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Science and Technology in the
New Economy (Continued)
• Breakthroughs in Genetics
– DNA
– Human Genome Project
– Ethical issues

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A Changing Society
• A Shifting Population
– Decline in birth rate
– Demographic changes
– Rapid growth of immigration

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U.S. Immigrant Population and Share
Over Time, 1850–present
This chart shows the tremendous increase in immigration to the United
States in the decades since the Immigration Reform Act of 1965.

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A Changing Society (Continued)
• African Americans in the Post–Civil Rights Era
– Economic progress
– Growth of black middle class
– Plight of impoverished people

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A Changing Society (Continued, 2)
• The Abortion Debate
– “Right-to-life” movement
– Pro-choice movement
– McCullen v. Coakley
• AIDS and modern America
– AIDS epidemic
– Awareness campaigns
– Treatments

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A Changing Society (Continued, 3)
• Gay Americans and Same-Sex Marriage
– DOMA
– Legal challenges for same-sex marriage
– Change in public opinion
• The Contemporary Environmental Movement
– Environmental activism
– Global warming
– Kyoto Protocol

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America in the World
• Opposing the “New World Order”
– Critics of military intervention
– Economic globalization protested
• Defending Orthodoxy
– Rise of Islamic fundamentalism

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America in the World (Continued)
• The Rise of Terrorism
– Origins of terrorism
– Terrorist incidents before 9/11
– September 11, 2001

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September 11, 2001
The Statue of Liberty, a symbol of New York, stands against a sky filled with the thick
smoke from the destruction of another American symbol, New York City's World Trade
Center towers, a few hours after terrorists crashed two planes into them.
© Daniel Hulshizer/AP Images

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America in the World (Continued, 2)
• The War on Terror
– Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda
– NATO campaign in Afghanistan
– Guantánamo

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America in the World (Continued, 3)
• The Iraq War
– Weapons of mass destruction
– Invasion
– “Mission Accomplished”
– Abu Ghraib
– Bush’s foreign policy doctrine

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America in the World (Continued, 4)
• America after the Iraq War
– Escalation in Afghanistan
– Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State
– Syrian Civil War
– ISIS
– Vladimir Putin

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Patterns of Popular Culture
• Rap
© Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

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Consider the Source
• Same-Sex Marriage, 2015

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America in the World (Feature)
• The Global Environmental Movement
© Julie Dermansky/Corbis

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The Unfinished Nation, 8th Edition