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Chapter 28 - The Contempory Western World (Section 3 - Europe and N.…

- - - - Due to France's struggling economic system, a major political shift took place when the Socialists took control. The socialist president initiated several measures, such as increasing minimum wage, decreasing the work week to 39 hours, and increasing the taxes for the rich. However, these measures did not repair the economic system and the conservatives retook control of France's government.
    - - In 1969, the Social Democrats took control in West Germany and Willy Brandt signed a treaty that strengthened ties between east and west Germany. In 1990, the two Germanies were reunited. This brought enormous amounts of joy upon Germany until the government began to collapse due to raised taxes, unemployment, and the damage of east Germany.
    - - In 1979, Margret Thatcher became prime minister of Great Britain through her pledges to limit social welfare, union power, inflation. Thatcherism, her economic policy, improved the economic system in Britain through an increase in business investments.
  - - - When Richard Nixon began his campaign for reelection, he was caught in the Watergate scandal and was forced to resign as he wasn't faced with possible impeachment. As a result of these events, Gerald Ford became president but lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Carter was faced with the devastating issues of high inflation and a decrease in average earnings.
    - - Ronald Reagan took over presidency after Jimmy Carter and introduced policies, called the Reagan Revolution, that cut back on the welfare state, spending for food stamps, as well as school lunch as job programs. Under his presidency, budget deficits tripled and allowed Gerorge Bush to succeed him as president. However he could not control with the deficit and lost the election to Bill Clinton who was eventually impeached for presidential misconduct.
    - - As a result of Bill Clinton's impeachement, George W. Bush won presidency in 2000. His efforts were soon directed to the issue of terrorism due to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. After the attacks, he led a group of countries that pledged to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan and was elected into a second term where he soon lost popularity due to the war in Iraq.
    - - As a result of a major economic recession in Canada, Pierre Trudeau came to power under Liberal views. During his time as prime minister he was dedicated to creating a United Canada and acknowledged the rights of French speaking Canadians through the passing of the Official Languages Act. In 1993, Canada approved the North American Free Trade Agreement under the power of Brian Mulroney.
- - - - During and after WWII, the research in science and Technology became large and needed complex equipment to complete the investigations. One example of these investigations was the launching of Sputnik I in the USSR. However, scientific advances were believed to give society the power to manipulate the environment in order to increase the benefit for all of society. This belief continues to be debated due to the known effects of chemical fertlilizers in food production.
    - - In the western world, marriage and divorce rates changed extensively. Marriage rates decreased and the average age that women married increased. Also, divorce rates increased dramatically. This decreased the birthrate and created an older population.
    - - The population was also affected by the women joining the workforce in order to support their families. The number of women pursuing careers in law, medicine, and government increased during this time.
    - - Between the 1960s and the 1970s, women's movements arose in the USA, and then soon spread to Western Europe, in order to improve the the basic conditons for the life of a woman. These movements forced politicians and governments to address gender stereotyping and then to pass the Equal Pay Act. In Norway and Denmark, gender parity policies were adopted in order to increase the role of women in government.
  - - - After WWII, abstractionism was very popular until the 1980s when postmodernism began to dominate the art world. Throughout the western world, the United States was the artistic center.
    - - The popular culture of the US is shared with that of western Europe. Sports, films, music, and television programs are shared through these countries. However, some of these countries America was threatening them with cultural imperialism and, as a result, limited the amount of American pop culture in the country.
    - - Before WWII, both the United States and Western Europe were religiously dominated by Christianity. However, after the conclusion of WWII, areas in Europe became extremely diverse due to immigrants moving here. This raised many concerns as to the cultures of these areas as well as learning how to or not to include religion in a democracy.
    - - Minorities and ethnic groups in Europe led nationalistic movements since they wanted to preserve their culture. Typically, these were peaceful movements but were occasionally violent. "Bloody Sunday" was the result of a clash between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.