As we bid adieu to 2010 and welcome 2011, perhaps it is appropriate to review the last decade and our last century, since most of us were born in the 20th century. It’s difficult to believe we are fully into the second decade of the 21st century.
Kenny G will take care of 1900-1999. We will have to fill in some remembrances from 2000-2010. As I listened for an appropriate Auld Lang Syne, I wondered if those who want to go back in time really want to relive the past 110 years and the turbulence.
The preceding century was none too easy either, with the American Civil War piercing the very soul of our nation. No one who lived here free or enslaved escaped the ravages of those times. More men were killed in the Civil War than in all our other wars combined. Yet we prepare to commemorate that war this summer, in 2011–the Sesquicentennial.
We have had an election crisis in 2000. We have suffered an attack on our homeland, 2 wars that still go on, and a financial crash that is only surpassed by the Great Depression in the last decade. Yet we are Americans and we have survived. Let’s look at some of the most significant accomplishments of the past 110 yearsm with emphasis on the past 10.
First question…should you chose to voice an opinion–what inventions or events most affected mankind in the past 110 years? What would the top 3 be?
Greetings. Found y’all through Eric Byler and the Coffee Party and I like what I see. I don’t offer anything yet, but I look forward to further interactions. Oh, and happy New Year y’all!
Welcome Irenicum. Take a look around and comment anywhere you would like. We are a mixed bag of politics here.
Affect mankind?
Top three: (four actually)
Penicillin
The rise of communism/fascism as a state government
Flight/internet (tied)
Others:
Cell phones
Personal computer
transistor
silicon chip
invention of the communications satellite
cheap batteries
Teabags invented by Thomas Suillivan. 😉
Mary Phelps Jacob invents the bra. 🙂
Cargo, we are going to match on a few: Penicillin, Birth control pills, the wide-spread availability of the automobile, the computer/internet.
There is one more out there and I cannot think of it.
The birth of……me.
Jonas Salk – polio
Tanks
Louis Pasteur
Civil RIghts movement
Elvis
The Beatles
John Glenn – Yugi Gagarin
ANTIBIOTICS–Have allowed us to conquer many diseases and live longer but not necessarily better lives. Medical electronics perhaps belongs in here also–when I went in the Navy in 1951 there were three primary medical electronic diagnostic devices–X-ray, EKG and EEG.
AUTOMOBILE/FLIGHT–have allowed us almost unlimited freedom to travel, spread disease and wage war.
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS– (Telephone, radio, television, cellular, satellite) Television probably did more to interrupt the social fabric of our nation by taking people off their front porches–face to face “visiting” has almost vanished. New social networking has created a new faux society. But perhaps have helped prevent some wars–direct lines to world leaders.
But, having said all of that, I wouldn’t want to live without them.
The Amish believe that technology divides people. I think about that when everyone in my family is plugged into one device or another while we’re sitting together in the family room.
I would also have to say that when lenders began considering a wife’s income for home loans, that it caused profound changes as far as what it took for a family to achieve the American Dream, and probably even more profoundly impacted entrenched family roles.
Interesting thread. Take a look at http://nowandnext.com/PDF/trends_and_technology_timeline_2010.pdf for a nice graph showing current and projected future tech. Reminds me of the game Civilization and climbing up the tech tree to win the game.
Technology is neat but like Emma pointed out it’s interesting to see technology and it’s effect on people – how it brings them together or divides them. For example; Facebook is a huge doubleplus for divorce attorney’s because people use it to hook up with random people or old flames but it also has the ability to keep tabs on your family everywhere they might be.
And we haven’t even touched on the legal stuff… like PATRIOT. 😉
@marinm
Very complicated, complex graph–I think I am too old or just too dumb to understand it. Maybe if I spend a little more time on it, but at this point in my life, anything beyond the next 10 years is pretty much meaningless since I don’t expect I will be occupying my present form.
@Emma
My point about what electronic communications had done to our society. We now have what I call a “faux electronic society” with “friends” we may never meet personally. Perhaps the Amish are on the right track.
Juturna, why tanks?
You mean like military equipment?
Emma – I agree about second incomes abso-posi-lutely.
M-H
From all I’ve read, tanks made a difference in ground warfare in WWI. Tanks moved the big guns, protected the soldiers from gas and being shot and allowing them to move from trench to trench pushing back a line. I am by no means a military history expert and I’m sure there are many opinions on this. But it made sense to me.
I have to go back to antibiotics and contraception. Once women were able to control their own reproduction, it opened up a new world to them. They were no longer denied jobs because they would ‘just quit in a year and go have babies.’ Graveyards aren’t peppered with young women who died in childbirth. And on that note, they also aren’t peppered with children who never survived to adulthood. Most families had at least one dead child before the advent of penicillin type drugs.
And Juturna, I will agree that polio (and small pox) vaccines also made a huge impact on the world’s people. I can remember when that polio shot was discovered by Jonas Salk. We all lined up in school and got stuck by giant horse needles. Probably FDR did more to contribute indirectly to that discovery than anyone else.
Transportation generated by engines has to be right up there. I always feel guilty when I fly to the west coast. I am doing in 5 hours what it took people several generations before me 5 months, if they were lucky, to do. I can’t fly into that area without thinking of the Donner Party.
Juturna, ok, I think that is very important if we are going to continue to have wars. How barbaric to all stand in a line and shoot at each other. That makes me clutch my throat to watch civil war reinactments doing that.
Fredericksburg had trenches. How sensible.
I second that Number One on George’s list. Medical progress is tops on my list as well. So, this leads to a Wolverine story. I was at a Swift base in Vietnam when a cable came to the ship. An X-ray during a routine physical had uncovered an anomaly on one lung. Suspicion: TB. Orders: medevac to Subic Bay ASAP.
From Subic Bay to Japan and then to the States in a medevac plane full of wounded Marines. Once I arrived at the naval hospital stateside, my new quarters were the officers section of the TB wing of the hospital. My new uniform was a yellow robe and a mask. It was sort of like ancient times with that robe and mask — “Watch out! The lepers are coming!!”
On my first day on that ward, a Red Cross volunteer came by with a rack of books from the library since we could not go there ourselves. I had not yet seen the doctors. I knew little about TB and the future except for memories of that old and gloomy sanitarium in my hometown where no one liked to go unless absolutely necessary. One of the books I picked up off the rack happened to be a history of that very same TB ward during the World War II era. It described how high the mortality rate had been on the ward then because of a lack of effective treatment. There was on that ward a device known as the “Go to Jesus Cart.” It was a table with rollers. When a patient died on the ward, the corpsmen rolled that table in during the night to cart the body away. They did it at night so as not to frighten the other patients.
That book made me feel real good, I must say. In my mid-20’s and sitting in a ward with a “Go to Jesus Cart” as part of the standard equipment. Reading a book about this same ward only 25 years before– within my own lifetime.
Then the Navy doctor came. I mentioned to him that, throughout the entire medevac and even upon arrival at this hospital, I had received not a single encouraging word about the prognosis for TB these days. He laughed and said something like: “Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered now.” They then proceeded to feed me no less than 32 pills a day. They ran plastic tubes up my nostrils almost every day, over the bridge of my nose, down my throat, and into the stomach to suck up juices for examination. They had me blowing into the hoses on testing machines.
It was not long before the doctor came back and told me that, if I wanted to put on my uniform or my civies and go out on liberty call, I was free to do so because I was not contagious. The “Go to Jesus Cart” had long ago been retired. They did, however, keep me in that hospital for eight months — just to be sure. It also enabled them to jump on a case of malaria I got — another little gift from Vietnam.
That was over 40 years ago. Not only did I avoid the “Go To Jesus Cart” but I went back on miltary duty and then served overseas for many years as a government official with nary a consequence from that TB — even in areas where TB was still endemic among the local populace. Now my avocation in retirement is genealogy. I read a lot of death certificates from the old days of the late 19th and early 20th century. TB, TB, and more TB. My own great-grandfather dead from it at the age of 51. Great numbers of other ancestors in my family tree also victims.
As I said, it was only about 25 years from that World War II “Go To Jesus Cart” to that day when I walked out of that hospital in uniform to take up my next Navy assignment. Yep, medical advances are number one on my list. I have what I call a list of personal debts which has been collected over a lifetime. High on that list are those who have worked to make those medical advances and use them effectively. My personal includes the Navy doctors who treated me, the Navy nurses (including Mrs. W) who watched over me like mother hens; and guys like George Harris, who kept the whole Navy medical show on an even and working keel.
@
Wolverine, the real miracle is that Mrs. Wolverine still wanted anything to do with you after the tubes in the nose etc.
Just kidding, of course.
And yes, George is our own local hero, as are you, Wolverine. Happy New Year.
@Emma Emma, I agree. Once business was able to make the American Dream a two person system, the standard of living declined for the middle class.
@Clueless–I am not sure I agree with this. I am going to have to think about it. I wish you and Emma had elaborated more.
Emma,
Very interesting point. People work harder,mean and women, but are they happier? The suburb as a new class has created this paradigm I think. It use to be people in large numbers lived in the city. You could walk to work, walk to the local store, people were so much more interconnected.
I will add Ina May Gaskin who has been the driving force to bring midwifery back to women in the modern era.
Wolverine,
Thanks for sharing your story…..WOW. Your writing was so descriptive, I could almost see it! That must have been very scary.
Happy New Year to all my Moonhowling friends, yes, I mean all of you 😉
Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block up now on ABC. wowowowowowwow
They sound great.
Poor Dick Clark. Good for him. His goal is to be out there every NYE. It probably keeps him alive. Dick Clark is 81 and had a serious stroke sometime in 2004. He missed that year and worked towards being able to come back to host Rocking New Years Eve.
@Wolverine
Incredible the advances made since then. Glad consumption didn’t get you, Wolverine. And thank you for your service.
Technology, as we know can be used for good or evil.
I am going to add some advances that stick out in my mind:
women get the right to vote
slaves are freed
Civil Rights for all continue to be fought for and recognized
@pinko,
If we go back to the 19th century (ending slavery) I would have to add the Louisiana Purchase to that list. That was such a bold move, along with the Corp of Discovery. Can you imagine the country had it not happened?
Oh you only asked for 110 years back. Sorry, MH…got stuck in Civil War mode.
And no, I can’t imagine what would have happened had we not acquired that part of the country or the west. I guess we would have been a small nation born then conquered soon after.
Oh, I forgot one.
Plastic. What would we do without it?
@Cargo, probably be in less debt?
LOL! 🙂
O.M.G. How could we forget the most important invention of them all?!
BLOGS!
Darn right! And the decade before that was the Decade of the Chat Room/BBS
I think “the internet” is the biggest change, bigger than flight or automobiles or penicillain.
The automobile is next. Not because it enabled visits or traveling or importation of foodstuffs, but because it facilitated newspapers and mailings, i.e. because it facilitated communication and information.
3rd place, I guess the atomic bomb. Which has had a pretty positive effect on things, so far.
Transportation shrunk the world. The internet might finish it off.
Somewhere I insist we include contraception. Until there was reliable contraception, men made all the decisions.
And I insist on antibiotics. Before that too many people died of simple things.
All I want to know is where is my jet pack? I was told that there would be jet packs!
Is that like in the Jetsons?