Table of Contents
A short summary of the events of US history of the past 6 years.
2015: Same-sex Marriage was Legalized
The U.S. Supreme Court declares that same-sex marriage was legalized. This topic had been discussed in America for 45 years, after a gay couple in Minnesota applied for a marriage license in 1970, where the application was denied. This rejection sparked a willpower in many gay communities all over the U.S. and has since been a topic of discussion and demonstration in many states. From 2013-2015 over half of America’s states legalized same-sex marriage, and in 2015 all 50 states had legalized same-sex marriage. This was a huge milestone for the LGBTQ community.
2016: U.S. Presidential Election, Trump vs Clinton
The U.S. Presidential election took place. This election was one of the most interesting and surprising elections in many years. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both from New York City, were the two remaining candidates on election night, the 8th of November 2016. Donald Trump led the republican party to victory, whilst leader of the democratic party, Hillary Clinton, had to settle with second best.
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2017: #MeToo
Even though #MeToo was founded in 2006, it recieved a huge amount of attention, especially in the U.S., in 2017. This started again because of Harvey Weinstein, an american filmmaker. Several women, both inside and outside the entertainment industry, came forward and shared their stories about how Weinstein had sexually assaulted them in several different ways. Founder of the #MeToo, Tarana Burke, has since then done several interviews where she explains the importance of this movement where men and women who have been exposed to sexual harrasment have a safe community that are there to support and help these victims.
2018: Behavioral Microtargeting & Cambridge Analytica Scandal
‘Behavioral microtargeting’ became a key concept in 2018, when it became known that Presidential candidate Donald Trump partnered with Cambridge Analytica, a company that combines data mining and data analytics with strategic communications for election campaigns, during his 2016 presidential campaign. CA analyzed tens of millions of Facebook profiles, figured out who they were most likely to vote for, and then created tailor-made ads to influence voters’ attitudes and values. People got personal advertisements and articles that were not necessarily true, and so were the voters affected so that Trump would win the election.
As for this scandal, CA collected personal information from over 50 million Facebook profiles. Furthermore, Cambridge Analytica did not have authorizations to retrieve this data from these profiles. In the media it was said that they ‘stole’ this information. The scandal broke out in March 2018 with whistleblower Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee leaking this information to the public via The Observer and New York Times. This scandal led to the EU launching its general data protection regulation (GDPR) rules to prevent such exploitation of personal data.
2019: Trump was Impeached
The impeachment against Donald Trump was a US lawsuit against President Donald Trump. It was the third trial of a president in US history. The impeachment of the 45th President of the United States happened on December 18, 2019, when the House of Representatives, with a majority of Democrats, approved articles on arranging allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump was acquitted by the Senate, which has a majority of republicans, for these two cases of reconciliation on 5th of February 2020.
On 31st of January the Trump administration declared a public health emergency and announced restrictions on travelers arriving from China, after the first case in the United States of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease was confirmed on 20th of January, 2020. It was a 35-year-old man who had returned from Wuhan, China (the province where the virus was first discovered).
By 12th of March, diagnosed cases of the coronavirus in the United States exceeded 1,000 infected. The number exceeded 4,000 by 16th of March. Cases have been confirmed in all 50 US states, as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. As of the 17th of March, the only US territories who have no confirmed cases is the territories of American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Deaths from the pandemic have occurred in 17 states. Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic 2020 a national crisis on 13th of March.
