End of the War, Beginning of a New Age

    World War II in the Pacific Theater began in the 1930’s, with Japanese Imperial expansion in mainland Asia. In late 1941, The Imperial Armed Forces attacked Pearl Harbor, with the United States responding with a declaration of war. Since then, it had been four years of sinking ships, downed aircraft, and people on both sides ruthlessly slaughtered, military personnel and civilians alike. On both the Allied and Japanese sides, the war seemed to be dragging on, even for those who refused to surrender. Newly appointed to the Oval Office after the death of Pres. Roosevelt, Pres. Truman’s objective was to bring the war to a close. After Midway, the Japanese had been put on the defensive. The Allies just needed to finish the job and bring peace. Since Midway, Operation Orange (codename for military action against Japan) entailed a strategy of ‘island hopping’, taking strategically located islands one-by-one and establishing airfields on them until the Japanese Archipelago was in range of effective bombing campaigns, just like Operation Black against Germany. This was accomplished upon the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, at great cost. At this rate, a full invasion and occupation of Japan was projected to be much worse.

The Nation and Its Future in the 21st Century

As humans, we have organized our social structures in a variety of ways. As hunter-gatherers, we stayed in our kin groups as we migrated across the world. Once we settled down and began agriculture, kin groups formed villages; these villages grew into city-states. Eventually, kingdoms and empires developed, with their inhabitants not only loyal to their families, but also to the monarch or priest running their state. Interconnected with both capitalism and modern democracy, the idea of the nation-state is part of the foundation of Western society. That is, sovereignty is held by the people, and these people in some way make up one shared cultural and social identity. Just as with previous social structures, today’s nations have both their virtues and vices.

Science, Crime, and Society

Technology serves as a helpful tool in our search for truth and knowledge about the Existence in which we live. Each day, it becomes more advanced, allowing us to answer even more of our pressing questions. It has become a fundamental part of Western society in the 21st Century. Among the most important aspects that technology is applied to is the world of criminal justice. However, while the days of trials-by-faith might be long gone in favor of evidence-based trials-by-jury, we still can’t rely entirely on technology to know for sure the truths behind criminal cases. Among these new and promising advancements is that of genetics. With its origins in Gregor Mendel’s 1850’s experiments with pea plants, genetics as a field of study found a breakthrough when the human genome was decoded in the 20th Century. This granted the potential of law enforcement agencies to be able to identify perpetrators using their own genetic material, something that is unique to each individual.

What does it mean to be...American?

To be American means to be a good person and a good member one’s community. The United States, in theory, is a place where people can go to practice their own way of life, free of judgment or discrimination from any other person, institution, or society.

Japan: The Great Exception

The Euro-Atlantic world reached the height of its power in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. While their governments took a back seat, individuals and corporations looking to expand their nation's power and prestige ventured across the world claiming territory, expanding markets, and advancing technology. While this had been occurring for centuries, the Industrial Revolution gave the West a decisive advantage over the places they sought to conquer. In sub-Saharan Africa, Europeans brought weapons like the Maxim machine gun to easily and brutally defeat those that lived there. Advances in medicine allowed European soldiers and their horses to take advantage of the vast savannas without as much risk from diseases like yellow fever. The Pacific islands, for so long isolated from the world by kilometers of open ocean, were now in reach of powerful European navies and the colonists they brought with them. Even China, which had been political, cultural, and economic hegemon of Eastern Asia for millennia, had fallen to ironclad European steamships and carved up into spheres of influence.

The World: 1900-2019

The changes that have occurred since the year 1900 are less qualitative and more quantitative. The limits of where we have discovered is one good example. Antarctica had been sighted as early as 1820, but an inland expedition would not occur until 1901. After two World Wars and the Cold War, humanity has become an intermundial species. Technology has progressed to the point where 500 people have left Earth's atmosphere. Twelve of them have stepped foot on another world-Luna. We have sent unmanned probes to Sol, various planets, moons, and asteroids in our System, and beyond. Voyager I is the farthest manmade object from Earth. After more than 42 years, it has left the Sol System and is now more than 22 billion km from Earth-slightly more than 147x the distance Earth is from Sol. In October 2018, the Parker Solar Probe became the fastest manmade object at 68.6km/sec., just over Mach 200.