Part 31 (1/2)

age of John F. Kennedy at his inauguration as U.S. president in 1961, making him the youngest elected president in the country's history

45.

number of revolutions per minute (rpm) completed by a recording format introduced by RCA in 1949 68.4.

life expectancy, in years, of human being in United States in 1953 <>

life expectancy, in years, of human being in China or India in 1953 2,294.

number of U.S. banks that failed in 1931 2,400.

number of Germans who fled East Berlin on a single day, August 12, 1961 5,000.

range, in miles, of U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles by the late 1950s 10,000.

estimated number of Austrian Jews who committed suicide after being forced into n.a.z.i concentration camps 33, 514.

number of ”enemies of the people” killed by Soviet secret police in 1937 and 1938 150,000.

number of British officials in India in 1931 353,000,000.

number of Indians in India in 1931 179,000.

number of people in Soviet slave labor camps, or gulags, in 1930 1,700,000.

number of people in Soviet gulags in 1953 836,255.

number of women's dresses found by Russian troops after liberating the Auschwitz concentration camp in late January 1945 23,000,000.

number of Americans receiving some form of government aid in 1938 2,300,000,000.

the world population in 1940, about 25 percent of whom lived in China

ONE WORLD.

(19632007)

IN A NUTSh.e.l.l.

In the s.p.a.ce of just a few weeks in the summer of 2007, British scientists in Antarctica appeared in a globally televised environmental awareness concert; a major French bank triggered a plunge in the U.S. stock market, and Chinese restaurateurs prepared for the 2008 Summer Olympics by translating their menus into English-and learning the difference between carp carp and and c.r.a.p c.r.a.p.

It's a small world, after all.

In fact, as the twenty-first century plowed through its first decade, technological innovation, environmental challenges that transcended geopolitical borders, and an increasingly intertwined international economy combined to shrink the planet considerably.

Following the Cuban missile crisis, both of the world's super powers, the United States and Soviet Union, took a step back from the abyss, and settled into ideological combat by proxy in other countries. But by the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union's faltering economy betrayed its military and political aspirations, and the cold war was over.

Unfortunately, there were plenty of other wars: in Vietnam, the Middle East, East Africa, Eastern Europe, and on the Indian subcontinent.

In 1991, the United States, now the world's sole superpower, led an international force against Iraq to drive dictator Saddam Hussein's invading forces out of Kuwait. In 2001, following a ma.s.sive terrorist attack on American targets, the U.S. led another international force to overthrow the religious dictators.h.i.+p of the Taliban in Afghanistan, followed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. And so on. Clearly, the fall of communism did not presage a Pax Americana.

In the Middle East, an abundance of disparate ingredients-economic feuds over the area's bountiful oil supplies; bitter sectarian disputes between Sunni and s.h.i.+te Muslims, and the Arab world's antipathy toward Israel-worked to keep the region a seething cauldron of unrest.

Racial, ethnic, and religious differences sparked fights in other areas as well, from Northern Ireland to South Africa to East Timor. Predictably, the unrest triggered ma.s.sive waves of migration, more often forced than voluntary.

The collapse of communism ended third world nations' roles as colonial p.a.w.ns, but post-colonialism did not equate to post-poverty. By 1998, Africa contained 10 percent of the world's population, yet only 1 percent of its industrial output.

Latin America had reasonably good success in industrializing and relatively poor results in securing political stability. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, highly centralized governments that were either socialist or bordered on socialism took control in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, countering moves toward democracy in countries such as Chile, Brazil, and Argentina.

In China, the disintegration of the Soviet Union left the world's most populous nation as the only large Communist country. Years of often violent internal unrest finally gave way to a more stable, if still repressive, government. The Chinese economy began to modernize, and the country entered the new century as a dominant player in the global marketplace.

In Europe, at least in Western Europe, cold war tensions between the USSR and the United States served to push countries toward greater cooperation. The European Economic Community was formed in 1957 on the Continent, joined in 1969 by England and Ireland. Other countries joined what became the European Union in 1995. By 2002, twelve European countries had adopted a unified currency, the euro.

While each region of the world was struggling with its own problems and enjoying its successes, advances in technology and science were making the world more interesting, more accessible-and smaller. Man walked on the moon; a sheep was successfully cloned; a human baby was conceived in a laboratory dish. Personal computers evolved from simple word processors to marvels of calculation and information, which expanded exponentially with the development of the Internet. Cellular and satellite telephones meant there was virtually no place on earth that was out of earshot.

The communications revolution helped spur a more fluid world economy. Goods and money moved more easily over oceans and across borders. Multinational groups such as the European Union and partic.i.p.ants in the North American Free Trade Agreement fostered international cooperation on issues such as tariffs. The number of multinational firms went from thirty-seven thousand in 1983 to more than sixty-three thousand in 2000.

But there were downsides to the global economy too. Inequities in earnings meant that high-wage countries s.h.i.+pped jobs to low-wage nations. Foreign capital could be fickle and withdrawn precipitously, leaving new industries in developing countries in the lurch, or at the mercy of corporate interests in other nations that swooped in to take advantage of the situation.

Economic interests weren't the only things countries shared with one another. Highly communicable viruses such as HIV and SARS replaced the plague and smallpox as epidemics that traveled without pa.s.sports. Environmental problems, ranging from global warming to the destruction of rainforests to air and water pollution, all transcended borders.

As the twenty-first century began to gather steam, mankind's best hope for solving the daunting environmental, economic, political, and social problems might well lie in an adage coined by the American statesman Benjamin Franklin in 1776: ”We must all hang together, or a.s.suredly we shall all hang separately.”

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN.

June 16, 1963 The United States and Soviet Union agree to ban testing nuclear arms aboveground and orbiting nuclear weapons in s.p.a.ce.