Rationale

As I made the choices of what topics to put into my online textbook, I found it was difficult to put events in a theme without putting in events that weren't as important as others. With this I decided to do my textbook without a specific theme and just pick, in my eyes, the five most important events in America from 2005 to 2010. The five events that I chose were Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 recession, the 2008 election, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and the effects technology have had on America. I chose these five events because I felt that they were truly the five most important events in America over the last five years. The reason I chose Hurricane Katrina as one of my five events was because it was the most damaging and was the strongest hurricane to ever hit the United States. No other hurricane had ever done the damage that Chicanery Katrina had done, as it destroyed an entire city. I felt that this was easily one of the most important events over the last five years because it had some of the most detrimental effects a natural disaster has ever had as people who were victims are still trying to rebuild their homes to this day. I chose the 2008 recession as one of my events because it was one of the biggest recessions that the United States has ever had. It shot the unemployment rate sky high and put many companies if not out of business, as close as possible to it. Many auto companies such as GM were hurting and required government bailouts in order to keep their business going. Along with those bailouts, they still had to cut jobs because they could not pay everyone. This event is a very important additional to my textbook because even though the recession is technically over people are still struggling to find work and obtain enough money for their families. In 2008, one of the most important elections in United States history occurred, which is why it was included in my textbook. The Democratic candidate became the first ever African American man to enter the White House as the President of the United States. This was also extremely important because if the Democrats had not given Obama the nomination, it would have gone to Hilary Clinton, who if elected president, would have been the first ever woman president elected. This was also a very important event because Obama promised change, which people were very desperate for, which shows how it is very important because it lead him to a revolutionary and marginal victory. Another event that I chose because I though it was very important was the 2009 swine flu pandemic. I chose this event because it had a nationwide effect. It was also important because even though it was not a very harmful virus, people panicked when they were not sure about how harmful or contagious the virus was. Also, it's important because people were so scared that they ran out of the swine flu shot when they first began to make them available to the public, which caused more panic in people. This event also had long lasting effects as people close to this day wore swine flu mask and glove in airports because they were that afraid of catching the virus. The final topic I chose was technology and it's affects over the last five years in the United States. This is important because over the last five years Apple and Microsoft have introduce breakthrough technologies that have made things unbelievably easy for the average business man and the students in Americas classrooms. Business men can now have one phone, being the IPhone, that can do everything there computer, cell phone and palm pilot could do. In the classrooms, Microsoft has introduced new lines of word processors and presentation makers, making the creation of presentations of papers and presentations much easier for students. This shows how technology has been key in the United States over the last five years. Overall, these five events have been the most important in American over the last five years. The reason I chose these topics instead of topics such as the oil spill and the Iraq war because I feel that the oil spill did not have a great effect on the whole country that events such as the recession and 2008 election had. Also I don't feel like the Iraq war has had as big of an effect on the country as it had in the past, which is why I did not choose that. In conclusion, the five topics in my textbook were the most important events to include because they were the most revolutionary, nation wide, and tragic events that have happened to this date.