A study by the Pew Research Group shows that a majority of Americans have a generally negative view of the 00's, and 53% view 9/11 as the decade's most important event. The Washington Post's most-influential-person bracket has George W. Bush edging out Osama bin Laden. The pictures for the decade in the 2009 World Almanac show 9/11, Bush's premature ejaculation (h/t) of mission accomplished, Hurricane Katrina, and the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. No doubt about it: this decade sucked. But let's take a look back and see how it compares.
8. The 2000's: We survive Y2K only to have to deal with a controversial election. The country unites after 9/11, then divides bitterly after having its fear exploited and being told that criticism is un-American (as if that's not the whole point of the 1st Amendment) to invade Iraq. The world does nothing about climate change, beginning with Bush's decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and ending with bold inaction at Copenhagen. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans eight months after a tsunami strikes South Asia. The U.S. ends the decade in recession, but with its first female speaker, its first black president, and change it might still believe in.
7. The 1980's: The Age of Reagan. Trickle-down and Iran-Contra. AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz. The Challenger explodes. Chernobyl and Bhopal. The Iran-Iraq War, Russians in Afghanistan. But 1989 sees the Berlin Wall coming down, and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Plus, I was born. Not all bad.
6. The 450's: Rome is sacked by the Vandals and avoids being sacked by the Huns by the intervention of Pope Leo I. The Council of Chalcedon leads to a schism in the Christian Church. Rome sees three emperors in as many years in a wave of assassination and counter-assassination. The Empire would be gone two decades later.
5. The 1790's: The French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the horror of the guillotine. Napoleon is in power by decade's end. The Panic of 1797 hits the U.S. and England. A two-party system emerges in the U.S. with the Federalists and Republicans battling over the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson and Madison draft the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in response, arguing that states can nullify federal laws and secede from the union.
4. The 1860's: The U.S. is at its most divided in the Civil War. About 625,000 die. Lincoln's assassination leads to feuds between radicals in the Senate and Andrew Johnson, culminating in his impeachment (but not his removal). Abroad, the French invade Mexico over Benito Juarez's suspension of debt payments, while Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay defeat Paraguay in the War of the Triple Alliance. But the Morrill and Homestead Acts allow for the establishment of land-grant colleges and the settlement of the West, and the Suez Canal and Transcontinental Railroad are completed in 1869.
3. The 1940's: World War II: The Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, Dresden, the Blitz. Atomic weapons explode onto the world stage, setting up fifty years of cold war. FDR dies. On the plus side, the right side wins WWII and forms the United Nations.
2. The 1930's: Forget the recession, the world languishes through the Great Depression, with unemployment reaching 25% in the U.S. Hitler rises to power, unites Germany with Austria, is appeased by the Sudetenland, invades Czechoslovakia then Poland, starting World War II.
What could be worse than the Depression and the rise of Nazism?
1. The 1340's: The Black Death spreads across Europe, killing a good third of the continent's population. Jews are blamed and persecuted. French knights were mowed down by English longbowmen at Crecy. The Byzantine Empire is engulfed in civil war.
So the 2000's could have been worse. At least we didn't have the bubonic plague.
