6 The 1980s and 1990s A cable television channel called MTV Music Television featured music videos some of which depicted sexual themes drug use and violence Talk shows on which people discussed their most intimate secrets and problems tried to outdo one another with outrageousness The Video Home System VHS developed in Japan was introduced to the United States in 1977 Videocassette recorders were among the fastest-selling appliances in the 1980s In 1982 about 3 percent of American homes had at least one by 1988 almost 60 percent did Americans could now tape television programs and rent movies on video to watch whenever they liked That flexibility combined with more program offerings via cable television gave Americans virtually limitless opportunities to become couch potatoes The evolving video culture became progressively more uninhibited Some television programs displayed a frankness and crudeness that viewers and censors would have rejected just a few years earlier Americans in the 1950s looked to television as their primary source for news and information
Sixty-one percent of U S homes had microwave ovens by the end of the 1980s Speeding up food preparation went right along with the life-in-the-fast lane lifestyle of many Americans More and more people bought personal computers and for many the distinction between work time and personal time became increasingly blurred The 1980s and 1990s After a dramatic fall in the stock market 7 in October 1987 and the arrest of a number of businesspeople whose ambitions and greed had led them to break the law the allure of the money chasing lifestyle seemed to wear off a little In January 1989 President George Bush tried to steer a new course with his inaugural speech My friends he said we are not the sum of our possessions In our hearts we know what matters We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car a bigger bank account We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend a loving parent a citizen who leaves his home his neighborhood and town a little better than he found it There were some serious problems largely ignored by the government during the 1980s but the problems did not go away Safety improvements in the nuclear power industry experienced extreme neglect for example now they would cost a great deal of time and money to implement Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars would also have to be spent to correct losses resulting from lax banking and business practices allowed during the Reagan administration The Nec Corporation developed the first mass-produced laptop in 1986 with a 2,560 kbps modem
8 The 1980s and 1990s Another serious social problem on the rise was homelessness By 1990 estimates of the number of homeless people in America varied a great deal with many figures nearing 3 million The Reagan administration’s cuts in funding for low income housing and social-welfare programs were partially to blame The red ribbon is a symbol to promote AIDS awareness and to show support for those stricken with the disease Doctors identified a new and terrible disease acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS in 1981 In that year only a handful of cases were identified By 1993 over 100,000 cases in the United States were reported A homeless man looks for food in a dumpster AIDS AYDZ An acronym for acquired immune deficiency syndrome this disease impairs the human immune system to the point that the body cannot fight off serious infection or disease middle class MID-uhl KLASS This social group made up of people who rank between the poor and the wealthy includes professionals and business workers Homelessness increased through the early 1990s When Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform act in August 1996 some people feared that even more Americans might be pushed into poverty and homelessness
The cost of living was high and pressures on middle-class families trying to make ends meet were often overwhelming It was to these Americans who Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton appealed to most in 1992 Brought up in a small town in one of the nation’s poorer states Clinton could communicate with working people and he talked about wanting to make things better for them This would not be easy to achieve In addition to social problems President Clinton had to face a new and dangerous threat to U S citizens terrorism Throughout history terrorist attacks on American soil were unusual and rare events In the 1990s however there was a growing awareness among Americans that they could be the targets of terrorist acts On February 26 1993 just a month after Clinton’s inauguration as president there was a terrible explosion in New York City’s World Trade Center The explosion killed six people and injured more than 1,000 when a bomb went off in a van that had been parked in a garage under the huge building On April 19 1995 the terrorist target was a federal building in Oklahoma City Oklahoma That bombing killed 166 people 19 of them innocent children On July 27 1996 during the Olympic Games held in Atlanta Georgia a bomb went off at an outdoor park killing a woman contributing to the fatal heart attack of a journalist and wounding more than 100 people The 1980s and 1990s President Clinton asked Congress to 9 pass stricter laws to fight terrorism In signing such a law on August 5 1996 he called terrorism the enemy of our generation A terrorist attack on the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City Oklahoma was heard and felt up to 55 miles 89km away Whether or not Clinton had succeeded in improving life for Americans was a factor in the outcome of the election of 1996 when he ran for reelection against Republican Bob Dole Another factor was the approach of the twenty-first century Which candidate did the voters think would be best for America in the new era On November 5 1996 Americans went to the polls to make that decision
