2020

January 21, 2020 - First case of Covid-19 is confirmed in the United States. The virus, Covid-19, pandemic had erupted in late 2019 as China denied gain of function research caused it at a Wuhan lab partially funded by the USA instead of a natural virus that transmuted to human beings from bats. By the end of the month, a travel ban is placed against China and six other nations with high rates of infection.

March 12, 2020 - Economy halts as the pandemic spreads to Europe and the United States at a rapid pace without knowledge of how to treat the infected or prevent residents from contracting it. Governors and federal offices begin to ban large gatherings. Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by its large intraday drop ever, two thousand points, three days earlier. Then four days later exceeds that drop, dropping another two thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven points.

March 25, 2020 - House and Senate approve a two trillion dollar emergency spending bill, the Cares Act, to prop up the economy as people lose jobs and are told to stay home due to the pandemic. President Trump signs bill two days later as 3.2 million people during the week before had signed up for unemployment benefits, the highest amount in history.

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May 25, 2020 - Riots and protests erupt across the United States from the killing of a black citizen in Minneapolis, George Floyd, by a policeman. Millions of dollars in damages to small businesses in cities occur, taking advantage of the chaos, as groups like Black Lives Matter and like-minded residents call for a change in police structure and end to harsher treatment by authorities against black and brown citizens.

November 2, 2020 - Poor communication about the pandemic, which would take 385,000 lives by the end of December, and the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic filter into the race for President as President Trump, after a poor first debate performance, loses a contentious election to former Vice President Joe Biden.

December 11, 2020 - FDA announces emergency authorization to Pfizer to administer its Covid-19 vaccine. Seven days later it announced that Moderna has also been given emergency authorization for its vaccine.

2021

January 6, 2021 - Protests by Trump supporters who think the election of Joe Biden as President was illegitimate congregate at the behest of Trump in Washington, D.C. The event turns into a riot and breach of the capitol building by the unruly mob. More than four hundred and sixty-five people would eventually be arrested.

January 20, 2021 - Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as President of the United States alongside Kamala Harris as Vice President, the first African American and woman to serve in that position. Biden immediately begins to rescind many of the previous President's policies and moves from his moderate stances during the campaign to a more leftist agenda.

February 7, 2021 - Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win the Super Bowl, giving Brady a record tying number of championships, seven, with Otto Graham.

March 12, 2021 - The United States passes the 100 million vaccination mark. By April 16, the amount of vaccinated adults reaches 200 million. By August 7, over 70% of adults are vaccinated.

December 1, 2021 - The first Omicrom case of the Covid-19 variant in the USA is found in San Francisco from a traveler to South Africa. The Omicron variant would prove to be much more contagious, though less deadly, than the former Delta, creating a spike of new cases and deaths for the next several months. More people died of Covid-19 in 2021 than in its first year. In the United States alone, that number was 386,000 and worldwide, the number of deaths from the virus reached 5.1 million, both as of November 22, 2021.

2022

February 24, 2022 - Full scale invasion of the soveriegn nation of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian troops entering from the west, north, and south causes mass migration from Ukraine, and propels western nations, including the United States, to send hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian and military aid to the non-NATO country.

May 17, 2022 - House of Representatives holds first hearing on the existence of Unidentified Flying Objects, UFO's, in over fifty years, prompted by declassified photos and video of military pilots and others sighting objects in the sky that seemed to defy known flight capabilities. Footage of three Navy pilots sighting what are now called, "unidentified aerial phenomena" had been released on August 30, 2021, raising the concern.

June 24, 2022 - Roe versus Wade 1973 ruling legalizing abortion rights on the Federal level is overturned by the Supreme Court, which found that the Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. Ruling sends laws on abortion back to the states. Majority of Americans do not agree with overturning the 1973 act.

November 8, 2022 - Midterm elections of the House of Representatives and Senate end with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives by a small margin, ending much of the agenda of President Biden who had control of both houses during the first two years of his Presidency. However, election results were not the expected Republican wave despite the trouble of high inflation hurting American families with much of the reason due to the issue of abortion rights.

December 31, 2022 - Social Security payments to recipients rise 8.7%, the highest in forty years, due to high inflation on household necessities of food, oil, gas, and other commodities, which hurt both senior citizens and all families. The Consumer Price Index showing some of the highest inflation in decades causes the Federal Reserve to raise its rates at large intervals during the summer and fall in an effort to combat inflationary pressure.

History Photo Bomb

President Joe Biden, 2021, Adam Schultz. Courtesy Executive Office, Official Portrait, via Wikipedia Commons.

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