Since 1937, we’ve been proud to provide upstate New York homeowners, homebuilders, and businesses with clean energy. We offer residential services for home propane usage, commercial propane services, and much more. And while we won’t be highlighting our range of services in today’s post, we will be talking about how much has happened in the world since our inception all the way back in 1937.
In a post some time ago, we listed a few events that have taken place between our founding and the present day. You can find them below.
- WWII
- Women started to work in factories
- Jackie Robinson played in Major League Baseball
- The Vietnam War
- The first man in space
- The first Super Bowl
- The Civil Rights Act
- The Cold War
- Desert Storm
- You were born (most likely)
- The internet is invented
- Y2K
- 9/11
- Smartphones change the game
Although this list is far from thorough, comprehensive, holistic, or whatever you’d like to call it, those are some of the heaviest-hitters that came to mind when just thinking about the past 80 years or so. It’s remarkable to think that so much has happened without even an entire century passing us by.
So, all this being said, guess what today’s post is about! That’s right, we are going back and offering our readers a more thorough, comprehensive, holistic, or whatever you’d like to call it — list of world events. Again, don’t hold us to those describers, because being legitimately thorough about all the significant events that have taken place in the past 80 years or so is not only a subjective enterprise, but it’s a fairly unrealistic one in terms of its scope. This is especially the case when you think about the fact that this is a blog for Upstate New York’s top propane gas services provider for home and business. But remember, the grand point we are attempting to make is the fact that our propane tank company has stood the test of time.
But we digress. Keep reading if you are a fan of world history, lists, the 20th-century, propane suppliers, or the internet in general!
World War II
Let’s start with an early-ish event that comes to mind quickly for pretty much everyone. Although Nazi Germany and Hitler were running around wreaking havoc since 1933 or so, the proverbial fecal matter hit the fan in 1939 in terms of the war starting in Europe. It began with the German invasion of Poland. In 1940, the world witnessed the fall of France, Norway, and Denmark. In 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Germans brashly invaded Soviet Russia. Fast-forward four years to 1945, and we have the death of then-president FDR, who was replaced by President Harry Truman. In that same year, the U.S. decides to drop atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Shortly thereafter, the war officially ended.
The Cold War
As soon as World War II ended, the Cold War replaced it, beginning with Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union occupying zones of Berlin. As a matter of fact, this occured before the USA dropped atomic bombs on Japan, as Germany was defeated well before Japan waved the white flag. On March 5th, 1945, Winston Churchill, the prime minister of England at the time, gave his famous Iron Curtain Speech in which he proclaims that “an iron curtain has descended on Europe,” essentially identifying the USSR and their communist movements as a major threat. From then on, it was communism vs. the free world, as far as folks in liberated countries were concerned. Much else happened in the years that followed, culminating with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the reuniting of East and West Germany, the Strategic Arms Reduction treaty being signed by Russia and the USA, and the eventual resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.
The Space Race
While we are discussing the Cold War, we might as well talk about one of the most fascinating components of that era — the space race. The Space Race was a sublimation of sorts, regarding the global competition of the USA and Russia. Sublimation, for the record, is a psychological concept known as a Freudian defense mechanism, in which people (or in this case, nations) subvert their unacceptable social desires (i.e. nuking the other country and therefore getting nuked) into acceptable social behaviors. In this case, the latter meant being the first to get to space and walk on the moon. To be fair, there were plenty of conventionally unacceptable behaviors both countries delved too far in (mostly with regards to meddling with other countries and their governments), but that is a blog topic for another time.
Back to the Space Race! Both countries eagerly desired to be supreme space conquerors of the universe. This competition bore a multitude of novel technology and capacities. For example, the Space Race gave rise to the launching of artificial satellites. The USSR beat out America in this particular event, as they launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, before the US would be able to. Likewise, the Soviets were also able to put a human into space before any other country, but the United States were undoubtedly the meta-victors due to the fact that we put a man on the moon (without question, the preponderant event).
In 1972, relations took a turn for the better, as something of an armistice (or détente, if you prefer), took place. In a co-operative mission called the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that came to fruition three years later in 1975, the two nations symbolically united as each country’s crews met in outer space.
The African-American Civil Rights Movement
Beginning in the late 40s, the Civil Rights Movement got its legs moving with President Truman’s signing of Executive Order 9981, which stated there was to be equal treatment of all members of the nation’s armed services, irrespective of race, color, or ethnicity. In 1954, one of the most important trials in our nation’s history took place in Brown vs. Board of Education. This trial eventually led to the ending of segregation in schools, a key event in our nation’s progress.
In 1955, there took place the Montgomery Bus Boycott, where a group of civilians rose up and made a stand against institutional racism in the form of segregation on public transportation. Rosa Parks was integral in this boycott, as the elderly black woman refused to move to the back of the bus in what has since become widely known as a symbolic act of nonviolent protest.
The Civil Rights Movement has books, films, and a wealth of stories all devoted to a movement that we don’t have time to touch on today (nor will we ever, in all likelihood). Suffice it to say that in Mississippi, Alabama, and other southern states, the status-quo was challenged in a largely peaceful way. The movement culminated with Martin Luther King Jr. and some 250,000 people marching on Washington D.C for jobs and freedom.
We’ve Barely Gotten Going
We’ve decided that this post is sufficient in length, but on the other hand, we’ve barely touched all the events we could be getting to. And, we’ve promised to be thorough! We’ve yet to mention Desert Storm, 9/11, the internet being invented, and a host of other significant occurrences.
Thus, we’ve decided to turn this into a two-part series. Keep an eye out for part two in the near future. But in the meantime, make sure you think of us for all of your clean-energy needs. We are a family-owned propane supplier that has been around for the better part of a century (don’t forget that!). After all, such longevity points to our going about our business the right way. Whether you are in need of residential propane service at home, commercial propane for your business, or you are simply interested in learning more about us, consider DiSanto Propane. Reach out to us today — we’d love to hear from you!