As with any decade, the 2010s brought countless notable events to U.S. news. From ecological disasters to social movements to astronomical phenomena, there were many news events that made headlines in the U.S. over the last 10 years.<\/p>\n
BP\u2019s devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, leaked 3.19 million barrels of oil into the water, according to Smithsonian Ocean. The tragedy was classified as the worst oil spill in American history, and USA Today reported that BP ended up paying an estimated $62 billion in damages.<\/p>\n
That payment was made possible, in part, by Dr. Joe Goy, former professor of biology at Harding. Just one year before the oil spill, Goy helped write a book with 139 experts about the ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico. \u201cGulf of Mexico – Origin, Waters, and Biota (Volume 1: Biodiversity)\u201d helped hold BP accountable for their damages, since it was so extensive in its coverage of the Gulf\u2019s biology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book covers everything from bacteria to whales,\u201d Goy said in the 2011 Petit Jean Yearbook. \u201cI was privileged to be one of the [individuals] chosen to work on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When former police officer George Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013 for the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, the Black Lives Matter movement sparked one of the biggest social movements of the decade.<\/p>\n
Conversations and controversy surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement abounded throughout the U.S. then and now, even on Harding\u2019s campus. In 2015, alumnus Zach Dailey contributed a guest opinion article for The Bison.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack Lives Matter,\u201d Dailey wrote in his opening lines. \u201cGo ahead, read it again. Black lives matter. There\u2019s no need to add any qualifiers. No \u2018all lives matter\u2019 or \u2018police lives matter\u2019 or even \u2018innocent lives matter.\u2019 Are all of these true statements? Absolutely. If we add those qualifiers, however, we take away from the power and the message of the movement. This message is not about asserting that black lives matter more than any others.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the lighter side of newsworthy events, the U.S. experienced several rare astronomical happenings. In 2017, the \u201cGreat American Eclipse\u201d had millions of Americans squinting skyward. This total solar eclipse \u2014 with a zone of totality marking a path across the entire contiguous U.S. \u2014 occurred on Aug. 21, 2017, the first day of classes for the semester at Harding. The University provided some pairs of protective sunglasses to see the partial eclipse from campus.<\/p>\n
Professor of Mathematics Jason Holland said he asked the dean of his college if he could miss the first day of class to photograph the once in a lifetime event. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an experience that I will never forget,\u201d Holland said. “Those two minutes of a sun vanishing and the stars and planets popping out are burned in my memory.”<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no way to encompass all newsworthy events to occur in the U.S. over the past decade. These examples are small pieces of a much larger story that was ten years in the making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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