By: Ella Sutherland & Lauren Kottke

Dwight D. Eisenhower was known as one of the most masterful army generals of his time. He was a major contributor to WW2 and the Allied victory. He never gave up on his troops and always gave them credit for all of the fighting they endured. He was also known for being very strategic. After the war, when he went home, he was proclaimed a hero.

Dwight Eisenhower became involved in the war when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December, and the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, made Eisenhower go to Washington D.C. to work as a planning officer. He was already listed in the army because in WW1, he served as a military aide to General John J. Pershing. He was stationed in the Philippines at the end of WW1 and stayed there until WW2 began. He then left the Philippines after Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Throughout the war he had many accomplishments. Eisenhower got a general star in September 1941, and was promoted to brigadier general. In November 1942 Eisenhower led Operation Torch, it was a successful Allied invasion of North Africa. The operation began on November 8, and ended on November 16, 1942. The reason for the attack was to try to relieve the pressure on the Soviet Union.

Then, in February 1943, he led his troops to face the Germans in Tunisia. His troops were getting destroyed in the battle of the Kasserine Pass, before he surrendered. There were over 6,000 casualties. The Kasserine war was the start of an attack against an Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa. The loss of this battle was one of the Allies worst moments, and they suffered a major loss.

After that extreme loss he started becoming very strategic. He figured out that the problem was that the troops were not working together and that he wasn’t being a good leader. He figured his way of going about these battles was wrong in the sense that he was treating it like every man for themselves, so he changed his way of leading and they started winning more battles.

After that, he directed the invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland in 1943, that led to the fall of the Italian regime and the fall of Mussolini in June 1944. In this battle, the U.S. and Great Britain successfully attacked and made German and Italian troops leave Sicily, and then planned to attack the Italian mainland.

Later, in 1943, Eisenhower was made Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and he was in charge of leading U.S. troops into Europe for the battle of D-Day. D-Day took place on June 6, 1944, when many U.S. troops landed in Normandy, France trying to free Western Europe from Nazi Germany.

After the war ended Eisenhower became president of the United States of America, and while he was serving as president he prevented America from going into any more wars. Also, while he was president he worked on making peace with Korea and ended up making a truce with them. He started trying to ease the after effects of the Cold War and was for the most part, successful.

All throughout the war Eisenhower led the U.S. through many battles and won a great amount of them. In the end, his contribution to the war, and the U.S., helped the Allied powers win the war. Every battle he helped lead, that won, put the Allied side at an advantage and helped lead to the end of the war when the Allied powers won.

By: Toby Martin-Kohls

Airlines have flown many routes over the course of their existence, mergers, recessions, and some routes we have today were the same as routes that were used in the 1960s. American Airlines has flown between New York and Los Angeles for many decades. They have had a daily service leaving New York at 12:00pm daily since the 1960s. 

The 1967 version of this flight took a grand total of 5 hrs and 43min long for travel time. Today’s version of this flight is listed at 6hrs and 27min.  In reality, in this example, the time spent in the air is the same. Today’s schedules now account for congestion and delays at airports, and things going wrong. 

We have made many advancements in technology in the last 50 years, so why is the flight time longer or still the same?

Let’s take a look at how airplane engines have evolved. There are 3 main types of engines. They are the turboprop, the turbofan, and the turbojet. Each of them has a range of speeds at which they are most efficient. 

The turboprop is what you will most likely see on propeller aircraft. Almost all of the thrust from turboprop engines comes from the propeller. These engines are typically inexpensive to buy and operate so a lot of smaller commuter planes use these engines. Of course, the trade-off here is that they are not as fast. They are most efficient at speeds of 325mph to 375mph. Any faster than that and it is better to use a turbofan.

Turbofans are the type of engines that you can see pretty much everywhere. Almost every commercial aircraft is turbo fan-driven. Turbofan engines are most efficient at the speeds most aircraft fly at today, 400mph to 620mph. 

If you want to go supersonic, you would have to go above 767mph, and you would need a turbojet engine. Turbojet engines are very similar to turbofan engines, except all the air goes through the engine’s turbine. This lets the engines reach really high speeds, but they also require immense fuel. The engines are really only efficient between 1,300mph and 1,400mph. 

The Concorde used a turbojet engine to go supersonic. It burned 46.85lbs of fuel per every mile flown. To put this in comparison with an aircraft used today, that is using new technology to become the most efficient, the new B787-Dreamliner consumes 18.7lbs of fuel for every mile flown. 

Compared to today’s commercial planes, the Concorde was pretty small. It held 100 passengers, compared to 291 passengers on the Dreamliner. The per-person fuel economy on the Concorde was around 14mpg, compared to 104mpg per passenger on the Dreamliner. 

There were only two commercial airlines that flew the Concorde, which was British Airways and Air France. They could not afford to keep flying the plane. Less than one-third of the seats were actually occupied by paying customers. Other seats were occupied by using miles to pay for their seat or upgrades from first class on normal flights. It cost a minimum of $7,500 (adjusted for inflation) to fly one way from London to New York in 3hrs, in seats that look very similar to economy class today.

British Airways introduced its first Business Class lay-flat seat in 2000, and many opted to choose this 7hr flight in comfort instead of the Concorde. 

The whole idea of the Concorde was to create the most efficient way to cross the Atlantic for business travelers, but now in the early 2000s, travelers from the U.S. could book 7hr flights leaving in the evening, sleep on the plane, and wake up in Europe. 

The Concorde is not the best luxurious or efficient option anymore. Its last flight came on October 24, 2003, ending the era of commercial supersonic flight.

For the airlines, speed doesn’t really matter. It really only exists as a selling point for the consumer. The cost of the airplane is a relatively small part of the overall cost to fly so you’ll never see an airline fly faster so they can use their planes more. 

Plane’s lifespans are generally rated in cycles; the number of times a plane takes off and lands. The Dreamliner we talked about earlier has a lifespan of 44,000 cycles and a list price of $224.6 million, which is often higher than the actual sale price. That means the cost of the airplane per flight is $5,104.54, while the fuel cost to operate a flight from New York to London is $18,727. Therefore, airlines just always fly their aircraft at the most efficient speeds. That speed is almost always between 500-550mph. 

That is well below the speed of sound, which is 767mph. Why don’t planes fly just below the speed of sound? Flying at just below this speed is flying in the Transonic Range, which increases drag, and destabilizes the aircraft, which would be quite dangerous. Flying in this range (Mach 0.8-Mach 1.2) actually requires more fuel than flying above Mach 1.2. So essentially, the speed limit for commercial aircraft to be economically viable is 613.8mph. 

With current speeds, airplanes are able to fly anywhere on earth within 24hrs. The barrier for most people to travel is cost, not speed, so manufacturers and airlines will continue to focus their efforts on driving down the cost of travel, not the time. In the end, time is the money of only a privileged few and cost is the enemy of the masses.

For more information, please visit:

• https://skybrary.aero/articles/transonic-flight
• https://aircraftexchange.com/blog/what-determines-an-aircrafts-lifespan
• https://aerocorner.com/blog/types-of-aircraft-engines/

By: Liibaan Yusuf

The financial crisis of 2008 is said to have been worse than any global economic meltdown since Black Tuesday of 1929, which lead to the Great Depression.

The 2008 financial crisis was an extremely complicated full meltdown of the housing market in the US. Unlike the rest of the world, the housing market in the US is interconnected with the financial market, as to where it is impossible too purchase a house without the intermediary of a bank.

In the years leading up, banks were giving out loans and mortgages left and right with no regard. In late 2001, the federal reserve had lowered the national interest rate from 6 percent to a mind-blowing 1 percent! Upon hearing this, banks and aspiring home owners jumped to getting loans with dirt low interest rates. Banks also took advantage and sold those loans to Wall Street Banks.

By 2004, the Federal Reserve had brought up interest rates to almost 6 percent again but in the 4 year rush, homeownership was at almost 70%! People had gotten great deals on homes! In early 2006, banks began to re-evaluate homes and the majority of prices dropped sharply. People who had gotten a loan on a 500,000 dollar house were being told their house was only worth 300,000 dollars! These people were locked in loans paying off amounts their home wasn’t actually worth! Some were almost done paying it off and some were in the beginning stages of doing such.

People were scared to sell their homes because of horror stories! Those who did sell now owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, that they didn’t have, to their original lenders! Banks had essentially given people money in a loan, the receivers took the loan to buy a mortgage for a house, locked in a deal for what seemed great, but were told their house wasn’t worth what they were paying, and now the banks couldn’t get back the loans they had once given out to everyone and anyone!

One by one, banks started filing for bankruptcy. By early 2007, 25 subprime lenders had went bankrupt. Swiss Bank UBS, one of the most renowned banks in the world, had announced that they were 3.4 billion dollars in the red. But in the US, IndyMac bank, one of the biggest US based banks to have been affected, had be seized by the US government, but it would be a bank named after a different set of brothers to take the biggest fall. Lehman Brothers, had completely been demolished, and their name tarnished. They were known as the bank behind the whole collapse!

By mid 2008, it was the US government who issued a Wall Street bailout in response to the carnage.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/financial-crisis-review.asp
• https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/subprime-market-2008.asp
• https://www.history.com/.amp/this-day-in-history/lehman-brothers-collapses

By: Liv Miller

Cultural appropriation is defined by Britannica.com as “When members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way.” Cultural appropriation is a growing topic in this country that when it occurs, or is discussed, often creates controversy.

The cultural appropriation of Native American or indigenous culture happens more often than you think, and it occurs, more times than not, without it even being recognized as wrong. Things such as Halloween costumes, sports team names/mascots, logos, and festival wear, may seem innocent and harmless but are actually dehumanizing and create a false interpretation of Native Americans.

Dina Gilio-Whitaker is an independent writer and researcher in Indigenous studies. She argues on Beaconbroadside.com that “The dehumanization of these peoples is ingrained in American culture. The majority of Americans are so desensitized to certain images” and acts of cultural appropriation that the problem still continues to exist.

Despite the long history and record of human rights violations against Native Americans, the American public still remains fascinated with its own image of the “Indian”. American companies, time and time again, have profited off of putting highly stereotypical images of an “Indians” on their products. Anywhere from toys and jewelry, to tobacco products, and common groceries like butter, baking soda, and cleaning supplies. The Indians shown on these labels are created by people who have little to no understanding of Native American communities and culture. This lack of education and understanding leads to inaccurate and stereotypical images on products that have absolutely nothing to do with the people supposedly being portrayed on the labels.

Cultural appropriation is known to often happen in sports as well. There was much controversy surrounding the names of sports teams like the Washington “Redskins” and the Cleveland “Indians”. Fans for the Washington Redskins used to dress up in Native American attire and wear body and face paint, painting themselves red. The team has since changed their name and is no longer allowing fans to enter the stadium dressed in this attire and makeup.

Many of these issues stem from the lack of knowledge on Native American culture. There are so many ways that we can honor and appreciate this culture rather than appropriate it. But to do so we must find ways to respect them and listen to the voices of indigenous people rather than create harmful stereotypes and advertise incorrect perpetuations on Native American culture, customs, and history.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/finders-keepers-adulteration-native-american-cultures-name
• https://ascjcapstone.com/terms/spring-2019/kchristy/

By: Ella Sutherland and Lauren Kottke

There were many causes to World War I that had both short term and long term effects on countries. The immediate cause of World War I was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He was assassinated on June 28, 1914. He was killed by a Serbian terrorist group that wanted Bosnia to be free of Austria-Hungary. The group went by the name of the Black Hand. The society was formed in 1911 and led by Col. Dragutin Dimitrijević. The group was formed in Belgrade and they were known to fight for liberation through terrorist acts. In Serbia, they dominated the government by terrorizing officials. Over time, they became so big and powerful they challenged the government’s authority. Although this was the immediate cause, there were many other causes that pushed for World War I.

One other cause of World War I was nationalism. Nationalism is a country showing extreme pride for their country, and often putting their own country first in war. Nationalism fueled the war by pushing countries to want to win even more. All of the countries involved in World War I believed that they were the best and deserved to win. During the war to push nationalism on civilians, they used propaganda posters. They had sayings that would tell people it was their duty to fight for their country, and often they would target the fathers of a household because they were the ones expected to fight in the war.

Another cause of World War I was imperialism. Imperialism is expanding the region of land with the power of the military. The main goal of imperialism was getting land and also resources. Those resources included coal, wood, and cotton. Imperialism caused countries to fight over land. As the countries invaded other regions of the world, they also invaded native peoples’ land. Many times this was called colonization. When they would invade they would also hurt the native people. They would make them practice their religion and change their overall way of living. This changed many countries for the future.

The third cause of World War I was alliances. An alliance is an agreement to help a country if they, or yours, are in danger. Many countries set up alliances in case of a war. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, it caused other countries to get involved. There were two alliance groups during World War I. The first was the central powers that included: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman power. The allies included: France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and the United States. If it weren’t for the alliances, the war would have been much smaller. Many of the countries wouldn’t have a reason for getting involved in the war.

The last cause of the war was militarism. Militarism is upping supplies to compete with other countries. As the countries try to win more and more, they need to up their resources like weapons. It’s a chain effect because if one country ups their supplies, other countries will do the same. Countries spent great amounts of money for their military during the war. The allies spent $147 billion and the central powers spent $61 billion. Militarism also affected the economies at home because of the demand for supplies. Factories at home were at an all time demand and use. Because the men were off in war, it led to women entering the workforce.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.history.com/news/regional-conflict-world-war-i-beginning
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Hand-secret-Serbian-society

By: Reed Morris

The Beginning

Enron began in 1985 after the merger of two energy companies, Houston Natural Gas Co. (HNG) and an Omaha based company called InterNorth Inc. After the merger, a man by the name of Kenneth Lay, who was the CEO of HNG before the merger, became the new CEO of Enron. One of Lay’s first moves as CEO was to shift and rebrand Enron into an energy supplier and trader. With recent loosening on the energy market, companies were now allowed to place bets on future energy prices. Lay wanted Enron to take advantage.

In 1990, Lay created Enron Finance Corp, and chose a man named Jeffrey Skilling (he’ll be important later) to be the head of this new corporation. In regards to his joining Enron, Skilling’s timing was perfect. Energy in the 90’s was very loosely regulated and Enron was set to flourish in this environment.

Skilling’s first major contribution to the company was figureheading the company’s shift from a traditional ‘historical cost’ accounting method, to a new ‘Market to Market’ (MTM) accounting system, which allowed the company to receive official approval of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in 1992. MTM: “Mark-to-market or fair value accounting refers to accounting for the ‘fair value’ of an asset or liability based on the current market price, or the price for similar assets and liabilities, or based on another objectively assessed ‘fair’ value.” It is widely accepted that Enron’s adoption of the MTM style was the official beginning of the end of Enron. This style of accounting allowed Enron to log estimated profits as real, current, profits.

The height

At Enron’s height, the company had a market valuation of sixty billion dollars. As Enron was at its height during the ‘dot-com bubble’, interest in the internet was immense, so they created a website called EnronOnline (EOL). The website focused on commodities. With every transaction that took place through EOL, Enron was the counter partner, either the seller or buyer. One of the biggest reasons this website was a success was that Enron had direct insight into the value and activities of the energy market, as well as many other global markets. This allowed them to manipulate and contort these markets to make an unimaginably absurd amount of money.

The first signs of distress

Yea, that was a lie. Investors were told that they were making money, and were told that it was a success when in reality it was ripping apart at the seams. The first and most noticeable instance of this was when Enron partnered with Blockbuster to create a new video on demand (VOD) platform and enter the VOD market. At the time, the VOD market seemed like a really good pick, so Enron pulled out their MTM tricks, and started logging expected future earnings as their current, real earnings.

By early to mid 2000 rolled around, EOL was executing somewhere upwards of $350 billion in trades. This is when the dot-com bubble started to burst. Enron had decided to build a system of high-speed broadband telecom networks, which soaked up hundreds of millions of dollars. The downside of this was that due to the bursting of the dot-com bubble, they began seeing little to no returns on their hundred million dollar investments.

When the recession of 2000 hit, Enron was extremely saturated throughout many different markets, and was an extremely large part of the US stock market as a whole. They took immense financial hits, and were hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Overzealous Enron found itself on the heavy losing end of their vanishing market capital.

In a highly competitive and quickly growing energy market, Enron could no longer hold itself up. This was the beginning of the end.

The fall

In October of 2000, Enron found itself in a precarious position. It had money and assets tied up all around the world, and it started to crumble under its own massive corporate weight.

Remember Skilling? He decided that the best course of action for the company was to keep lying, and lie even more than before. Skilling used his admittedly impressive accounting skills to hide the financial losses of the Enron trading business, as well as every other operation the company was spending money on, thanks to MTM accounting. These tricks can be beneficial for trading certain securities, but when an actual business is being dealt with, it can have extremely disastrous effects.

An example of the way Enron was manipulating their numbers is this: Imagine they built a power plant for x million dollars. They would report the actual cost to produce the plant, but they would also immediately report the expected profit from this plant even if no one has made a single cent off of it. Then, if the power plant really didn’t make any money in the long term, the losses would be scrubbed from Enron’s books and the losses would be sloughed off on off-the-book shell companies, where these losses would go unreported and unnoticed.

This degenerate cycle required someone who could handle the heat and the lies surrounding it. In 1998, a man named Andrew Fastow, a rising star within Enron, was appointed as the company’s new CFO and he was now in charge of keeping up the facade of success Enron was trying so desperately to preserve.

Even though Fastow had put years of work into keeping Enron’s accounting frauds and financial failures hidden, details regarding the companies financiers started to leak out into the public eye.

Seemingly overnight, the company’s share price dropped around 90% from close to $96 dollars a share, down to a measly $12 per share. This was the final collapse of Enron. The company liquidated the assets it had left and filed for bankruptcy. Enron was no more.

The aftermath

There is too much to cover in the aftermath of the Enron disaster. There were immense changes in legislation regarding large corporations and accounting methods, there was also a huge shift in the energy sector as a whole. Enron’s effect on the United States is significant and lasting.

The men involved with the lies and deceit at Enron also faced extreme legal trouble. Jeffrey Skilling (former CEO) ended up being sentenced to 24 years in prison because of his involvement in Enron’s collapse. Skilling was released from federal custody in early 2019. Similarly, the mastermind behind the concealment of billions in losses, Andrew Fastow was charged with securities and wire fraud, and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Final thoughts

As one of the biggest corporate scandals in US history, there is a lot to be learned from. While thousands of jobs were lost, and millions of dollars vanquished into thin air, the Enron disaster brought about a lot of positive change that has a lasting impact on the economy today.

The story of Enron is much too complicated and deep to fully explain in a short article, but if you have any interest in learning more about this historical dumpster fire of a company, there is a movie that goes into much more depth and detail about the events called ‘Enron: the smartest guys in the room’

One thing that can be learned from Enron is that massive corporations aren’t always clean, and need to be kept in check. In a world with companies that are valued at more than a trillion dollars, there has never been a more important time to keep vigilant, and make sure massive companies don’t have too much power, market share, or influence over our ever changing world.