| Issue date: Dec 26, 1999
In this report:
 Survey results overview
Differences between men and women
Titanic sinking rates high for young
Public agrees with journalists' votes
Top 5 stories for people under age 35
Top 5 stories for people ages 35-54
Top 5 stories for people over age 55
Historians weigh in
Top stories in the next century?
From the Newseum:
About the Newseum, the interactive museum of news.
Chart of the overall results
QuickTime movies of the stories
Back to the Introduction
Challenged to
identify the most important news of the 20th century, men and women
point to dramatically different events. A revealing USA WEEKEND-Newseum
survey.
By Eric Newton
 N
A YEARLONG VOTE, Americans selected the defining news stories of
this century. The most significant event: the dropping of the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, the event that ended World War II and
heralded the ominous start of the Atomic Age.
In the survey, conducted jointly by the Newseum and USA WEEKEND,
Americans were asked to choose the top 10 news stories from a list
of 100. More than 36,000 people voted. The results are reported
exclusively today in USA WEEKEND. The results reveal as much about
how Americans see themselves on the brink of a new millennium as
how they view the past 100 years. There is broad agreement about
which events most shaped the century: a cataclysmic world war; scientific
breakthroughs in medicine and flight; the economic disaster of the
Great Depression.
Remarkably, America's current fascination with high tech didn't
make it into the top 10. Voters consider the Titanic disaster (No.
13) more momentous than either the patenting of the computer chip
(No. 17) or the rise of the World Wide Web (No. 22).
Most significantly, the survey shows that what is important differs
vastly depending on who is asked. The choices for top stories differ
dramatically when broken down by voters' sex, age or race:
- Men are impressed by news stories about war and technology,
but women name stories about medicine and social issues as more
important.
- Civil rights dominates the choices of black voters but does
not make it into the top 10 for white voters.
- Younger voters tend to be more influenced by the popular media.
And for the most part, people seem to define "history" as the
events they lived through. "What people value in the lives they
are leading now gets projected back into time," says historian
Doris Kearns Goodwin. "It's the prism through which they see the
world."
Both news and history, it turns out, are in the eye of the beholder. Go to the top
Major differences
between men and women
One of the survey's most stunning findings is the difference in
the women's and men's lists of most important stories (see
chart, below). The survey results show deep differences in the
way the sexes view the past. Men chose the dropping of the atomic
bomb in 1945 as No. 1; women named the 1928 discovery of penicillin.
Go to the top
|
A
joint venture by USA WEEKEND magazine and the Newseum.
|
| The
top 10 stories |
How
men ranked them |
How
women ranked them |
|
1. U.S. drops atomic bomb (1945)
2. Japan bombs Pearl Harbor (1941)
3. Men first walk on the moon (1969)
4. Wrights fly first airplane (1903)
5. JFK assassinated (1963)
6. Antibiotic penicillin discovered
(1928)
7. U.S. women win right to vote (1920)
8. U.S. stock market crashes (1929)
9. New polio vaccine works (1953)
10. DNA's structure discovered (1953)
|
1
2
3
4
5
6
15
7
11
10
|
4 (tie)
3
4 (tie)
2
6
1
7
9 (tie)
8
11
|
The non-scientific survey was conducted from March
to October 1999 as a joint project by USA WEEKEND magazine and the
Newseum, the news museum in Arlington, Va. 36,151 people took the
survey in USA WEEKEND, online and on ballots at the Newseum. The
list of stories consisted of those selected in an earlier survey
of journalists and historians. The rankings are based on a weighted
scale. A story voted as No. 1 was assigned 10 points; No. 2, 9 points,
etc. The stories were then sorted in descending order by total points
received. The survey results reflect the opinions only of people
living in the United States.
Go to the top
"It's a miracle drug," says respondent Bonnie Shor of Annandale,
Va., a real-estate agent and mother of two. "Two of my great-grandmother's
children died from strep. [If] my kids get it today, they miss a
day or two of school."
Deborah Tannen, the best-selling author of You Just Don't Understand:
Women and Men in Conversation and other books that chronicle
the differences in the way men and women communicate, says the varying
responses reflect her view that men "approach everything through
the war template" while women "focus on people and what's happening
in their lives."
John Gray, another observer of the sexes and author of the best
seller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, believes
the differing results are rooted in biology and influenced by hormones.
"The male is the protector," Gray says. "The female is the nurturer,
taking care of the family, interested in health and social issues."
Go to the top Controversial feminist author Susan Faludi, author of Backlash:
The Undeclared War Against American Women and Stiffed: The Betrayal
of the American Man, asserts that there's more to the differences
than biology: "Men are voting for things that are putting them out
of business. Women are voting for things that help them. It reflects
the up and down escalators of men and women in society."
For the
young, the Titanic's sinking ranks high
 Like
older Americans, younger respondents see the past through the lens
of present-day eyes. Those under-35 voters boosted a few stories
into the top 20 -- notably, the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and
the rise of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, they voted strongly
for the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, which rose to 11th on their
list; it seems younger Americans were influenced by 1997's blockbuster
movie. "The younger generation experiences history through film
and photographs," says historian Goodwin. "The images sear into
their hearts and minds."
Younger voters and people of color ranked civil-rights stories
high; older voters and white voters ranked them lower. "They're
saying, 'This affected me directly in a way that the atomic bomb,
as significant as it is, doesn't,' " says Julian Bond, a lecturer,
author and chairman of the NAACP. School desegregation finished
a surprisingly distant 30th on the public's overall list. That doesn't
make the story less important to those who voted for it.
Go to the top Public agrees
with journalists
 In
this era of media-bashing, it is perhaps most surprising of all
to learn that the survey respondents tend to agree with, of all
people, journalists. For better or worse, America's public and its
journalists share cultural values. Earlier this year, a panel of
journalists and historians selected a list of the top 100 stories,
which became the ballot for the public's vote. For the top stories
of the century, journalists chose:
1. The A-bomb. 2. The first moonwalk. 3. The attack on Pearl Harbor.
4. The Wright brothers' first flight. 5. Women winning the vote.
6. The JFK assassination. 7. The Holocaust. 8. World War I. 9. School
desegregation. 10. The 1929 stock market crash.
The public agreed with seven of those 10 choices. The Holocaust,
World War I and school desegregation didn't rank in the public's
top 10.
Another story the public had its own opinion on: President Clinton's
impeachment. The public made it No. 31, while journalists ranked
it 22 places lower, at No. 53. Clinton himself objected to being
ranked on the journalists' list behind the invention of plastics
(No. 46). Tongue in cheek, he asked: "What does a guy have to do
to make the top 50?"
"Events gain or lose significance the further we get from them,"
notes Newseum Executive Director Joe Urschel. "The challenge for
the journalist -- the person writing the first rough draft of history
-- is to try to capture that significance on deadline."
Journalists look for stories that symbolize trends or turning points.
Syndicated political columnist Jules Witcover of the Baltimore Sun,
for example, sees the major story of the millennium, for the nation
and the world, as not a single event but a running story: the "victory
of freedom over totalitarianism." Go to the top
Will historians
agree?
 The
debate over the most influential stories itself is illuminating.
It shows what Mitchell Stephens, a New York University journalism
professor and author of A History of News, calls "the strange
quality of news." Journalists favor the famous, the bizarre, the
close-to-home -- leaving it to historians to sort out the big picture
later. That can cause us to expect the story of one person's death
to dominate the front page, when that person is JFK (No. 5), and
at the same time cause us to react slowly, if at all, to the deaths
of 20 million victims of a secret famine in China (No. 97).
What is considered momentous today may not necessarily land in
the history books. In centuries to come, notes Stephens, "It's entirely
possible historians will look back and consider the top story of
the 20th century something that is not on anyone's list right now."
 Even
historians today disagree. For example, Douglas Brinkley, director
of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University
of New Orleans, concurs with the overall vote naming the dropping
of the atomic bomb as the top story. "War, famine, disease, racism
... they are as old as time. The nuclear bomb was new. We could
blow up the planet."
Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. of New York believes Neil
Armstrong's walk on the moon was most important because it is what
"we will most remember 500 years from now."
Says Stephens, "News doesn't happen in scientific laboratories.
It happens in people's minds. One person's drama is another person's
dud."
Personal drama dictated the vote of Rachael Morrow, 24, of Springfield,
Mo. "My parents were married the same month Americans walked on
the moon," she says. "It's something they always talked about. For
me, it redefined the possible. It defines the human spirit."
The author: Eric Newton, the Newseum's news historian,
says Hiroshima was the 20th century's top story and predicts global
warming will be the top story of the next century. His latest book,
Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists, will be published by
Times Books in January.
Go to the top
Go to the top
The public's
top 100 stories (overall)
| Rank News event |
|
1 U.S.
drops atomic bomb (1945)
2 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor (1941)
3 Men first walk on the moon (1969)
4 Wrights fly first airplane (1903)
5 JFK assassinated (1963)
6 Antibiotic penicillin discovered (1928)
7 U.S. women win right to vote (1920)
8 U.S. stock market crashes (1929)
9 New polio vaccine works (1953)
10 DNA's structure discovered (1953)
11 Nazi Holocaust exposed (1945)
12 Einstein conceives relativity (1905)
13 "Unsinkable" Titanic sinks (1912)
14 Ford creates assembly line (1913)
15 World War I begins (1914)
16 Berlin Wall falls (1989)
17 Computer chip patented (1959)
18 Deadly AIDS identified (1981)
19 Lindbergh flies Atlantic solo (1927)
20 Radio signal spans Atlantic (1901)
21 Soviet Union dissolves (1991)
22 World Wide Web invented (1989)
23 Allies invade France on D-Day (1944)
24 U.S. celebrates V-E Day (1945)
25 ENIAC: world's first computer (1946)
26 Roe vs. Wade legalizes abortion (1973)
27 Official U.S. debut of TV (1939)
28 Plastic revolutionizes products (1909)
29 Birth-control pill OK'd by FDA (1960)
30 Court ends "separate but equal" (1954)
31 President Clinton impeached (1998)
32 Scientists invent transistor (1948)
33 Martin Luther King Jr. slain (1968)
34 Congress OKs Civil Rights Act (1964)
35 U.S. enters World War I (1917)
36 Communists take over Russia (1917)
37 U.S. radio broadcasts begin (1909)
38 King delivers "Dream" speech (1963)
39 President Nixon resigns (1974)
40 Panama Canal opens (1914)
41 Germany invades Poland (1939)
42 FDR's New Deal begins (1933)
43 Shuttle Challenger explodes (1986)
44 Shepard first American in space (1961)
45 Silent Spring warns eco-danger (1962)
46 World's nations form U.N. (1945)
47 Scientists clone sheep (1997)
48 Soviets launch first satellite (1957)
49 World War I ends (1918)
50 Gagarin first man in space (1961) |
51 Israel
achieves statehood (1948)
52 U.S.-licensed TV begins (1941)
53 U.S. tests atomic bomb (1945)
54 Robert F. Kennedy slain (1968)
55 Hitler named chancellor (1933)
56 Flu epidemic kills 20 million (1918)
57 Glenn first American in orbit (1962)
58 Gates, Allen start Microsoft (1975)
59 Robinson integrates baseball (1947)
60 U.S. troops leave Vietnam (1973)
61 Quantum theory proposed (1900)
62 Secret project to make A-bomb (1942)
63 Interstate highways approved (1956)
64 GI Bill of Rights approved (1945)
65 U.S. escalates Vietnam War (1965)
66 Gandhi starts non-violent reform (1920)
67 First "test-tube baby" born (1978)
68 World crisis over Cuba missiles (1962)
69 Quake, fire devastate San Francisco (1906)
70 Apartheid ends in South Africa (1993)
71 Apple II first mass-market PC (1977)
72 Beatles tour USA (1964)
73 Alabama bus boycott begins (1955)
74 Scopes trial: creation vs. evolution (1925)
75 First jet plane takes off (1939)
76 Hitler launches Kristallnacht (1938)
77 FDR defeats President Hoover (1932)
78 Marshall Plan unveiled (1947)
79 Pathfinder sends Mars photos (1997)
80 Friedan sparks women's rights (1963)
81 Babe Ruth hits 60 homers (1927)
82 U.S. warns of smoking hazards (1964)
83 Churchill leads Great Britain (1940)
84 NATO established (1949)
85 Chernobyl nuke plant explodes (1986)
86 Berlin Wall goes up (1961)
87 Mao starts communist China (1949)
88 Watergate engulfs Nixon (1973)
89 Gorbachev begins "glasnost" (1985)
90 Freud interprets dreams (1900)
91 Airlift saves Berlin (1948)
92 U.S. defends South Korea (1950)
93 Soviet famine to kill 25 million (1928)
94 U.S. rejects League of Nations (1920)
95 Standard Oil trust busted (1911)
96 Congress passes voting act (1965)
97 China famine to kill 20 million (1958)
98 Riots at Democratic convention (1968)
99 North Vietnam takes Saigon (1975)
100 Gulf of Tonkin resolution OK'd (1964) |
Go to the top
What will
be the top stories of the 21st century?
Technology will transform our lives
"Life spans will extend 100 to 150 years, and childbirth at 50 and
even 60 will be common. Many will have three or four careers as
well as at least one chapter as full-time parent and another as
philanthropist."
-- Candice Carpenter, co-founder and CEO, iVillage.com
The United States will have a new face
"Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, African Americans and European
immigrants (e.g., Armenians) will alter the classic 'American character'
and give the USA a new type of American."
-- Fernando M. Torres-Gil, associate dean and professor,
UCLA School of Public Policy
Medicine will create moral dilemmas
"The big stories of the 21st century will have nothing to do with
politics and everything to do with the changes in health and technology
and the moral decision humans will be confronted with having to
do with life and death."
-- Cokie Roberts, ABC News correspondent and USA WEEKEND
contributing editor
The divorce rate will drop
"By adjusting our expectations of the opposite sex, men and women
will achieve greater intimacy and happiness, thus strengthening
the family unit."
-- John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From
Venus
First black president will be elected
"In the past 100 years, African Americans have made tremendous strides
to become full partners in society. It's just a question of the
right person running for office."
-- Robert Johnson, founder and president, Black Entertainment
Television
Programs for old will threaten economy
"As more than 70 million baby boomers become eligible for Social
Security and Medicare, these programs will run operating deficits
in the trillions of dollars, imperiling the entire economy."
-- Richard Thau, president, Generation X think tank Third
Millennium
-- Evelyn Poitevent
Go to the top
|
