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stole copies of top-secret documents and bugged the office’s phones.

As the prowlers were preparing to break into the office with a new microphone, a security guard noticed that they had taped the building’s lock

August, Nixon gave a speech in which he swore that his White House staff was not involved in the break-in. Most voters believed him, and in November the president was reelected in a landslide.

provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush money” to the burglars.

abuse of presidential power and a deliberate obstruction of justice

Early in 1974, the cover-up began to fall apart. On March 1, a grand jury appointed by a new special prosecutor indicted seven of Nixon’s former aides on various charges related to the Watergate affair. The jury, unsure if they could indict a sitting president, called Nixon an “unindicted co-conspirator.” 

s voted to impeach him for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, criminal cover-up and several violations of the Constitution. Finally, on August 5, Nixon released the tapes, which provided undeniable evidence of his complicity in the Watergate crime

Some of Nixon’s aides were not so lucky: They w

he pardoned Nixon for any crimes he had committed while in office. Some of Nixon’s aides were not so lucky: They w

Some of Nixon’s aides were not so lucky: They

Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced

that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or "superbomb." Stalin followed suit.

the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed poisonous radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on American domestic life as well. People built bomb shelters in their backyards

attack drills in schools and other public places

Cold War was a constant presence in Americans’ everyday lives.

first man-made object to be placed into the Earth's orbit.

Sputnik

1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army

Space Race was underwa

creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.

U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set food on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans.

hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.

forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these "blacklisted" writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade

include anyone who worked in the federal government. Thousands of federal employees were investigated, fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues and "loyalty oaths" became commonplace.

military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south

but the war dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.

. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in the unstable, postcolonial "Third World" Nowhere was this more apparent than in Vietnam, where the collapse of the French colonial regime had led to a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, the United States had been committed to the survival of an anticommunist government in the re

new approach to international relations.

Cold War heated up again under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom everywher

nstead of viewing the world as a hostile, "bi-polar" place, he suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing. At the same time, he adopted a policy of "détente"–"relaxation"–toward the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.

, he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the worl

redefined Russia's relationship to the rest of the world: "glasnost," or political openness, and "perestroika," or economic reform

the Berlin Wall–the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War–was finally destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.

fueled by the arms race and the growing threat of nuclear weapons, wide-ranging espionage and counter-espionage between the two countries, war in Korea and a clash of words and ideas carried out in the media.

In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon

In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth, traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1. For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees, and held a final test flight in March 1961 before the Soviets were able to pull ahead with Gagarin's launch. On May 5, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space (though not in orbit).

Later that May, President John F. Kennedy made the bold, public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. In February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, and by the end of that year, the foundations of NASA's lunar landing program--dubbed Project Apollo--were in place.

500 percent

budget was increased

After landing successfully on July 20, Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon's surface; he famously called the moment "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

By landing on the moon, the United States effectively "won" the space race that had begun with Sputnik's launch in

ublic's attention was captivated by the space race, and the various developments by the Soviet and U.S. space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes, a

Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.

Soyuz vehicle. When the commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their "handshake in space" served to symbolize the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War-era.

The Greek word demos could mean either

Was it all the people

Or only some of the people

There's a theory that the word demokratia was coined by democracy's enemies, members of the rich and aristocratic elite who did not like being outvoted by the common herd, their social and economic inferiors.

By the time of Aristotle (fourth century BC) there were hundreds of Greek democracies. Greece in those times was not a single political entity but rather a collection of some 1,500 separate poleis or 'cities' scattered round the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores 'like frogs around a pond', as Plato once charmingly put it.

cities that were not democracies

power was in the hands of the few richest citizens

monarchies, called 'tyrannies' in cases where the sole ruler had usurped power by force rather than inheritanc

most stable,

most long-lived,

most radical, was Athens.

origin of the Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries can be traced back to Solon,

flourished

600 BC.

was a poet and a wise statesman

but not - contrary to later myth - a democrat.

Solon's constitutional reform package that laid the basis on which democracy could be pioneered

Cleisthenes was the son of an Athenian, but the grandson and namesake of a foreign Greek tyrant

also the brother-in-law of the Athenian tyrant, Peisistratus,

eized power three times

before finally establishing a stable and apparently benevolent dictatorship.

nder this political system that Athens successfully resisted the Persian onslaughts of 490 and 480/79

victory in turn encouraged the poorest Athenians to demand a greater say in the running of their city

Ephialtes and Pericles presided over a radicalisation of power that shifted the balance decisively to the poorest sections of society

he democratic Athens that won and lost an empire,

built the Parthenon,

eschylus, Sophocles,

Euripides and Aristophanes

laid the foundations of western rational and critical thought

was not, of course, without internal critics

when Athens had been weakened by the catastrophic Peloponnesian War (431-404) these critics got their chance

n 411 and again in 404 Athenian oligarchs led counter-revolutions that replaced democracy with extreme oligarchy

oligarchs were supported by Athens's old enemy, Sparta

mpossible to maintain themselves in power

democracy was restored

'blips' such as the trial of Socrates - the restored Athenian democracy flourished stably and effectively for another 80 years

There were no proper population censuses in ancient Athens,

total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those

250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens -

adult males of Athenian birth and full status

second key difference is the level of participation.

representative

we choose politicians to rule for us

Athenian

democracy

was direct

and in-your-face.

most officials and all jurymen were selected by lot.

This was thought to be the democratic way, since election favoured the rich, famous and powerful over the ordinary citizen.

mid fifth century, office holders, jurymen, members of the city's main administrative Council of 500, and even Assembly attenders were paid a small sum from public funds to compensate them for time spent on political service away from field or workshop.

eligibility

adult male citizens need apply for the privileges and duties of democratic government, and a birth criterion of double descent - from an Athenian mother as well as father -

Athenian democracy did not happen only in the Assembly and Council. The courts were also essentially political spaces, located symbolically right at the centre of the city.

defined the democratic citizen as the man 'who has a share in (legal) judgment and office'.

Athenian drama,

was a fundamentally political activity as well,

One distinctively Athenian democratic practice that aroused the special ire of the system's critics was the practice of ostracism -

potsherd

rom the Greek word for

decide which leading politician should be exiled for ten years

on a piece of broken pottery.

voters scratched or painted the name of their preferred candidate

6,000 citizens had to 'vote' for an ostracism to be valid,

biggest

political

risked being fried

For almost 100 years ostracism fulfilled its function of aborting serious civil unrest or even civil war

Power to the people, all the people, especially the poor majority, remained the guiding principle of Athenian democracy.