Don Delillo By Erika Sanchez (Literary)

In the 1980’s there were many famous and talented authors. A well known and talented was Don Delillo. He was a novelist and author. Delillo was born November 20, 1936 in New York City. He was very intelligent and talented. Delillo graduated from Fordham University in 1958 and was an advertising copywriter during the early 1960’s. Since he was born he was meant to be a writer and he loved doing it. Some of the themes he would use were the excesses of consumerism. Mass culture and politics in American society.
One of his famous novel happened to be published in 1985. In 1985 “White Noise” was very famous. This novel was about death and technology. “White Noise” made Delillo wins his first widespread recognition. This well known novel tells about Jack Gladney a college professor who must deal with a toxic chemical cloud that threatens himself and his family. “White Noise” was a very interesting novel that made Delillo an outstanding writer.
This man was very goal achievement person. He had many novels as is known but some of his other novels were “Players” in 1977, “Running Dog” in 1978. “The Names” in 1982 and “Mao 2” in 1991 also “The Body Artist” in 2001 and “Cosmopolis” in 2003. As we all know and notice he has a lot of novels. But Delillo did not just have novels he also had short stories and plays such as “The Day Room” in 1987 and “Valparaiso” in 1999. Don Delillo is a great author and novelist that are very well awarded.

Mt. St. Helen by Erika Sanchez (Event)

In the 1980's there were many scientific discoveries but one of the main ones was defitenetly the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. This eruption was the worse volcanic disaster in the United Sates history. The date it eripted was May 18, 1980 at 8:32 AM. Mt. St. Helens is approximately 40,000 years old, a very active volcano. This volcano was fisr discovered by Eroupean when British commander George Vancouver spotted Mt. St. Helen from the mountain after his fellow contry man, Alleyne Fitzherbert, the Baron St. Helen.

Mt. St. Helen has had many eruptions geologic evidence say that Mt. St. Helens erupted around 1,600 and 1,700. 1,800 and during the 26-year span of 1931 to 1957 after 1857 the volcano grew quiet. On March 20, 1980 a 4.1 magnitude earthquake struck underneath Mt. St. Helens. This was an alert to scientist that the volcano had reawakened and was active. In March 27 small explosions occur clowing a 250-foot hole in the mountain and released a plume of ash. These kind of explosions continued to happen for the next month. In April a large bulge started to grow quickly pushing five feet a day. The buldge reached a mile in length by the end of April. The day had came and on May 18, 1980, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck under Mt. St. Helens. In less than 10 seconds the bulge and a surroundings are fell away in a gigantic rock avalanche. This creeated a gap in the mountain. This gap allowed was very bag that the noise was even heard in Montana and California. But those who were close to Mt. St. Helens didnt hear anything. This avalanche grew quickly in sizwe as it went down the mountain doing 70 to 150 miles per hour. This big blast killed everything in a 100 square mile area. In less than 10 minutes the plume of ash had reached 10 miles high. This eruption was nine hours long. Scientists and other who were caught in the area had no way out. 57 people were killed. They think about 7,000 large animals. This eruption felled entire forests. Mt. St. Helens is now only 8,363 feet tall and 1,314 feet shorter than it was before the explosion. This will not be last sruption from this very volcano.

Sally Ride by Erika Sanchez (Figure)

One important historical figure of the 1980’s was Sally Kristen Ride. Sally Ride was born on May 26, 1951 in Endocino, California. Ride was really good at playing tennis. She started playing when she was ten. Ride even won a tennis scholarship to West lake school for girls in Los Angeles. When Sally graduated in 1968 she attended Swarthmore College. After a couple of months Sally decided that tennis was not her thing and she was not good enough to become pro. So she put tennis in her past and enrolled herself at Stanford University.

When Sally was 27 already with BA and BS and masters degrees she was a PhD looking for postdoctoral work in astrophysics. She happens to read about NASA’s call for astronauts in the Stanford University paper. Thirty-five happen to be accepted, six of whom were women and Sally Ride was one of them. Ride joined NASA in 1977 and underwent extensive training. She really enjoyed flight training.

In 1983, Dr. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on the shuttle challenger (STS-7) her next flight was an eight-day mission. In 1984 on challenger (STS 41-g) Sally Ride had more than 343 hours of space flight. She was preparing for her third mission when challenger exploded in 1986. The training was suspended so she was appointed to the presidential commission to investigate the incident. Sally moved to NASA headquarters in Washington DC there she was assistant to the NASA.

In 1987 Sally Ride retired from NASA and became a science fellow at the center for international security and arms control at Stanford University. When two years passed Sally was named director of the California space institute and was a teacher of physics at the University of California. Ride encourages a lot of women to study science and math. After all her achievements she has made she has received numerous awards and has written or collaborated on five children’s books. For all this Sally Ride is a very important figure of the 1980’s.