NOT EVEN PAST

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. This seminal piece of legislation represented the culmination of a decades-long struggle to guarantee disabled Americans the same access to jobs, housing, education, and public services. 

In the website “The Emancipation Proclamation for the Disabled,” Noel Grisham Middle School students Khira Patel, Hamsini Nathan, Niti Malwade, Devika Patel and Srija Reddy argue that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was a “turning point in history, which ensured disabled citizens equal access to every aspect of society” and became a “catalyst for disability rights worldwide.” The site explores the fascinating history behind the ADA, including conditions for disabled Americans prior to 1990, the movement that emerged fighting for reform and the impact of the law. Ultimately, the group concludes that the Americans with Disabilities Act represented a positive historical development, creating a “legal foundation for continuous improvement to the lives of people with disabilities.”

Barbed wire is a commonplace sight across much of America, but it has an extraordinary history. In “The Devil’s Rope,” first place winner in the Texas History Day Senior Individual Website category, Andrew White argues that this seemingly simple technology has exerted a huge impact on the American West and battlefields across the world.

What are the origins of the Internet? And what kind of changes in society has it wrought? Check out Cypress Lakes High School student Maryam Ali’s site, “The Internet: A Powerful Changing Force of the World,” which was a winner at the 2013 Texas History Day Contest, and find out.

When Pong came out I was going to college in a small town in Iowa. My friends and I would drive 30 minutes down I-80 to play Pong at a truck stop. For HOURS. [Click on the link to get the whole story.]

mentalflossr:

On November 29, 1972, a startup called Atari announced the release of Pong, a coin operated “video game.” The company’s name was taken from the ancient Japanese board game Go, and vaguely translates as “to hit the mark.” In celebration, here are some things you might not know about Atari.

1. In today’s dollars, you could found Atari for the price of a MacBook Pro.