WikiLeaks last week announced quite a data dump: 500,000 diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department from 1978. Dubbed the â??Carter Cables II,â? the new documents track U.S. â??interactions with, and observations of, every countryâ? from that year, and are part of Wikileaksâ??s online Public Library of US Diplomacy, according to the siteâ??s founder Julian Assange.
Why 1978, of all years? The whistleblower site has deemed it as a critical year in geopolitics, citing the beginning of the Iranian Revolution, President Jimmy Carterâ??s dealings regarding the neutron bomb and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.
This isnâ??t the first time that a particular year has been deemed as one that defines â??the present world order.â? Whether itâ??s 1066 or 1966, critics, journalists and academics alike have long argued over the merits of certain years as being the most definitively important in history, citing specific political, social and cultural shifts that continue to reverberate and inform our culture today.
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