1. Weâre poorer than our parents were at our age. Few people have been through as many economic ups and downs as the members of Generation X. Born between 1965 and 1980, any entered the workforce during the boom years of the Clinton administrationâbut then along came 9/11 and, a few years later, the Great Recession.
The shooter, Charles Whitman, was a student at the University of Texas. A former Marine who grew up with an abusive father, he admitted to killing his mother and his wife in a suicide note. The next day, Whitman began shooting people from the top of the Texas Tower with a sniper rifle.
- Emerson - watched the Concord volunteers march off to war. He maintained the view war must be pursued. - Thoreau - died 1862, a fervent abolitionist. - Whitman - Did witness the war firsthand; hospital volunteer, but found optimism in the horror: Man could find strength in the darkness.