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The Society Portal

A society is a group of people who form a distinct community, an evolving system, sharing cultures and institutions. Thus, the meaning of society is closely related to what is considered to be social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members may share some mutual concern or interest, a common objective or common characteristics.

The social sciences generally use the term society to mean a group of people who form a semi-closed social system which is still ever-changing. Most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group along with new individuals entering as well as leaving the group at any time. More abstractly, a society is defined as a network of relationships between social entities. A society is also sometimes defined as an interdependent community, but the sociologist Tönnies saw a contradiction between “society” and “community.” An important feature of society is social structure, aspects of which include roles and social ranking.

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The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted homosexuals, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries. Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

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Credit: Stevage
The Scenic Railway at Luna Park amusement park (Melbourne, Australia), the world's oldest continually operating rollercoaster, built in 1912.

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“	When society requires to be rebuilt, there is no use in attempting to rebuild it on the old plan.	”
—John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions (1859)

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Selected Featured articles about Society:

Gender role · Greco-Buddhism · David Helvarg · Kashrut · Sociocultural evolution · Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

· Weber, Max

Did you know...

... that Czesław Wycech (pictured[), Polish peasant movement activist, was also involved with underground education in occupied Poland during WWII?
... that election monitors described the behaviour of the people of Suriname during the 2005 Surinamese legislative election as a good example to the Caribbean?
... that slaves comprised roughly one percent of the population of China during the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE)?
... that in 1999, Somalian Mahmood Hussein Mattan was the first person to have his case overturned by the UK's Criminal Cases Review Commission, 45 years after his execution?
... that many voters in the 2005 Mongolian presidential election voted in traditional Mongolian dress?

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January 28, 2008 – State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush

George W. Bush's address, given on the first floor of the House of Representatives at the Capitol.