But also a bridge of death, the place where too many have ascended and then thrown their lives into the deep. It is a symbol of our times, of our century. His voice was soft and steady, amplified perfectly by an invisible sound system. Ours is the century that created the automobile and the airplane and the television and the computer. We created penicillin and cures for thousands of diseases.
People have hope of living longer and happier lives.
So maybe we should call our time the Age of Hope and Creativity. He paused, not to think of something to say, but as if preparing to lift some great weight. We have become the masters of disasters. In 1915 the Ottoman Turks killed a million Armenians. By 1933, Josef Stalin had caused the death of more than 11 million of his countrymen, through systems of starvation and torture.