The National Security Act of 1947 was a law enacting major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense; the Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense. It created the Department of the Air Force and the United States Air Force, which separated the Army Air Forces into its own service, it protected the Marine Corps as an independent service, under the Department of the Navy. Aside from the military reorganization, the act established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, the U. S.'s first peacetime non-military intelligence agency. The National Security Act of 1947 was a major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II.

The act and its changes, along with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, were major components of the Truman administration's Cold War strategy. The bill signing took place aboard Truman's VC-54C presidential aircraft Sacred Cow, the first aircraft used for the role of Air Force One; the majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. His power was limited and it was difficult for him to exercise the authority to make his office effective; this was changed in the amendment to the act in 1949, creating what was to be the Department of Defense. The Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense, it created the Department of the Air Force, which separated the Army Air Forces into its own service. It protected the Marine Corps as an independent service, under the Department of the Navy; each of the three service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on August 10, 1949, to ensure their subordination to the Secretary of Defense.

At the same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of Defense. The purpose was to unify the Army and Air Force into a federated structure; the Joint Chiefs of Staff was established under Title II, Section 211 of the original National Security Act of 1947 before Sections 209–214 of Title II were repealed by the law enacting Title 10 and Title 32, United States Code to replace them. Aside from the military reorganization, the act established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination for national security policy in the executive branch, the Central Intelligence Agency, the U. S.'s first peacetime intelligence agency. The council's function was to advise the president on domestic and military policies, to ensure cooperation between the various military and intelligence agencies. Goldwater–Nichols Act McFarland, Keith D. "The 1949 Revolt of the Admirals." Parameters 11.2: 53+. Stevenson, Charles A. "The Story Behind the National Security Act of 1947." Military Review 88.3: 13+.

Online Stevenson, Charles A. "Underlying assumptions of the National Security Act of 1947." Joint Force Quarterly 48.1: 129-133. Trager, Frank N. "The National Security Act of 1947: Its Thirtieth Anniversary." Air University Review, November–December. Text at the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Information at the Department of State Bibliography of sources relating to the Act, including many links to online, public-domain sources "National Security Act of 1947". Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, compiled 1789 - 2008. U. S. National Archives and Records Administration. July 26, 1947

Fiame Mata'afa Faumuina Mulinu'u II, CBE was a paramount chief and the second Prime Minister of Samoa. He was Prime Minister from 1 October 1959 until February 1970 and again from March 1973 until his death in 1975, he was bestowed the paramount matai chief title of Mata'afa in 1948, following the death of his father, Mata'afa Faumuina Fiame Mulinu'u I, a leader of Samoa's pro-independent Mau movement. In 1957, he entered national politics in the general election from the electoral constituency of Lotofaga in the Atua district at the east end of Upolu island. Mulinu'u II held a number of important chief titles in Samoa, his highest title was Mata'afa which made him one of the four most important Paramount Chiefs in the country. The title Mata'afa is part of the Tama-a-Aiga a quartet of chief titles, which were of national Paramount rank at the time; the other three Tama-a-Aiga Paramount Chief titles are Malietoa and Tuimaleali'ifano. His other names Fiame and Faumuina are individual chief titles.

As one individual can hold a number of different chief titles in Samoa, the exact order of an individual's'names' can sometimes change. For example, he is referred to as Mata'afa Faumuina Fiame Mulinu'u II in Democracy and custom in Sāmoa: an uneasy alliance by Asofou Soʻo. Individual chief titles are designated by consensus of extended families and kinship ties under Samoa's traditional'matai' system, in relation to a particular village or political district. A'matai' title is collectively'owned' by families through kinship; the bestowal of a chief title upon an individual is done by traditional ceremony and ritual, marking the support and approval of an entire extended family and kin group for that person to take on the responsibilities of a leader of their family. Only'matai,' those with chief titles can become a member of parliament in Samoan politics; this still exists today. The high ranking chief titles of Fiame Mata'afa Faumuina Mulinu'u II played an important part in his entrance into parliament on the cusp of Samoa's political independence where a European political system would exist alongside Samoa's traditional socio-political structures.

Apart from the paramount chief title Mata'afa, he was a descendant from another high ranking Tama-a-Aiga title, adding weight to his selection as the country's first prime minister. Mata'afa Iosefo, a previous holder of the paramount chiefly title had played a key role in the rivalry for the kingship of Samoa during the country's colonial era; the word'chief' in the Samoan language is'matai' and chief names come first in Samoan naming conventions. Matai titles in Samoa can be bestowed upon men; the wives of the Tama-a-Aiga are referred to with the cultural honorific Masiofo. Fiame Mata'afa Faumuina Mulinu'u II was the son of Paramount Chief Mata'afa Faumuina Fiame Mulinu'u I who had great influence with the colonial administration and a president of the Mau movement. Fiame Mata'afa Faumuina Mulinu'u II was educated at the Marist Brothers school in Apia, he married Laulu Fetauimalemau Mata'afa, a teacher educated in New Zealand and who became Samoa's High Commissioner to New Zealand. After their marriage, Laulu was referred to as Masiofo.

On his death in 1975, his wife ran for his vacant seat in the Lotofaga Electoral Constituency. She won and entered parliament, under the chief title of Laulu bestowed from Lotofaga, becoming only the second woman in Samoa to become a member of parliament, his daughter Fiame Naomi Mata'afa now holds the high chief of title'Fiame and has been a member of parliament for many years, holding senior positions on Cabinet. Fiame Mata'afa Mulinu'u II was one of the framers of the Constitution of Samoa and held a pivotal leadership role in Samoa's transition from colonial rule to political independence in 1962, in his dual roles as Prime Minister as well as a high ranked paramount chief, he was part of the political family'Aiga Sa Levalasi.'He entered parliament in the 1957 general election under his title Fiame from the electoral constituency of Lotofaga. Afterwards, in the same year, he became Minister of Agriculture in the new Legislative Assembly of Samoa. In October 1959, he was elected by the Legislative Assembly as the first Prime Minister of Samoa.

He was elected again at the general election in 1961. At the time, "a substantial majority of members of the working committee on self-government, favoured'a full-blooded' Samoan to be the country's first prime minister."In 1960, he travelled to New York where he addressed the 4th Committee of the General Assembly. In the same year, he went to Buckingham Palace in the United Kingdom for his investiture as Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. At the formal independence ceremony on 1 January 1962 when Samoa gained political independence, Fiame Mata'afa Mulinu'u II lowered the New Zealand flag. At the 1964 and 1967 general elections, he was returned as Prime Minister, unopposed. In 1963, the Prime Minister issued a protest to France over nuclear tests in Tahiti. Mata'afa Prime Ministers of Samoa Fa'amatai, chiefly system of Samoa. Lagaga: a short history of Western Samoa by Malama Meleisea & Penelope Schoeffel Meleisea O tama a ʻāiga: the politics of succession to Sāmoa's paramount titles by Morgan A. Tuimalealiʻifano

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the popular science bestsellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, his writings examine free will, consciousness and happiness. Harari writes about the "cognitive revolution" occurring 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens supplanted the rival Neanderthals, developed language skills and structured societies, ascended as apex predators, aided by the agricultural revolution and accelerated by the scientific method, which have allowed humans to approach near mastery over their environment, his books examine the possible consequences of a futuristic biotechnological world in which intelligent biological organisms are surpassed by their own creations. Yuval Noah Harari was born in Kiryat Ata, Israel, in 1976 and grew up in a secular Jewish family with Lebanese and Eastern European roots in Haifa, Israel.

Harari is gay and in 2002 met his husband Itzik Yahav, whom he calls "my internet of all things". Yahav is Harari's personal manager, they married in a civil ceremony in Toronto in Canada. The couple lives in Mesilat Zion, near Jerusalem. Harari says Vipassana meditation, which he began whilst in Oxford in 2000, has "transformed my life", he practises for two hours every day, every year undertakes a meditation retreat of 30 days or longer, in silence and with no books or social media, is an assistant meditation teacher. He dedicated Homo Deus to "my teacher, S. N. Goenka, who lovingly taught me important things", said "I could not have written this book without the focus and insight gained from practising Vipassana for fifteen years." He regards meditation as a way to research. Harari is a vegan, says this resulted from his research, including his view that the foundation of the dairy industry is breaking the bond between mother cow and calf; as of January 2019, Harari does not have a smartphone.

Harari first specialized in medieval history and military history in his studies from 1993 to 1998 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his PhD degree at Jesus College, Oxford, in 2002, under the supervision of Steven J. Gunn. From 2003 to 2005 he pursued postdoctoral studies in history as a Yad Hanadiv Fellow. Harari has published numerous books and articles, including Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100–1550, he now specializes in macro-historical processes. His book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind was published in Hebrew in 2011 based on the 20 lectures of an undergraduate world history class he was teaching, it was released in English in 2014 and has since been translated into some 45 additional languages. The book surveys the entire length of human history, from the evolution of Homo sapiens in the Stone Age up to the political and technological revolutions of the 21st century; the Hebrew edition became a bestseller in Israel, generated much interest among the general public, turning Harari into a celebrity.

His book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow was published in 2016, examining possibilities of the future of Homo sapiens. The book's premise outlines that, in the future, humanity is to make a significant attempt to gain happiness and God-like powers; the book goes on to speculate various ways this ambition might be realised for Homo sapiens in the future based on the past and present. Among several possibilities for the future, Harari develops the term dataism for a philosophy or mindset that worships big data, his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century was published on 30 August 2018. It focused more on present-day concerns. In Chapter Two he addresses the increasing number of people made unemployable by advances in automation and AI, he examines a universal basic income for every citizen regardless of their employment status as a measure to counter economic unemployment. Harari gives a free online course in English titled A Brief History of Humankind. Harari is interested in how Homo sapiens reached their current condition, in their future.

His research focuses on macro-historical questions such as: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded? Harari regards dissatisfaction as the "deep root" of human reality, as related to evolution. In a 2017 article, Harari argued that through continuing technological progress and advances in the field of artificial intelligence, "by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable." He put forward the case that dealing with this new social class economically and politically will be a central challenge for humanity in the coming decades. Harari has commented on the plight of animals domesticated animals since the agricultural revolution, is a vegan. In a 2015 Guardian article under the title "Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history" he called "he fate of industrially farmed animals one of the most pressing ethical questions of our tim