1. ) A young boy, Marty Preston, was walking down in the hills near his house.  While walking down a dirt road near the Shiloh school house, he sees a young beagle dog.
         The Persian Gulf War had already been fought and ended by this time.  The main countries who were fighting the war against Iraq were Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

2. ) As Marty had walked home, the dog had followed him.  Every time he tried to get the dog to come to him, he wouldn’t move.  At one point while he was walking, he whistled, without knowing the effect it would have on the dog.  The dog suddenly bolted towards, looking quite happy with itself.
         Many people believe that the Cold War, -the war against communism-had finally ended. 1991 was when communism ended in the Soviet Union, one of the most communism driven countries in the whole world at the time.

3. ) When Marty had gotten home, he found that the dog had followed him the whole way.  His parents said he couldn’t have a dog, and to leave it outside just in case it would go back to its home.  But the dog didn’t go.  By the next day Marty’s dad had thought of someone who the dog might belong to.  He figured it belonged to Judd Travers, one of the meanest people who lived in the area.  And he turned out to be right.
         In 1992 Bill Clinton was elected as the new president.  The tight presidential race started up early in 1991.  It was a shock he won, because he was going against former president George Bush senior, who did not get the reelected.
 

4. ) Marty’s dad told him he had to give the dog back to Judd Travers, since it was rightfully his.  But Marty did not like the idea of this at all.  It had been known that Judd Travers beat his dogs, and this one looked as if it had gotten its fair share of abuses.  But as try as he might, Marty was unable to convince his dad to not make him take the dog back to Judd.
         When Russia had become an independent country, they elected Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin as their new leader.  He was the leader from 1991-1999, when he resigned for various reasons.

5. ) After Marty had given the dog back to Judd, -who seemed quite happy to have his dog back so that he could punish it for running off- he decided he wanted to somehow earn the money to be able to buy Shiloh from Judd.  The only way he could think to earn this money would be to collect some aluminum cans.  Which he knew wouldn’t get him far, with getting only 5 cents a can.  But he would do anything for Shiloh.
         In 1991 Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics made a career high 939 stolen bases.  It also broke the previous stolen base record of 938 stolen bases made by Lou Brock in 1979.

6. ) A few days later as Marty goes outside to play, he looks underneath the big tree in his yard.  He is shocked at what he says.  Under the tree is Shiloh, laying low to the ground with his head on his front paws.
         Italy, another European country troubled by communism, decided to turn to a democratic for of governmentry.  It had to change its form of government due to while in communism it had many problems with terms of policy and leadership.

7. ) As soon as Marty sees Shiloh, he knows he has to do something with him.  The main word in his mind was hide.  Hide him so no one will find him, so no one will ever make him take him back to mean old Judd Travers.  So he takes matters into his own hands, along with Shiloh.  He takes Shiloh up onto the hill in his backyard, and once there he knows exactly what to do.
         Slovania which is a small, mountainous country in Europe, declared its independence in 1991.  It had originally been part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and the Slovenes starting in 1918.  This area had been renamed Yugoslavia.  Yugoslavia eventually formed six republics, one of which was Slovania.

8. ) When Marty takes Shiloh up to the hill, he found 4 trees that formed a fairly small, yet somewhat spacious square.  He decided to go up to his shed and see if he had the materials needed to build a pen for the small dog.  While looking in his shed, he had found some spare chicken wire, and some nails to pin the chicken wire to the trees.  After he had added some pieces from a burlap sack to the bottom of the pen, he decided Shiloh was all right.  The only problem he could think of was how he was going to feed Shiloh, and where he was going to get the food.
         India had always been a country firmly run by the Indian governments.  The government owned all major industries, and had very high taxes on many imported goods from all other countries.  But in 1991 India tried moving closer to a free enterprise government system.

9. ) For the first few days he had Shiloh in captivity, Marty never would finish his meals.  he would always save them for “later” as he told his mother, and then go out to hunt on the hill.  But before he left to go “hunting” he would always grab the extra food and give it to Shiloh.  But  he found that doing wasn’t good-for him or Shiloh-.  He needed another way to get food, and then he remembered all the money from collecting cans.  It wasn’t a lot at all, only about 53 cents, but he figured he could get some old meat or cheese from the market up in town.
         A lot of cities in California are plagued by brush fires.  In 1991 in Oakland and other surrounding cities there was a major fire.  A total of 25 people were killed for a number of reasons, and major property damaged was caused by the fire.

10. ) Marty was right about buying the cheap food at the market, however he didn’t realize that people may think that he was buying the food for his family, not the dog.  In the next couple of days many people left extra food in their mailboxes for his dad, a mail carier.  But Marty didn’t care what others thought.  Soon though his father found Shiloh, after wondering why Marty was always in the hill, and never doing anything with his friends.  He knew he had to take Shiloh back, but Marty was very adamant about not giving Shiloh back.
         In 1991 a south African writer named Nadine Gordimer won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature.  All of her story’s reflect the restrictive social policies inflicted upon individuals and their relationships with each other.