Hot answers tagged united-states
34
Because Russia had been at war with Britain for most of the preceding two decades.
One of Russia's problems in owning Alaska was defending it against it being used as a British route to invade Russia (militarily insane - but that's politics) - remember Canada was British at the time.
By selling it to America they installed one of Britain's adversaries in ...
33
The sale of Louisiana was a FIRE SALE for France, and specifically, its self-appointed ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, for these reasons:
1) France had gotten "burned" with her earlier misadventures in North America. The French and Indian war cost her Canada and all of her other possessions on the east bank of the Mississippi. (She had managed to save ...
30
Good? No. Lots of them? Yes.
The Americans were leaders in mass-producing large durable goods at low cost - cars, especially. This translated to mass-producing medium cruiser tanks (the M4 Sherman) almost as quick as they could roll a Buick off the assembly line. What's more, these were brand new machines, they had not spent months and months slogging ...
27
John Hancock was the President of Congress. So, as stated, he signed first and largest. In the leftmost block are the signers from Georgia. In the block immediately to the right of that one are the signers from North Carolina. The block below contains the signers from South Carolina. This pattern continues throughout with a few exceptions. Here is a ...
26
Before we get to the numbers it is important to state that the US Navy is really far and away the most capable blue-water navy in the world. The US Navy can project power over the entire planet. I'm not sure why you assert to the contrary in your question.
Let's start with the US Navy force size from 1917-1923:
TOTAL ACTIVE SHIPS: 342, 774, 752, 567, ...
25
After President Lincoln's election on the 6th of November 1860, the eleven Confederate states did not secede immediately. South Carolina, and then the remaining six states of the lower south (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas) seceded from the Union between the 20th of November and 1st of February 1861, leaving Arkansas, Tennessee, ...
22
The sale of war bonds "sterilized" the otherwise humongous U.S. debt. That is, while debt was historically large (by any standards except today's), we "owed it to ourselves." Which is to say that the money was available to be "recycled" into the U.S. economy after the war.
But the main benefit was AFTER the war. The country saved something like 25% of its ...
22
The official reason was to avoid a long and costly battle attempting to force the Japanese to surrender by invading the mainland. The Japanese were tenacious fighters and their tactics of Kamikaze suicide bombers and their courageous defense of their country in engagements such as the Battle of Okinawa, lend substantial credibility to this claim. Some such ...
21
There actually was an 88-minute long speech from Hitler in the Reichstag on December 11th, 1941, which was four days after the japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, where he officially declared that Germany would join Japan in the war against the USA. In this speech, he mentioned a few of his personal reasons for this decision.
I think this would be an ...
20
Bill Clinton was acquitted. The senate did not reach the 2/3's majority needed to fully process his impeachment.
To further break it down.
Clinton was impeached by the House on two charges. The first being perjury, and the second being obstruction of justice.
Following this he was acquitted by the senate.
EDIT:
After looking into it more it seems there ...
20
First of all, aircraft carriers are expensive. Russia (compared to USA) was never resource-rich enough to be able to afford the expense; neither was USSR.
Second of all, Russia (or rather USSR) had no motivation. USA's main geopolitical goal is to safeguard seabourne trade routes; and to prevent strong competitors from arising and commanding great sets of ...
18
There are at least three criteria for "good" tanks: combat effectiveness, ease of production, and mechanical reliability.
The Americans produced "good" tanks that excelled in the latter two categories. That's because they were the world's best producers of automobiles. To take off on U.S. civil war cavalry doctrine, American generals regarded tanks as a ...
17
There were actually TWO endings to the War of 1812.
The first, and "official" ending, was the signing of the peace Treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814, which would have made a nice Christmas present. It called for a cessation of hostilities, the exchange of lands and prisoners, and the appointment of a joint commission to study U.S. Canadian boundary issues.
...
17
The "impeachment" process takes place in two steps.
First, a President has to be impeached in the House of Representatives. that is the equivalent of an "indictment."
Then, the President is tried in the Senate, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding. It requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to remove an impeached president.
President ...
17
In short:
It was true until 2006. Now he can still run for president of France, but through the standard way : he can acquire French nationality through naturalization (like anyone) and run for president as a French citizen!
More precisely :
This article (Sorry, Bill Clinton. You can't be president of France or Ireland) explains deeply why :
Clinton ...
16
This is because the USA uses the first-past-the-post principle in all its elections rather than proportional representation like Russia uses.
The effect of first-past-the-post is that only a party with a good chance of winning the most votes can ever have a shot at any representation whatsoever. Since there mathematically can be no more than two such ...
16
Yes, there are quite a few.
The very first was in 1688, when Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church.
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society; it was formed in 1775, primarily by ...
15
As noted in the comments, this depends on what you mean by "Starting a war".
Technically speaking, a war requires a formal declaration by Congress (though specific forms are subject to debate). As such, the last one started by the USA was in WW2, with declarations in 1941 (Japan/Germany/Italy) and 1942 (Romania and other Axys countries); which makes the ...
14
Please don't use CPI. CPI only measures consumption bundles for wage workers.
If you want to measure inflation you need to ask why you're equating the value of money over time. www.measuringworth.com goes into this, in great detail, with multiple theoretical papers and multiple measuring systems for US inflation.
what amount of modern currency would ...
13
No! The Cold War was the standoff between the Capitalistic USA and Communistic USSR. Communism lost. What remains is corruption within the former communist country (Russia). The War in Ossetia was over oil (a distinctly capitalistic move) not ideology (spreading Communism) as it would have been were the Cold War still ongoing.
13
The US was already in a naval war with Germany (and not doing real well), was supplying all sorts of arms, supplies, and even warships to Britain, and was flagrantly violating the laws of war applicable to neutrals. Hitler was expecting war at some time in the near future, and chose to declare war first.
Hitler was also counting on the Japanese Navy to at ...
13
The General Assembly has regularly condemned the US embargo against Cuba:
The United Nations General Assembly has condemned the embargo as a violation of international law every year since 1992. Israel routinely joins the U.S. in voting against the resolution as has Palau every year since 2004 to 2008. On October 26, 2010, for the 19th time, the United ...
13
Pass-thru closet designs like the one in the drawing were common in houses and apartments built during the first half of the 20th century. They lost popularity by the 1960's when squeezing the most usable space from a home plan became most important. If you look at photos of homes/apartments from this era you'll see numerous examples.
The hallway looks like ...
13
Churchill was not Prime Minister when the MRP was announced or when it went into effect. He wasn't even in the government at all. He was in Parliment, but mostly an exile due to his bellicose views. It was the war that forced the Conservative government to take him in, and he didn't become Prime Minister until after France was invaded, well after the ...
13
In the United States, alcohol rationing was stopped in 1862 by an act of Congress which also prohibited "distilled liquors" from being aboard a vessel, with an exception made for medical supplies. Then Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles issued a general order requiring captains to comply.
Two years later, Welles issued another general order requiring ...
13
I think the book For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America said it best on page 346 "The American role in World War I derived its character less from strategic thinking than from the geopolitical notion that the future well-being of the United States depended upon the balance of power in Europe and the outcome of the war."
...
13
Complimentary to Tom's answer, you have to ask yourself which side they'd come in on. There's nothing really useful in terms of territory they could get out of Germany or Austria-Hungary, since both were way on the other side of Europe.
If they'd gone in on the other side, they could perhaps have gotten useful territory from France. However, French forces ...
13
John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives in 1831.
John Tyler served as a member of the Confederate States Congress - that may or may not qualify.
Andrew Johnson was a US Senator in 1875
Grover Cleveland went on to be President after his term in office
William Taft went on to be Supreme Court Justice (hat tip to @michaelF).
13
I work for a company that provides services specifically for the military, and because of that, they tend to hire a lot of former officers. Many of them left the military after reaching Captain because they could make more money in the private sector (plus the added benefit of nobody shooting at you). Those who stay on to reach the rank of Major often do so ...
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