Hot answers tagged united-states
31
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 ...
28
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 ...
27
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, ...
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 ...
19
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
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 ...
17
The U.S. likely did not target Tokyo for the atomic bomb strikes as it was the seat of the Emperor and the location of much of the high ranking military officers. These are precisely the people you do not want to kill if you want to negotiate a surrender, as they are the people you would be negotiating with.
The U.S. decided to drop the bombs onto military ...
17
Hiroshima, the first city, was "an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing[sic] effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. ...
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 ...
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 ...
14
Washington DC was basically "made" the capital after Philadelphia after an insurrection by Revolutionary War soldiers called the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783. The mutiny showed that state governments could not protect federal institutions so there began a search to move the capital where it could be defended by the Federal government. There was a power ...
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 ...
12
The phrasing is a bit unfair, I think (and probably a misquote, as it turns out). The first important international patent agreement didn't exist until 1883, and the United States signed on 4 years later. Before that, all countries were free to discriminate against foreigners in patent applications. Even with that agreement, a person wanting patent ...
11
It does look suspicious to me. It's tough to put my finger on, but the phraseology doesn't look very 18th century. It doesn't sound like other Jefferson writing to me either. Also Jefferson is a rather conveniently famous and beloved figure to tag it onto if you aren't sure (or don't happen to like who really said it...)
With a fairly thorough googling, I ...
11
The first modern police force in the United States was the Philadelphia Police Department, and according to the Officer Down Memorial page, the first PPD officer killed in the line of duty was Watchman Steven Heimer, shot at the beginning of a riot on January 8, 1828.
Of course, police are not the only law enforcement in the U.S.— there were sheriffs and ...
11
According to Arthur D. Jacobs, author of the autobiographic book "The Prison Called Hohenasperg: An American boy betrayed by his Government during World War II", by the end of the war, 11000 persons of German ancestry were interned, both immigrants and visitors. Also, under the pressure of US Government, Latin American countries arrested more than 4000 ...
10
It actually happens fairly often. The last was in 2004, where a Minnesota elector (who would not own up to it) voted for Edwards (the VP candidate) instead of John Kerry. The assumption has been that this was done out of incompetence rather than malice.
The cycle before that, the DC elector refused to vote, in protest to DC having no congressional ...
10
Las Vegas was not founded in a particularly random desert. It was founded on a meadow (las vegas is Spanish for "the meadows") watered by the nearby Big Springs, or Las Vegas Springs. As such it was a watering spot on the Old Spanish Trail.
After the Civil War, O.D. Gass set up the first permanent white settlement there. Other settlers followed, and it was ...
10
Short answer - There were no federal legal prohibitions against weapon ownership in 1789.
Long answer. During that year the "United States" had at least 14 governments. For the first two months of the year, the territory was governed by the Articles of Confederation. I haven't reviewed all of the legal precedents under the AoC, but I'm willing to bet my ...
10
Sometimes it deliberately wasn't kept secret from the enemy. This is from William Taubman's Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962:
At 10:00 A.M., Washington time, when the quarantine went into full
effect, the U.S. strategic Command moved from Defense Condition 3 to
DEFCON 2, one level below that of general war. For ...
10
Werner von Braun and Neil Armstrong met with each other several times over the course of their lifetimes. I am not yet certain if pictures were taken at any of these meetings, or where to find these photographs, but I do know that they met.
The first time the two met was in, I believe, 1962, when Neil Armstrong and eight other astronauts-in-training visited ...
9
According to Katherine Grier author of Pets in America: A History (2006, UNC Press, arguably the authoritative work on the subject), the sentiment is probably rather recent, since the 1970s.
I will first make a couple of quick points:
You are asking about the rivalry between so-called "cat people" and "dog people," not between dogs and cats themselves. ...
9
There were two power blocs, the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy), and the Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia). Spain was part of neither and had no reason to support one or the other.(Italy later switched sides).
Spain was fortunate to be outside of the main battle areas: France, Belgium, Poland, the Balkans, western Russia. It had no ...
9
Geoffrey Blainy, one of Australia's greatest historians, dedicated about 2 pages or so to a chapter entitled The Paradox of Isolation. He said that places like the USA or Australia advance slowly in the beginning because they are isolated: they don't trade with anyone, they don't share inovation with anyone, they don't even have the need to innovate, because ...
9
IMHO this is pretty much a general reference question. Links for it abound. So I'll instead use the balance of my answer to warn you about the data. Basically, comparing unemployment numbers over that many years has lot of issues.
First off, official BLS data only goes back to 1948. Any data you get from before that will be a bit like comparing apples to ...
8
While a senior in high school in Oklahoma in March 1943 I enlisted in the Navy in the Navy V-5 program. I was called to active duty on July 1, 1943. I was sent to Central Missouri State Teacher's College in Warrensburg, Missouri. My designation was changed from V-5 to V12A. I assume the "A" might have meant aviation. A semester was of 4 months duration. ...
8
There is a notion that superpowers have, well, super powers, and can bend history to their will. There is never a shortage of conspiracy theories involving foreign agents. The reality of course is that even great powers are constrained, and the idea that Carter's appearance in Iran sparked a revolution is at the very least too Carlylian for my taste.
If ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
