Questions tagged [united-states]
The United States of America is a sovereign state stretching across North America between Canada and Mexico, Alaska in the continent's northwest, the mid-Pacific archipelago of Hawaii and several territories in the Pacific & Caribbean. Founded by European émigrés rebelling from British control in the 1700s, the US spread across the continent by conquest and land-purchase to become the most powerful country on the planet after the Cold War in the 1900s.
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What percentage of US population descended from immigration per immigration year?
The title question is somewhat ill-defined because, of course, most Americans living today descended from immigrants from different years: one of your grandpas is a Mayflower descendant, another one's ...
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Who was the US town Hayden in Arizona named after?
Is the town Hayden, AZ named after Charles Hayden?
Charles Hayden was the principal of Stone & Hayden, which owned the Kennecott mines. Hayden AZ was founded in 1911 according to the Wikipedia ...
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How well did American bombers fight enemy fighters in World War II?
Normally, fighters shoot down bombers. but sometimes bombers "turn the tables" and destroy enemy fighters. My understanding is that American bombers did this from time to time against weaker ...
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I need to know the dates this uniform was used
Attached is a picture of my relative in a USA military uniform. I would like to know when this uniform was in use and what branch of service and rank the soldier held.
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How did East Indies oil lose its "top billing" in the Pacific War as the war went on?
The road to Pearl Harbor appeared to begin with the American embargo of oil (and other items) in July 1941. The Japanese decided that they had to 1) cripple the American Pacific fleet and 2) obtain ...
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What is the reason for the modern prominence of the Confederate battle flag, as opposed to some other Confederate flag?
It seems whenever there's news of some protests in the USA, the Confederate battle flag will almost invariably show up in the associated photoreports.
Granted, this may just be observer bias due to me ...
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Where did Asian Americans go to school during the 'separate but equal' era?
I know that Brown vs. Board of Ed. desegregated schools. Reading Through History has a great video that clearly summarizes what this landmark case was about. However, everything I've heard about Brown ...
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Are states affected by federal law before admission to the union?
I was curious whether a territory would be affected by federal law before it was ratified as statehood. For example, if a federal law passed in 1934, would it impact Hawaii which was admitted on ...
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What was the timetable for the arrival of the 100,000 man Japanese garrison at Rabaul?
Early in 1942, the Japanese seized the natural port of Rabaul on New Britain Island. This was to protect its existing base at Truk, in the Carolines, and also to provide a forward base for operations ...
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Were political parties in the U.S during 1918 as polarized generally as they are now? [closed]
There was a pandemic in 1918, and there is one now as well, but were political parties back then as polarized generally as they are now in the United States.
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What was wrong with carrying a bag on one's back in a town in the USA in the first decades of the 1900?
A geologist working in the field needs a container for rocks specimens:
The collecting-bag may be in the form of a pouch to carry at the side, a knapsack, or a
rucksack. If one is working afoot the ...
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Why was the Tulsa Port placed at Catoosa?
I was looking at various maps of Oklahoma, and the question came to me of
why does the Tulsa Port of Catoosa even exist.
Tulsa lies on the Arkansas River, which is considerably larger than the ...
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Was New Hampshire's prohibition on non-Protestant officeholders enforced in the last decades of its existence?
In the context of Jewish History, it is often said that New Hampshire was the last state to remove legal disabilities on Jews in 1877 (which technically pushes the US quite far down the timeline for ...
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What was the nature and extent of forced or coerced sterilization in Puerto Rico from the 1940s-1970s?
During the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, if not earlier, female sterilization rates in Puerto Rico were extremely high (see e.g. "Voluntary Sterilization-A World View", Presser, ...
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Did a significant number of women drive in late 1950s/1960s USA?
During lockdown, I have become addicted to old 1950s/60s Perry Mason series. I am struck by the number of women, from all walks of life - waitresses to wealthy matrons - who owned and drove their own ...
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Did the "unexpectedness" of key events argue against a "third strike" at Pearl Harbor?
Japan's Admiral Nagumo has been criticized for not launching a "third strike" at Pearl Harbor, specifically to destroy the dry docks, fuel stores, repair facilities and other key ...
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Did legal interracial marriage hit a nadir that was above 50% in 1948?
Did legal interracial marriage hit a nadir that was above 50% in 1948?
Explain XKCD for this comic, which is currently down so I'm using an archive... said:
Since the establishment of the United ...
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Why was air support not provided during the Battle of Mogadishu, 1993 (Black Hawk Down)? [closed]
During the Battle of Magadishu (1993) multiple Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and a group of soldiers were pinned down under unexpected enemy resistance.
Air support was provided by both MH-60 ...
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How did the Soviet Union support the development of their atomic bomb in 1949?
The Manhattan Project cost the United States a reported $2 billion. The Soviet Union managed to come up with an A-bomb four years later, even though their economy was about one third the size of ...
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Why Al Gore was given Nobel Peace Prize? [closed]
What are the crucial work over climate change, considering which the once vice president of the states, Albert Arnold Gore Jr. also known as Al Gore, was given Nobel Peace Prize 2007?
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Is there a source for excess death statistics in individual cities during the 1918 flu pandemic?
Is there a reliable source for excess deaths in US cities/counties/states around the time of the 1918 flu pandemic? I was able to find one datasource for Arizona and one for NYC but nothing specific ...
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Was there a town called Munich in Jackson County, Tennessee?
According to a patent called Eye-protector for chickens, it was patented by Andrew Jackson, Jr., a citizen of the United States, residing in Munich, in the county of Jackson, State of Tennessee.
To ...
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Which 1848 German revolutionaries became key players in the US Republican party?
Gillian Brockell wrote in an article at the WP:
In 1860, two major factors helped to propel Lincoln — a one-term
congressman and country lawyer most known for losing a Senate campaign
— to the ...
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Why was cannabis illegalized in the U.S.?
There seems to be a notion that cannabis was illegalized due to capitalism. I've read some theories as to how this happened, and one of them goes something like this:
Commissioner of the National ...
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Was the tariff that Alexander Hamilton wanted to create (in his Financial Plan) ever put into action by Hamilton?
Hamilton's Financial plan had 3 parts:
The U.S. government would pay all debts
The U.S. government would create a national bank
The U.S. government would impose a high tax on imported goods (tariff)
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Were ordinary people aware of the US Constitution when it all started?
I read somewhere long ago that even ordinary people knew the content of the US Constitution well enough when it was adopted. Many people, not only rich and well-educated, knew what it was about. Now I ...
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Why did Italian immigration to the US decrease from 1900s to 1920s?
Excluding the start of WWI and the later Immigration Act of 1924, what is the reason for this decrease especially from the Italian side.
See ncdemography.org
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Why was the "first Monday in December" originally chosen as the default meeting date for Congress?
The original Constitution of the United States did not explicitly specify many dates, but one was the default date for which Congress was required to meet:
The Congress shall assemble at least once ...
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Why did the Soviet Union out-pace the US during the space-race?
At the end of World War II, the US Government's Operation Paperclip plucked rocket scientists from Germany and brought them to the U.S. to work on military weapons. Most famous among these scientists ...
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How often were slaves raised by their parents in 19th century USA?
American slave owners wanted their slaves to have children, but they didn't always allow their slaves to marry, and often sold families piecemeal. About what percentage of slaves were raised by both ...
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How pervasive was the idea that we had reached "the end of history" in America during the ninties? [closed]
Sorry if this is ill-defined.
I've heard that in the nineties, there was a pervasive idea in American society that were on the cusp of a liberal utopia, in which there would be no war between nations ...
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Why was the ship "Palmyra" so named?
On November 7, 1802, the american trading ship Palmyra, under Captain Cornelius Sawle, was shipwrecked on the reef, which took the vessel's name and now is known as Palmyra Atoll.
Does anybody know ...
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When did US federal government's revenue exceed combined state and local revenue?
Approximately when did the US federal government's revenue become larger than state and local revenue?
Even after the Constitution in 1787 the federal government's revenue was still much smaller than ...
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How far did Malcolm X get with taking the United States to the United Nations?
In Malcolm X's original The Ballot or the Bullet speech, delivered in Ohio on 3 Apr 1964, just after he left the Nation of Islam, he outlines his case for taking the civil rights movement to the ...
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Is there audio of Malcolm X's original The Ballot or the Bullet speech?
Malcolm X's famous Ballot or the Bullet speech - his first after leaving the Nation of Islam and "ranked 7th in the top 100 American speeches of the 20th century by 137 leading scholars of ...
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Can anyone identify this uniform? Is it from Sweden or USA?
I have 2 photos of my husband's grandfather Edwin Albin (1884-1962) that were taken in Minnesota in 1906. I’m hoping to find out more about the uniform Albin is wearing. Albin's father Claus August ...
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How confusing was British currency compared to decimal currency circa 1850?
This question quotes Terry Pratchett's claim:
The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.
Is this a fair comparison with its inference that ...
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What did a train ticket cost on a 1940 Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe train?
I would like to find out the cost of a train ticket on the Santa Fe & Topeka railroad around 1940, from Alpine Texas to Santa Fe via El Paso.
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Why did Eisenhower iconize Robert E. Lee?
I recently discovered this clip of General Eisenhower: Eisenhower Explains About General Lee (1957)
In it he claims "The 4 top Americans of history: Franklin, Washington, Lincoln and Lee"
I ...
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Have any historical pandemics actually originated in the United States?
I've heard of a few pandemics, such as the Spanish Flu, the Cholera Outbreaks in the 19th century, and, of course, our current pandemic ;).
Something that struck me as odd was that none of these ...
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Who was the VP during these Civil Rights milestones?
I came across a tweet today with this image and text, which looks very wrong to me:
Putting Kamala Harris as VP into perspective.See the red box? Until then, she would have been enslaved.See the ...
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What are the figures in the "Goodbye Donald Trump" video [closed]
I am trying to classify the figures in this video
From 0:00 to 0:12 - Statue of Liberty
From 0:14 to 0:20 - Abraham Lincoln
From 0:22 to 0:24 - ?
From 0:25 to 0:33 - ?
From 0:42 to 0:45 - ?
From 0:47 ...
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How much did J. Robert Oppenheimer get paid while overseeing the Manhattan Project?
I am curious to determine how much J. Robert Oppenheimer got paid in today's dollars when he was the head of Los Alamos National Laboratory?
Do we have any HR or accounting documents of the Los Alamos ...
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How many soldiers were present in DC for past presidents' inaugurations?
Recently it has been in the news that Biden's inauguration could feature more than 2,500, more than 5,000, more than 10,000, 20,000, 25,000, or even 30,000 national guardsmen in DC.
It's hard to ...
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Did Lincoln ever publicly blame James Buchanan?
Background
Several modern presidents have publicly blamed their predecessor for at least one issue that occurred during their presidency: Trump, Obama, and Reagan are some examples. I am unsure of how ...
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Is it reasonable to claim that peaceful transfers of power began, globally, in the United States? [closed]
One of my children's history textbooks claimed that Adams' peaceful concession to Jefferson following the US election in 1800 was the first peaceful transfer of power between rival executives in ...
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What is the history of the tradition of the out-going president attending the inauguration of his successor?
I understand that for a long time it has been customary that when a president of the United States is succeeded, he sits near the president-elect at the inauguration before the president-elect is ...
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Why does the US have many top-level web domains? [closed]
Why does the US have top-level domains like .gov, .mil and others, while other nations can only use second level domains for their government agencies? It might seem an easy question, but I think it ...
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Has Section 2 of the 14th amendment ever been enforced?
But when the right to vote at any election ... is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State ... the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of ...
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Can someone help identify this statue?
please if anyone can give any info on a statue my aunt found in her garden (elkton oregon)