On that last point, George Washington is still considered the most popular president of the USA. In his own time he would come to cities and people (all of them) would swarm the streets. When the Constitution was signed Washington was in retirement, but the writers of the Constitution assumed Washington would be the first President. There were roughly 8 candidates running for the position, Washington wasn't one of them, and when Washington announced he would come out of retirement the other candidates dropped out of the running. Washington won the first election unanimously.
A lot of Europeans don't realize this, but the Constitution wasn't the first government of the new USA. First there was the Articles of Confederation which went from 1777-1789 so Washington had been gone for quite some time and was still so popular.
It's not at all surprising that it's one of the most popular landmark names in the US (street and city names).
Some other popular names include Lafayette, MLK, Lincoln, and Jackson, Jefferson, and Madison.
Similar to the names Elizabeth and Victoria in the UK. The first being mostly named after Elizabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII) and the second being Queen Vic.
Although we don't tend to name towns after people since most of our town names stretch back to Roman/Saxon/Celtic/Norman times. But train stations, schools, pubs, etc commonly incorporate these names.
The confederation of states is the American version of people in Russia who think the USSR still exists. They go around trying to act like the Articles of Confederation still exist.
You're mostly on the nail with these but it's worth mentioning that political leanings are split a lot closer to "rural vs urban" differences than they are regional. For example, the city of Austin, Texas, is a lot closer politically to somewhere like Seattle, Washington, than it is to Odessa, Texas. Similarly, somewhere like Redding, California, is closer politically to Decatur, Alabama than it is to Los Angeles. This is a pretty recent development.
I grew up in Odessa. I left and I never want to go back. Ever. Last time I was there was to take the dog, my father's ashes, and any remaining belongings back to a saner part of the country. I have seen and heard it has only gotten worse since and nobody should live there. Ever. Just leave. Run away. Scorched earth. Fuck Texas. Fuck Wasps. Fuck all of the hateful, bigoted, racist, sexist pieces of shit that live there and anywhere else.
Sorry. I may have been a little triggered...I am going to smoke a bowl and chill out now.
Hawaii: Funny you pick that state out of 50 for "colonialism."
Ohio: Home of the buckeye, a useless nut.
Washington: The federal capitol city, Washington D.C. is on a small bit of land along the Potomac river sandwiched between Virginia and Maryland. It was founded in the late 1700s early in the nation's history before we laid any claim to the West coast. The state of Washington--the top-left most of the lower 48--was one of the last settled and named. There were several plans drawn up to create several states in the region, and name them Washington, Jefferson, and possibly one or two other founding fathers. Washington was the only one that went through with it.
I love that the world's idea of Seattle could be mostly based on Frasier, a show not filmed in Seattle, starring no one from the state nor written or created by anyone from Seattle, with hardly any plot line that has anything to do with the area. Basically the only thing Seattle in that show is the Space Needle, and they way they show it isn't even possible in real life.
Honestly seems too small to me. I've driven to every state in the US and I've met self-identified cowboys from western NY state to Montana and New Mexico to north Florida. Shit, Kid Rock called himself a cowboy while he was living in Detroit lol.
Germany might be the worst European country for your example. I'm sure most Americans could name at least a few German provinces just from German prevalence in Western culture. France or Italy? No way.
US states also have considerably more autonomy than most of their European counterparts. It's not at all an exaggeration to say US states operate as their own nations while the federal government mostly just handles international matters.
identifying states when most of them are just rectangles is damn annoying
This is true. Even as an American I doubt I could properly name all the Midwest and New England states on my first try.
Just trying to throw away the concept of size is probably the most unfair thing here. You are trying to change the conversation so your argument appears valuable. Then you kind of piss that attempt at goal post moving by claiming that while size is irrelevant, somehow shape is. What a strange move.
You make a good point on the US state vs Country comparison, I think that certainly plays a much larger part than size or even population. But if you wanted to argue that point, rather than dismiss relevant concepts or inserting ridiculous ones - you could rebut with a question like "can you name the subjects of the Russian Federation?" Or, if you are in a fighting mood (which...clearly), you could just respond that American exceptionalism has them overvaluing the relevance of US States on the global scale.
yeah, but for example:
Luxembourg - the last grand duchy in the world, one of four institutional seats of the european union, capital city is an UNESCO world heritage site, has a 1000 years of history.
Idaho - potatoes.
wait... maybe it's Iowa? or Ohio?
edit: really seems like people can't take a joke, lmao
No one under a monarchy has actual pride in their people and country, why should we care that the city was founded from a royal whorehouse by people we're also descended from anyways?
Idaho - potatoes.
wait... maybe it's Iowa? or Ohio?
Idaho and Iowa and Ohio all had rich histories going back tens of thousands of years before Europeans destroyed them lmao. You're just upset they don't have 1,000s of years of white history.
Poland - borscht and poverty.
wait... Maybe it's Ukraine? or Belarus?
Sweden - vikings?
wait... Maybe it's Norway? or Denmark?
Germany - Fascists?
wait... Maybe it's Italy? or Hungary?
France - bread?
wait... Maybe it's Netherlands? or Germany?
Yes, it's easy to trivialize something you know nothing about. Now maybe it's not interesting to you, but to the horror of history YouTubers- everywhere has history, and the history of some random inbred monarchs isn't exactly relevant or interesting to everyone.
As a European who doesn't know much about the states: This is pretty accurate. I would exchange gators for florida man and I don't know what the cars and crime one is but otherwise it's spot on.
Give about 3/4 of the New York section to Incest, and it's closer to reality. New York doesn't make it across the Appalachian mountains, but Incest extends north at least to the Ohio river.
I'm surprised anyone there knows that the UP of Michigan exists. It's a sparcely populated area with low crime. Hunting, fishing, snowmobiling and drinking.
To be fair, the incest is probably a bit more widespread than that. Also, potentially more popular in Appalachia than around that area. I think eastern Kentucky/West Virginia has the highest rates of inbreeding than any other part of the country, at least that's what some other guy on the internet commented, so that's a fairly trustworthy source.
In fact, if this is to be believed (not a clue how accurate this is), Spain, Portugal, and Italy (as well as Canada and Mexico) have higher rates of incest than any single state in the United States.
This is totally believable, but Europeans don't think that America is more incestuous than Europe. They think that that part of America is more incestuous than the rest of America.
I like this kind of statistics, but it is counting only investigated cases? In this cases is common that developed countries with more women's freedom would appear higher in statistics. If you see only official cases you will see that Sweden has a higher rape by inhabitant than India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Brazil. This is probably not true, and is possible to happen because women are more prone to report rape in Sweden than in these other countries.
Being Portuguese, I can assure you that we're not doing it with our sisters, though I can't really say how much marrying with cousins is going on (whilst I don't know a single person who has done it, I haven't exactly researched the matter).
It's mostly cousins and mostly in villages. It was somewhat common (as in, it wouldn't be seen as completely out of left field) to marry your cousin some decades ago. I know a few seniors who either married their cousin or know someone who did. However it's definitely an older generation thing, I've never heard of someone younger than 40 doing it, and I doubt it's that common these days.
As a European with a higher than average interest in North America, I can say with some confidence that Europeans don't think about the Upper Peninsula at all.
Growing up in suburban Texas, my Mom would occasionally blast this song in the car while my siblings and I slid down in our seats, hoping nobody we knew would see us. https://youtu.be/WMiV27R1ZiI?feature=shared
"Only steers and queers come from Texas Private Cowboy and you don't look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down don't it?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GPBbIFQuI0
That's all a conspiracy theory made up by Vancouver, the real Hollywood. There's no such thing as a landmass between Canada and Mexico. The "States" are made up to scare European countries so they won't privatise healthcare and deregulate gun control. Are you that naïve? Geeesh!
I'll say that it's more like one political party, not the whole group. I honestly don't think most USA Americans (trying to be specific) think much about South America generally. In general the average person here doesn't know much about South America, they may know about a certain dictator or problem. They might think of certain areas like Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro, or Bogato because these places appear in the media (like Fast and the Furious or the Rundown). In general the average person will never go to one of these places but sees it as mysterious, potentially exciting, but also potentially dangerous place (to be fair they also look at places like NYC and Las Angeles the same way).
Disdain for South Americans mostly comes from the idea that you might want to immigrate and
It's entirely grounded in racism, fear of change and fear of the unknown. The other group really doesn't care too much and would be open to immigration as long as you're not a bad person. Unfortunately our politics have made it so that the smaller group has too much say in these things.
As a Vermonter I can tell you all you need to know about Vermont is it's a uninhabited forest pepperd with weirdos who are obsessed with maple syrup and farming who also don't like outsiders non Vermont stuff
I feel like all I've ever needed to know about Vermont is whether it's on the left or the right, vis-a-vis New Hampshire. I never remember which one is which. At least Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had the decency to line up north to south in alphabetical order.
It's also the most liberal state isn't it? It's votes in the 'notorious Communist' Bernie Sanders and has tried to pass universal state health care I think?
I mean thats what happens when you murder or drive out all the original inhabitants. Then you get to start your own history, that was the point, right guys?