first Japanese person to live here
- Manjirō Nakahama: From Castaway to Samurai (hakaimagazine.com)
On October 4, 1987, the town of Fairhaven, Massachusetts (population 16,000), had a pair of unlikely visitors: Akihito, crown prince of Japan (today, the emperor), and his wife, Princess Michiko. Why would Japanese royalty visit this small American whaling and fishing port? The events that forged the unlikely connection between Japan and Fairhaven began 146 years earlier.
- World Report 2024: United States (hrw.org)
Racism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and threats to democracy remained pressing human rights problems in the United States in 2023. The national poverty rate rose dramatically following the choice to cease a pandemic-period child tax credit. Economic inequality also rose, and the racial wealth gap remained high. The incarceration rate also increased, despite the US already having one of the highest rates in the world, with Black people vastly overrepresented in prisons and jails.
national security advisor
nominee for vice president
- JD Vance (Wikipedia)
James David Vance (né James Donald Bowman; born August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, venture capitalist, and Marine veteran who has served since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Ohio. He is the Republican Party’s nominee for vice president in the 2024 presidential election.
nuclear production complex
Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, ’the United States of America.’ But it is hardly strange. Paine’s teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.
Thomas Edison, Essay in The Diary and Sundry Observations (1948) edited by Dagobert D. Runes
- United States (Wikipedia)
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. It is the world’s third-largest country by both land and total area. The United States shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south. It has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 331 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City.
