Las Vegas, AZ????
Amazing how a small thing 150 years ago can have such an impact now.
I was hoping they'd talk a little about the US Exclaves.
FYI: US Exclaves are US teritories where the only land access is thru another country. There's one in Vermont, one in Washington, two in Minnesota, as well as the entire state of Alaska.
Alaska I understand. Vermont too since there are bridges connecting it.
But the others are tiny little areas of just a couple square miles, with Canada on one side and large boides of water on the other. Any logical analysis would have suggested trading them to Canada for something.
I don't know enough about either Vegas' or Neveda's history to really say, but I'll venture the opinion that Lake Tahoe would have been Vegas. But Reno's a good call. it was the divorce capital of the US for a long time, wasn't it?
Quote: DJTeddyBear
I was hoping they'd talk a little about the US Exclaves.
FYI: US Exclaves are US teritories where the only land access is thru another country. There's one in Vermont, one in Washington, two in Michigan, as well as the entire state of Alaska.
Alaska I understand. Vermont I'm on the fence.
But the others are tiny little areas of just a couple square miles, where any logical analysis would have suggested trading them to Canada for something.
The show was good, but they tried to put too much into two hours. I would have done it as 5-6 one hour shows like they did on "The States" and "The Presidents." But on the "enclaves."
Do you mean parts of states that are cut off or actual "terriroies." I think it said there were four enclaves of states. I know of the Northwest Angle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Angle) as one. The show said there were four and talked about one in Vermont. If you would, please share the info on the others.
I also would have liked to have heard about the Gadsden Purchase and the 9,000 square miles that was lopped off of the first draft of it. Then maybe about the other land Mexico offered us. I have heard they wanted to sell us Baja.
Think about how different today would be if we had taken them up on all of that. If we bought enough at some point Mexico might not have been a viable country, more "red states" in relation to "blue," different agriculture patterns....wow.
Read up about all of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Point,_Minnesota - I'm guessing less than .5 sq mi. I assume no residents. (Wikipedia has no info on either stat.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Angle Minnesota - about 123 sq mi, pop 152 in 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alburgh,_Vermont - 29 sq mi, pop 1952 in 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington - 5 sq mi, pop 1300 in 2000.
Quote: DJTeddyBearYou quoted me as I was editing. Two are in Minnesota, not Michigan.
That has happened to me as well. You need to be fast here :-)
Yes, due to the rather low residency requirement at a time when marital status meant alot to district attorneys and hotel owners.Quote: NareedBut Reno's a good call. it was the divorce capital of the US for a long time, wasn't it?
Reno was also the official residence of a Nevada Senator who actually lived in Santa Monica, California and was trying to get Santa Monica to be turned into what San Pedro, CA became, an industrialized part of the Port of Los Angeles. He remained the Senator from Nevada even though he was physically present in California most of the time by having anyone in Nevada be able to call him for ten cents and personally paying the long distance charges himself.
Needless to say there were some proponents of annexing the entire Baja peninsula to the United States after the war. The boundary between the countries would have been in the Sonoran desert.
There is a one hour lecture on the book by the author Mark Stein . It is a lecture and not a television presentation.
Quote: NareedNeat! I'm a big fan of alternative history fiction. I'm constantly on the lookout for tiny, inconsequential changes that turn out to make a very big diference years later.
I agree there. What I like as much is when you see people "high up" behaving in the same ways as us regular folk have to. For example, I always assumed FDR and Churchill just sort of liked each other so it made the cooperation of the nations better. I read when FDR negotiated for oil concessions in Saudi Arabia that King Saud admired his wheelhcair (King Saud could barely walk) so FDR gave it to him, FDR always had a spare it seemed. King Saud was way too large to fit into it but kept it as a prized possession the rest of his life, and had good feelings to the USA as a result.
On a smaller level my boss once told me to "hide" an employee we needed in another department. Later I read that Ross Johnson of RJR-Nabisco was "hidded" in the Canadian Subsidiary for the same reason. Johnson later became CEO and a book and movie were made of the buyout.
Yes, history is made of small stuff, which is fascinating.
Possibly the same economic pressures that encouraged NV to adopt gaming would have worked on AZ.
Quote: pacomartinSince NV became a state almost half a century before AZ, I wonder if placing LV in AZ would have made a difference? Since NV became a state to increase the number of free states in the civil war, the large Indian population in AZ might have made this difficult, since it was probably almost ungovernable in the 1860's.
Possibly the same economic pressures that encouraged NV to adopt gaming would have worked on AZ.
Yeah, it might just have slightly changed where Lansky and Bugsy went. I would think Nevada still would have provided the best location. You also have to factor in that the dam brought a lot of people to the area before much of anything else did.
Quote: AZDuffmanI read when FDR negotiated for oil concessions in Saudi Arabia that King Saud admired his wheelhcair (King Saud could barely walk) so FDR gave it to him, FDR always had a spare it seemed. King Saud was way too large to fit into it but kept it as a prized possession the rest of his life, and had good feelings to the USA as a result.
If the king had no wheelchair fo hsi own, I can see he'd take the gift as being of inestimable value and be very grateful for it. But that makes the Saudis sound as thorough primitives, impressed with simple gadgets.
Quote: AZDuffmanYes, history is made of small stuff, which is fascinating.
Some small details are fascinating alternative history fodder. The classic involves the Confederate courier who dropped a copy of one of General Lee's orders, which were wrapped around three cigars. These were found by two Union soldiers and promptly seen by the Union's brass. A lot of AH assumes that incident cost the South the civil war.
During the Battle of Britain english air crews mistakenly bombed a German city rather than their intended target. The Nazis retaliated by bombing British cities, the Brits counter-retaliated, and so on, until too much Nazi air power was diverted from its intended use in the grand plan to invade the british Isles. But then WWII is full of Hitler's stupid mistakes, such as allying with Mussolini (who was even more inept).
Quote: NareedIf the king had no wheelchair fo hsi own, I can see he'd take the gift as being of inestimable value and be very grateful for it. But that makes the Saudis sound as thorough primitives, impressed with simple gadgets.[/]
Like FDR, King Saud could walk but had a hard time of it. Remember, this was the 1930s when not a drop of oil had been discovered there and Mecca Tourism was about the only source of income from the government. It is very possible that even the King, who it was said at the kingdom's founding could carry all of his posessions ni a camel-sack, was impressed. I'm sure he was even more impressed with the offer. In "Do's and Taboos Around the World" visitors to Arab Countries are warned that if you admire an Arab's posession too much he will offer it to you and it is a major offense not to accept.Quote:
During the Battle of Britain english air crews mistakenly bombed a German city rather than their intended target. The Nazis retaliated by bombing British cities, the Brits counter-retaliated, and so on, until too much Nazi air power was diverted from its intended use in the grand plan to invade the british Isles. But then WWII is full of Hitler's stupid mistakes, such as allying with Mussolini (who was even more inept).
I have also heard that the bombing of civillian targets in Germany was intentional to get the Gerries to bomb British civillian targets and ignore the military and induistrial ones. Agreed on Hitler's mistakes. He would have won in Europe (though never been able to invade the USA) if even a few were not made.
Even if he had been able to get Japan to invade the USSR instread of bombing Pearl Harbor I think the USA entry would have been delayed long enough he would have pulled it off. Scary.All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
