Where the U.S. ranks
in the World In...
How Did America
Get to be the Place Where...
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1. What is Glurch?
Glurch is another cool substance. Like oobleck, it resembles both a solid and a liquid, but has its own special characteristics. It seems solid—you can pick it up in one piece—but will pour as if it was actually a liquid.
Glurch is also easy to make. Take equal amounts of white glue and water (say, a cup of each) and mix them together in a plastic or paper cup. Add a couple drops of food coloring if you feel like it. Stir it all up and you’re ready to glurch.
**Be aware that both of these substances will stick to clothes, hair, rugs, pets, and anything that’s not hard and flat. That’s the only warning we think you need.
2. Make a Jet Propulsion Vehicle
With this project, you can make a simple jet propulsion vehicle. You’ll need:
• One empty and clean bottle with a cork (olive oil bottles, wine bottles, etc.)
• Vinegar
• Bicarbonate of soda
• Some tissues
• Perfectly round pencils or dowelsLay the two pencils down so they’re parallel to each other, about 4 inches apart. Fill the bottle about 1/3 full with vinegar. Take about a thimbleful of bicarbonate of soda, put it on the tissue, and bundle it. Drop the bundle in the bottle. Quickly put the cork in, and then lay the bottle down on the two pencils.
The mixing of the vinegar and bicarbonate will cause a chemical reaction that will create a buildup of carbon dioxide. This will pop the cork and thrust the bottle forward over the top of the rollers.
3. Lemon ’Lectricity
Anyone can get electricity by plugging a lamp into a wall socket. You, on the other hand, will get it by plugging into a lemon.
• One galvanized zinc nail
• 2 feet of insulated copper wire
• An X-ACTO blade or utility knife
• A small flashlight bulb
• A roll of electrical tape
• One large lemon
• A clean penny
- Cut the copper wire into two 1-foot-long sections. Strip one inch of insulation from each end of both sections.
- Attach one end of one of the wires to the lightbulb’s threads with electrical tape. Attach one of the other ends of the other wire to the metal cap on the bottom of the bulb, also with tape. Make sure that the two wires don’t touch each other.
- Using the knife, cut two notches into opposite sides of the lemon. Push the penny— halfway—into one notch, and then push the nail halfway into the other notch. Make sure that the penny and nail aren’t touching in the middle.
- Choose one of the ends of wire that aren’t attached to the bulb (either one is fine), and tape it to the nail.
- Take the remaining free wire end and touch it to the penny. The bulb will glow faintly.
The electric current is caused by the chemical reaction between the citric acid in the lemon and the zinc in the nail. Try it with other citrus fruits like limes, oranges, and grapefruits. The more acid in the fruit, the brighter the light will be.
4. Where the U.S. ranks in the World In...
Population: With 300 million people, America is the third-largest country in the world, after China’s 1.3 billion, and India’s 1.1 billion. Japan, tenth at 127 million, is the only other wealthy nation in the top ten, and it won’t stay there for long. Mexico is expected to take its place by 2020.
Land area: Third or fourth (depending on how you count some areas that China claims), behind Russia and Canada. But let’s be serious about this. While Russia fills some 17 million square kilometers, and Canada 9.9, nobody lives in most of that territory. With the exception of some deserts, badlands, and glaciers here and there, America’s 9.6 million square kilometers are full of burger joints.
With its nearly 13,000 McDonald’s franchises, America has three times as many McDonald’s as Japan, at number two, and 13 times as many as Canada, number three.
We can pay for our burgers because we live in the world’s wealthiest country. America’s total national income is twice that of Japan, in second, four and half times that of Germany, in third, and seven times that of England, in fourth, and France, just behind it in fifth.
When we are not out eating or making money, we’re on the Internet. America ranks first in Internet users, ahead of China, India, and Japan. Then comes England. But to be clear about this, 161 million Americans, more than half the population, uses the Internet, while China’s 94 million are a tenth of their population.
Not all Americans, though, are burger-filled net-surfers. We do occasionally climb Mount Everest. Though the country which really excels at climbing Mount Everest is Nepal—which makes sense, since the mountain straddles Nepal and Tibet, and people who live near it are skilled climbers. Some 532 Nepalese have scaled the world’s highest mountain. America ranks second with 178 climbers, ahead of Japan’s 85, Russia’s 67, and England’s 60.
Which brings up the matter of sports. America ranks first in all-time Summer Olympic medals—and it isn’t close. America’s 2,116 medals are three and a half times second-place England’s 638, and it’s downhill from there to France’s 598, Italy’s 479, and Sweden’s 469.
But, sad to say, there is one area where America is, let’s face it, terrible. Brazil has won the most World Cup matches in soccer with 64, Germany is second at 56, Italy third at 45, and Argentina fourth at 33. America tries, but we’re tied with Croatia for twenty-fourth place; we’ve taken a big six matches.
5. How Did America Get to be the Place Where . . .
I’m the historian in this book, so here’s how I see it: Your textbook tells you when famous stuff happened, but so what, so do a million Web sites. Are you puzzled about what happened on July 4, 1776? I think not. A timeline shouldn’t tell us what we already know, it should explain our world, the world we really live in, how that came to be. . . . Glance over these dates and you’ll see the twenty-first century coming into view—first, way far off, then closer and closer, till we get to the stuff you were born knowing.
Here We Are
December 13, 1773—The Boston Tea Party
June 17, 1775—The Battle of Bunker Hill (actually on Breed’s Hill)
July 4, 1776—America declares its independence
October 18, 1781—British surrender at Yorktown
June 21, 1788—The Constitution is ratified by a ninth state, New Hampshire, and becomes the law of the land
April 30, 1789—George Washington sworn in as America’s first presidentWe Get Bigger, and Get in Touch
1803—The Louisiana Purchase; America’s size is doubled, and it only costs $15 million dollars
August 7, 1807—Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, travels up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany, at an average speed of 5 miles an hour
October 26, 1825—The first boat passes through the Erie Canal; this success of the waterway sets off a wave of canal-building all around the country
1827—The Baltimore and Ohio, the first west-bound train tracks in America, are built
1829—The Boy’s Own Book describes a game called round ball, with a bat, four bases, strikes, and outsNow That We Can Move Around, What Is There to See?
1841—Barnum’s American Museum, the place to see everything from a fake mermaid to real Siamese twins, opens in New York
1846—The country’s first amusement park opens in Lake Compounce, Bristol, Connecticut; its first attraction is an effort to blow up a raft with gunpowder (which fails)
February 2, 1848—A treaty with Mexico gives America California, and much of the Southwest, for $15 million dollars
August 24, 1853—Potato chips are invented at Moon’s Lake House, near Saratoga Springs, New York
1859—Philadelphia charters the first zoo in America, though it does not open until 1874Civil War
April 3, 1860—The Pony Express begins, with riders as young as 11
April 12, 1861—An attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina sets off the Civil War
October 24, 1861—The Pony Express shuts down
September 17, 1862—The Battle of Antietam; 23,000 Americans killed or wounded, more than twice as many as in every other nineteenth-century war combined
January 1, 1863—The Emancipation Proclamation
April 14, 1865—Seven days after General Lee surrenders, ending the war, President Lincoln is shot at Ford’s Theater in WashingtonFrom Toilets to Jeans, America Begins to Look Familiar
May 10, 1869—The Golden Spike ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, marks the first transcontinental railroad
November 6, 1869—Rutgers defeats Princeton, 6-4, in the first football game (the rules were closer to rugby than modern football)
October 8, 1871—The Great Chicago Fire burns some 34 blocks of the city
1873—Blue jeans are patented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss
1876—The first American patent for a flush toilet
1880—Edward Simpson invents a system of shoe sizes
May 8, 1886—The drink that would become Coca-Cola is first sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia
1891—James Naismith invents basketball in a Springfield, Massachusetts, YMCA
September 21, 1893—The first gasoline-powered car in America runs on roads—also in Springfield—maybe they were in a rush to get to a game?
1893—Thomas Edison opens the first studio to make movies
1904—The St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition: hamburgers, hot dogs, and ice
cream cones are sold for the first time
April 18, 1906—The San Francisco earthquake, and the resulting fire which follows, leads to some 3,000 deaths—the first films are made of the event
1908—The first paved road is built in America, near Detroit
1911—The first movie studio in Hollywood opensWar and After
1917—America enters World War I, which has been raging for three years prior
November 11, 1918—the war ends
1920—KDKA in Pittsburgh becomes the first radio station in America
September, 1928—Philo T. Farnsworth gives the first demonstration of television, something he’s been developing since he was a teenager
1926—Ford stops making Model T cars, having sold 15 million since 1908, comprising half of all the new cars in America
1928—Lights of New York, the first movie with a complete sound track, opens
October 29, 1929—Black Tuesday; the stock market crashesWays Not to Be Depressed in the Depression
December 30, 1936—Hank Luisetti unveils his jump shot at New York’s Madison Square Garden (players used to remain on the floor while shooting), and leads Stanford to end Long Island University’s 43-game winning streak; this helped convince doubtful coaches that it was OK to shoot jump shots
1933—The comic book is invented by Max Gaines and Harry Wildenberg
1939—Superman appears in comic book form, from strips first written and drawn in 1934
1939—Little League baseball begins, in Williamsport, PennsylvaniaWorld War II
December 7, 1941—The Japanese launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
September 2, 1945—V-J Day, with the surrender of Japan, marks the end of the warBabies, then Boomers
1950s—Skateboarding is invented by surfers in California
1953—The first televised Little League World Series
July 17, 1955—Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California
1958—William Higinbotham invents the first known video game, Tennis for Two, at Brookhaven National Labs
1959—The number of television sets in America has risen from 3.6 million in 1949 to 67 million
1965—Fernando Corbato sends the first e-mail within one shared computer system
1966—ARPANET, a long-distance computer network that will become the Internet, is launched
1966—Chicago Roller Skate creates an inline roller skate boot; a later competitor is called Rollerblade
July 20, 1969—Neil Armstrong steps on the Moon
October, 1971—Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail between computersTheir Kids
1970s—Hip hop invented in New York City
April 1973—Dr. Martin Cooper makes the first call on a portable cell phone
1974—The first desktop personal computer
1980—The first juicebox in America
March, 1983—The first CDs are sold in AmericaNow
June 24, 1995—The first X Games held
1996—Kazuki Takahashi invents Yu-Gi-Oh
1996—Four young Israelis invent ICQ, which will become instant messaging
1999—The term “blog” is first used for weblog, or a diary page kept on the Web
2000—98% of American households have remote-control television6. This Really Rocks
Being a music superstar can be pretty cool. And if you’re really good at it, you can live like a king. Here’s what some musicians made in one recent year.
U2................................................ $154.2 million
The Rolling Stones.......................... $92.5 million
Paul McCartney.............................. $56 million
Dave Matthews Band....................... $39.6 million
Green Day..................................... $31 million
Coldplay........................................$30.1 million
Destiny's Child............................... $24.8 million
P-Diddy........................................ $24.3 million
Gwen Stefani................................. $23.9 million
50 Cent........................................ $19.7 million
Eminem........................................ $17.8 million
Jay-Z............................................ $17.5 million
Hilary Duff..................................... $17.1 million
Aerosmith..................................... $16.3 million
Bon Jovi........................................ $15.8 millionSource: Rolling Stone Magazine