Topic: United States (Page 11)
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π Hoover (Seal)
Hoover (c.β1971 β July 25, 1985) was a harbor seal who was able to imitate basic human speech.
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- "Hoover (Seal)" | 2021-09-02 | 102 Upvotes 9 Comments
π Mike the Headless Chicken
Mike the Headless Chicken (April 20, 1945 β March 17, 1947), also known as Miracle Mike, was a Wyandotte chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off. Although the story was thought by many to be a hoax, the bird's owner took him to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish the facts.
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- "Mike the Headless Chicken" | 2024-12-24 | 38 Upvotes 6 Comments
- "Mike the Headless Chicken" | 2015-11-11 | 52 Upvotes 14 Comments
π 2009 flu pandemic in the United States
The 2009 flu pandemic in the United States was a novel strain of the Influenza A/H1N1 virus, commonly referred to as "swine flu", that began in the spring of 2009. The virus had spread to the US from an outbreak in Mexico.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, there were 60.8 million cases, 274,000 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths (0.02% infection fatality rate/Mortality rate) in the United States due to the virus.
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- "2009 flu pandemic in the United States" | 2020-03-16 | 33 Upvotes 76 Comments
π Black Tom Explosion
The Black Tom explosion was an act of sabotage by German agents to destroy U.S.-made munitions that were to be supplied to the Allies in World War I. The explosions, which occurred on July 30, 1916, in the New York Harbor, killed four people and destroyed some $20,000,000 worth of military goods. This incident, which happened prior to U.S. entry into World War I, also damaged the Statue of Liberty. It was one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions to have ever occurred.
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- "Black Tom Explosion" | 2020-09-22 | 60 Upvotes 49 Comments
π United States military and prostitution in South Korea
During and following the Korean War, the United States military used regulated prostitution services in South Korean military camptowns. Despite prostitution being illegal since 1948, women in South Korea were the fundamental source of sex services for the U.S. military as well as a component of American and Korean relations. The women in South Korea who served as prostitutes are known as kijichon (κΈ°μ§μ΄) women, also called as "Korean Military Comfort Women", and were visited by the U.S. military, Korean soldiers and Korean civilians. Kijich'on women were from Korea, Philippines, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, specifically Russia and Kazakhstan.
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- "United States military and prostitution in South Korea" | 2021-01-19 | 76 Upvotes 28 Comments
π Chicken tax
The Chicken Tax is a 25 percent tariff on light trucks (and originally on potato starch, dextrin, and brandy) imposed in 1964 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken. The period from 1961β1964 of tensions and negotiations surrounding the issue was known as the "Chicken War," taking place at the height of Cold War politics.
Eventually, the tariffs on potato starch, dextrin, and brandy were lifted, but since 1964 this form of protectionism has remained in place to give U.S. domestic automakers an advantage over competition (e.g., from Japan, Turkey, China, and Thailand). Though concern remains about its repeal, a 2003 Cato Institute study called the tariff "a policy in search of a rationale."
As an unintended consequence, several importers of light trucks have circumvented the tariff via loopholes, known as tariff engineering. Ford (ostensibly a company that the tax was designed to protect), imported its first-generation Transit Connect light trucks as "passenger vehicles" to the U.S. from Turkey, and immediately stripped and shredded portions of their interiors (e.g., installed rear seats, seatbelts) in a warehouse outside Baltimore. To import vans built in Germany, Mercedes "disassembled them and shipped the pieces to South Carolina, where American workers put them back together in a small kit assembly building." The resulting vehicles emerge as locally manufactured, free from the tariff.
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- "Chicken tax" | 2017-05-17 | 75 Upvotes 28 Comments
π United States Camel Corps
The United States Camel Corps was a mid-19th-century experiment by the United States Army in using camels as pack animals in the Southwestern United States. While the camels proved to be hardy and well suited to travel through the region, the Army declined to adopt them for military use. The Civil War interfered with the experiment and it was eventually abandoned; the animals were sold at auction.
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- "United States Camel Corps" | 2025-01-28 | 11 Upvotes 2 Comments
- "United States Camel Corps" | 2017-08-16 | 70 Upvotes 19 Comments
π Waffle House Index
The Waffle House Index is an informal metric named after the Waffle House restaurant chain and is used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to determine the effect of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery.
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- "The Waffle House Index" | 2022-09-11 | 52 Upvotes 13 Comments
- "Waffle House Index" | 2020-03-25 | 15 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Dusty Hill of ZZ Top Dead
Joseph Michael "Dusty" Hill (May 19, 1949 β July 28, 2021) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the bassist and secondary lead vocalist of the American rock group ZZ Top; he also played keyboards with the band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of ZZ Top, in 2004.
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- "Dusty Hill of ZZ Top Dead" | 2021-07-28 | 86 Upvotes 16 Comments
π Posse Comitatus Act
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C.Β Β§Β 1385, original at 20Β Stat.Β 152) signed on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The purpose of the act β in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807 β is to limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. It was passed as an amendment to an army appropriation bill following the end of Reconstruction and was updated in 1956 and 1981.
The act specifically applies only to the United States Army and, as amended in 1956, the United States Air Force. Although the act does not explicitly mention the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy has prescribed regulations that are generally construed to give the act force with respect to those services as well. The act does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard (under the Department of Homeland Security) and United States Space Force (under the Department of the Air Force) are not covered by the Posse Comitatus Act either, primarily because although both are armed services, they also have maritime and space law enforcement missions respectively.
The title of the act comes from the legal concept of posse comitatus, the authority under which a county sheriff, or other law officer, conscripts any able-bodied person to assist in keeping the peace.
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- "Posse Comitatus Act" | 2020-06-02 | 57 Upvotes 43 Comments