President Nixon first mentioned the term the “Silent Majority” in a speech about the Vietnam War in November 1969.
He used the term to refer to Americans who quietly supported his policies and practices in contrast to his vocal opposition.
The U.S. government instituted a system of standardized route numbers in 1925 to simplify route directions. Perhaps the nation’s most well-known road, Route 66, opened in 1932 to link Chicago and Los Angeles. In December 1940, the first freeway opened, the Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles. Not until 1956 did the government pass the…
More Americans (19.6 percent) report German ancestry than any other. In second place is Irish ancestry (13.1 percent) and in third place English (11 percent).
In 1914, Glenn Curtis fought the Wright brothers for patent rights on the airplane. The U.S. court decided in favor of the Wright brothers.
Yes. The city in south central North Dakota, now the state capital, was founded in 1872 as Camp Hancock. A military post, it protected the crews working on the Northern Pacific Railway. In 1873, it was renamed in honor of then-chancellor Otto von Bismarck in hopes of attracting German railroad investors.
Harpers Ferry is in what is now West Virginia (then part of Virginia). John Brown led a party of 22 in seizing the U.S. arsenal there in October 1859. Brown, an abolitionist born in Torrington, Connecticut, planned to arm the local slaves and start a full-scale rebellion, but his plan was foiled by state and…
Major league baseball is the most popular spectator sport in the U.S., with about 56.6 million fans in attendance in 1990. Thoroughbred racing is close behind, with attendance of about 56.2 million. Basketball and football are far behind, with only about 16 million fans attending games in 1990.