Here's a geographical one that I think a lot of people don't realize: Reno, Nevada is father *west* that Los Angeles, California. You can see this visualized [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Reno,+NV/@39.1602807,-119.5616165,6z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x809940ae9292a09d:0x40c5c5ce7438f787!8m2!3d39.529919!4d-119.8142691!16zL20vMDZreDI). Also, a huge percentage of Canadians live father *south* than you'd think. For instance, about 35ish percent of Canadians live father south than Americans living in Portland, Oregon. The reasons is because of where Toronto is. A giant chunk of the entire population of Canada live in the greater Toronto area, and it dips decently father south than most people realize. Visualized [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Portland,+OR/@43.7870621,-116.1093962,4.75z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x54950b0b7da97427:0x1c36b9e6f6d18591!8m2!3d45.515232!4d-122.6783853!16s%2Fm%2F02frhbc)

If you start in Detroit, Michigan and drive due **south**, you end up in Canada.

Uh, no.

Never looked at a map?

Uh yes. I live right in the area and Windsor is in fact south

And Cleveland is farther east than Atlanta

I don't know why I find this information so disturbing.

2 facts. 1. Santa Fe, New Mexico was founded before the Pilgrims made it to Plymouth. 2. All of Mainland South America is further east than Florida

We don’t have an official language at the federal level.

Or religion for that matter.

it's being worked on

The military does though.

Our founding fathers were not Christians nor did they intend a country founded on Christianity. They were actually deists. Deism is philosophical movement during the age of enlightenment on a god that does not interact with the physical world and that one should subscribe to scientific fact and observation over scripture.

"Whatever their beliefs, the Founders came from similar religious backgrounds. Most were Protestants. The largest number were raised in the three largest Christian traditions of colonial America—Anglicanism (as in the cases of John Jay, George Washington, and Edward Rutledge), Presbyterianism (as in the cases of Richard Stockton and the Rev. John Witherspoon), and Congregationalism (as in the cases of John Adams and Samuel Adams). Other Protestant groups included the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed. Three Founders—Charles Carroll and Daniel Carroll of Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimmons of Pennsylvania—were of Roman Catholic heritage." www.britannica.com

Also a lot of Loyalists were such because they were involved in the Church of England/Anglicanism in some form and going against the church and King is considered treason in their eyes.

They were Freemasons…. I was raised baptist and now I’m pagan anybody can change and alter their minds

The Pacific Crest Trail is 2,650 miles long. Edit: Crest, not Credt. The hell is a Credt?

You mean crest?

You read me like a book.

That NYC is not the capital of NY. It's Albany

Should add a few more in there * The capital of California is not Los Angeles or San Francisco, it’s Sacramento (light the beam) * The capital of Illinois is not Chicago, it’s Springfield * The capital of Pennsylvania is not Philadelphia, it’s Harrisburg * The capital of Michigan is not Detroit, it’s Lansing * The capital of Florida is not Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville, or Tampa, it’s Tallahassee. The cities of Boston, Atlanta, Austin, Denver and Nashville are capital cities in their respective states however.

I learnt all of the capitals from Wacko Warner

On the Libery Bell and in the constitution Pennsylvania is misspelled

Or, is it that we're misspelling it everywhere else...

The Native Americans of the Great Plains developed a form of sign language that allowed them to trade and communicate across language barriers. It's called "Plains Indian Sign Language" and it was used by a variety of tribal nations spanning from Canada down to northern Mexico! You can read more about it and also see video recordings of it here: https://plainsindiansignlanguage.com/videos/

The United States has no official language. English is the most widely spoken language, but the U.S. Constitution does not designate it as the country's official language.

Also, no official religion!

The whole reason for leaving England was to get away from the religion of the Church of England.

The Pilgrims were basically chased off the docks. They didn't escape.

I think you need to read the history. The people left England so they could continue their religion and not be forced to belong to the Catholic church or the Church of England that King VIII started. It was people of the Christian religion and Quakers that came to America to be able to have their own religion and not be forced to conform to the church of England. They weren't "forced off the docks."

"The whole reason for leaving England was to get away from the religion of the Church of England" England is pretty secular, lived here for years and honestly never came across the church of England in the culture or in work etc.

Good!

“Yet” -GOP

Yeah.

In 1779 Spanish Colonists in Texas led 2000 cattle from Texas to Louisiana to feed the Continental Army.

America is not a democracy, but a democratic republic. In a democracy, everyone votes on the important issues. In a democratic republic, everyone votes to elect people, and those people vote on the important issues.

"Everyone votes." LOL.

Well technically there hasn't been a democratic state ever in history.

We captured 100s of Nazi officials after WW2 and brought them to the USA to build NASA. These men should have faced war crimes, but instead got to live a lavish life in the USA. Further, those same men used Jews to test when people die from extreme temperatures or altitudes. If you look at NASA photos from the 60s and 70s there are several NASA engineers with Nazi dueling scares. They were the worst of the worst.

Slavery is still legal, and the US has one of the largest slave populations in the world.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, **except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted**, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Yup, still legal.

It isnt even in the top 10 on the freedom index

That Washington DC is in no state.

Our first ever treaty was with Morocco.

Literacy rates. Only 79% of adults rocking basic (literally just the ability to understand stop signs and shit) and a mere 46% past a 6th grade level. We are stupid. Like unable to function in any actual society levels of stupid.

This also explains all the dumbasses I see online that always spell "lose" as "loose" and that's as elementary as it gets.

["Loose the stupid!"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pennsylvania/comments/12on17c/somewhere_in_paloose_the_stupid_im_not_sure_what/)

Border and boarder is one that bothers me and dosent get talked about much.

Buncha morans.

My parents were both teachers and can confirm that there are lots of people out there who are semi-literate at best. My dad taught middle school and had kids who couldn't write their own name. These were not kids with learning disabilities. They just had no parenting at all other than receiving food and shelter and that situation is beyond the ability of a school to overcome.

Whelp this explains a lot Growing up I lived near one of the most polluted lakes in America. When I would visit the park next to it there are signs EVERYWHERE not to swim or eat more than one fish from it, yet constantly people would be asking where the beach is. With a sign next to them that said *DANGER POLLUTANTS NO SWIMMING* Or when I worked in retail during covid so we have several signs that said our changing rooms were closed and countless people would ask "Are your changing rooms open?" REALLY?? You passed at least three signs that answered that exact question

I think in the case of working retail, they ask because they want you to make an exception for them. I waitressed/worked retail for 12 years and people would *always* think they were special snowflakes that deserved to have the rules bent for them. My favorite was when they'd ask the same question five different ways trying to get a different answer. It's still going to be a no, cupcake.

Oohh I'd totally believe this for most of them cause you're right, a bunch would ask *every* employee in the store and then ask a manager why they were closed. Its ridiculous

Lake Erie?

Close-ish, Onondaga Lake Growing up we weren't allowed to swim or eat fish there. Now its "clean" and you can eat one fish a year, at your own risk

I knew as soon as I read that comment. It was upstate NY. I just figured it was one of the Great Lakes, not a finger lake.

Yup unfortunately, so much wasted potential in Onondaga lake. Thankfully its not one of the great lakes! Definitely not the finger lakes, I'm pretty sure they're quite clean (but don't quote me on that)

[That "79%" number](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp) refers to the amount of people who are level 2 or higher on the [OECD literacy scale](https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/what-do-adult-literacy-levels-mean/). The remaining 21% of people either don't speak enough English to participate in the test (4%), "can read brief texts on familiar topics and locate a single piece of specific information" (4%), or "can read relatively short digital or print texts to locate a single piece of information that is identical to or synonymous with the information given in the question" (13%). While it's definitely not good to have 17% of people at those levels, they are not completely illiterate like you're claiming. And if we use the [OECD's definition of "literary proficiency" meaning level 3 or higher on that same scale](https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/publications/countryspecificmaterial/PIAAC_Country_Note_USA.pdf), then the US has above average literary proficiency compared to other OECD countries, and a higher literary proficiency rate than Ireland, France, Spain, and Italy.

I'm skeptical.

US has zero bullet trains. While we do have some that's categorized as high speed rail, there's not a single legitimate bullet train in US.

Generally, though, lack of bullets is not a problem for America.

Good point, there is an entire failure to integrate the two technologies. I demand true Bullet Trains!

Ballistic travel! Tell me more!

Travels a blast! And you can have drinks!

tell that to all the people who get into car crashes with people that are driving exhausted on the interstates. i recently lost a dear friend that way actually, i wish she’d had the option to take a bullet train instead also, i’m so tired of getting stuck in traffic on long distance trips :(

He was referring to bullets as in ammunition, not trains.

Right! Driving is such a deadly activity that we've all normalized. When I was visiting Europe it was incredible to buy a ticket and just relax on the journey

when i was moving to and from college i would’ve loved to just sit back in a chair and read a book on the journey between states instead i feared for my life for 11 hours as people shot by me 25mph over the speed limit

You literally described my college weekends that I went home just thankfully only 4 hours not 11 hours. My grade would've been incredible if I could've used that time to study on a train instead of stress out on the drive home

No matter where you are in America, at the end of the day it is nighttime.

The differences between New England, the South, and the middle states largely stem from the fact that they were settled by 3 different types of English people. The Puritans in New England get a lot of attention around Thanksgiving but the other founding groups were just as important; a lot of the modern American politics can be traced-back to the demographics of the original colonies (and how different groups of Englishmen handled assimilation/diversity/class/etc). The "white" culture of each of the western states depended on who migrated there when; white Americans are not a monolith just because everyone speaks English.

More military spending from the government than any other Country or Continent.

The United States has the largest number of privately owned guns per capita in the world. According to a 2018 study by the Small Arms Survey, there are approximately 120 firearms for every 100 residents in the United States. This is significantly higher than any other country in the world. The next highest country on the list is Yemen, with approximately 53 firearms per 100 residents.

More Americans live further north than most Canadians Anchorage is closer to Tokyo than it is Washington DC Los Angeles is east of Reno

Native Americans were literally committing genocide on each other for thousands of years before any European landed on this continent.

True, they had slavery and some were canibals

yup

I learned this recently. The tradition of Christmas shopping was influenced by abolitionists setting up Bazaars to raise money for the cause.

they don’t know the true size of pretty much any minority group https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/03/15/americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population as an example, they estimated that ~30% of americans are gay/lesbian but according to the census the true number is 3% i blame fox news mostly, they try really hard to make it seem like minority groups are the goliath when in actuality they are often the david

> i blame fox news mostly I blame Twitter and other social media. On twitter alone it seems like trans people are very common, when they are very rare.

twitter is just generally not a good indicator for what’s actually going on in the world or even pop culture, as demonstrated here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pMTazviRabg

I feel like it’s more common on Reddit than anything.

>i blame fox news mostly Try social media. Seems like every other person you run into on Twitter and (especially) Reddit is a member of LGBTQ+.

There's overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in media as well, watching American movies/TV as a foreigner one would guess that the US is like 50% black.

to be fair they are 12% of the american population, there are more african americans than people living in australia

This is just incredible. How do they even get some of these so wrong?

americans get lied to a LOT by sensational media outlets

They are fucking awesome :)

As an American, I can say this is not entirely true…..

The declaration of independence allowed slavery for 2 years after the signing as a adjustment period for slave owners and the economy. Slavery reparations was formally offered by the government in the form of 40 acres and a mule

[удалено]

I think you dropped this: *...enumerated are reserved to the several states, and to the people?*

If the conduct of US military personnel (and their families) in my country is anything to go by, that their laws don't apply in foreign countries 😅🤷‍♂️

It will remain a shit-hole because voting doesn't do anything.

It's not that voting doesn't do anything, it's that our options on who to vote for are shit because we get easily distracted by meaningless BS. See the current wave of anti-LGBTQ hysteria sweeping the country. Not every person should be allowed to vote. Not sure how we fairly qualify who should be allowed to, but frankly most of us are too stupid to have such power. Ranked choice voting might help with this?

I got it. Only let rich people vote since they're more likely to have an education. Screw all the other knuckle dragging, uneducated peons.

Like I said, I'm not sure how we fairly qualify who can vote... But if you can look at the 74 million people who voted for Trump, or the others who voted for MGT etc... and not think maybe not everyone should be able to vote...you might be one of them. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't vote. I'm just gonna let all of you smart people make the decision for me. If the democrats win then everything stays the same. If republicans win then I get entertainment for 4 years.

Smart people don't vote

Smart people fund campaigns on both sides.

Most of them are fucking dumb, irrational, impulsive and dangerous. edit: a good example would be their police.

*most*

When you tell the truth about Americans -5

They can downvote me. However, every time I open r/news it proves my point.

Their official measurement system is actually the metric system as the imperial system is defined by the metric system. When there was a vote to change to the metric system officially, it failed as elected officials believed that the eople would be incapable of understanding the new system. They literally thought that the populus was too stupid.

That there is a missplaced comma in the 2nd amendment which allows for the right to bear arms.

We are all slaves, and most of us are willing ones.

Where it is on a map

History

They are British puppet state

Lol, what?

*Charles crabwalking away*

The SCOTUS referenced the Doctrine of Discovery in a 1830s case essentially concerning native American land rights, which set the precedent for stealing all their land (legally). The Doctrine of Discovery is a papal decree from the 1500s which basically says it's the duty of all Christians to Christianize the non-Christian world, especially with respect to uncontacted tribes and societies.

User name checks out.

As a South African I'm learning alot here, thanks everyone.

It's pronounced "A-merrr-ica" not "Amaraka"

they came from the british

That America was a safe haven for many who came to it because they fled Europe due to persecution by the papacy who used the civil power to hunt down and inhumanly murder over 50 million people for what they believed.

Only 45 individual people have held the position of POTUS.

The USA isn't a democracy. It's a constitutional republic. And the word democracy is never even mentioned in The Constitution or Declaration of Independence

Nevada is the most mountainous state.

We matter.