peter11937 wrote:
PATHETIC, what the hell is being taught in HS as American History? What would these i***ts said if someone had asked who John Hancock was! About the Louisiana Purchase, the Lone Star Republic, the Bear F**g Republic, the Erie Canal, Robert Fulton, Ben Franklin, James Madison , Thomas A. Edison, George Washington Carver, Henry Ford, William Crapo Durant, Nicolai Tesla, anyway, the list is endless as is the abject failure of our educational system.
I got a kick out of it when that one woman actually knew what women's suffrage is. You get lulled into all these BS answers he was getting then,
, someone who knows what she's talking about.
As for the Louisiana Purchase, you can thank the people of Haiti for that. If they were not such a pain in Napoleon's ass, he would have been much better placed in his war with the British and Louisiana would still be French territory today. Some say it was Thomas Jefferson's silver tongued diplomacy that did the deed, but without the realities facing him at that time with the British breathing down his neck, it is very doubtful that Napoleon would have agreed to such a bargain, and at $13.60 a square mile, it was quite a bargain.
Of course, if it's land bargains we're looking for, none better than the purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867 for the princely sum of $7.2 million. If only they knew then what we know now...