92 Ambitious Facts About the Land of Liberty USA

One teaspoon of the bacterium C. botulinum, if properly distributed, could kill every single human being in the USA.

2. Millions of disposable chopsticks used in China are made in the USA.

3. Before coffee became popular, beer was the most popular drink to go with breakfast in the USA.

4. The USSR and the USA were originally in talks to jointly go into space together during the Cold War. The USSR almost accepted but then President Kennedy was assassinated and the Soviets didn’t trust Vice President Johnson, so the plan fell through.

5. During the Cold War, USA considered airdropping enormous condoms labeled “Medium” into USSR, to demoralize them against an anatomically superior American Army.

During the Cold War, an 18-year-old German aviator named Mathias Rust (with only 50 hours’ worth of flying experience) illegally flew through the Soviet airspace, bypassed their air defenses and landed in Red Square, all in order to reduce tensions between the USA and USSR.

7. The USA is leasing the Guantanamo Bay land from Cuba and writes them annual checks, which Cuba does not recognize and has never cashed them for decades.

8. The first ever copyrighted motion picture in the USA was one in which one of Thomas Edison's assistants, Fred Ott, was filmed sneezing in 1894.

9. The USA was one of the only 7 countries to vote against setting up of the International Criminal Court, along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen

10. Slavery was nearly abolished in the USA in 1784, but the motion fell short by just one vote

If women wouldn’t have voted in USA elections between 1968 and 2004, the Republicans would have swept all presidential elections (except one).

12. All the presidents of the USA except Martin Van Buren are descended from King John of England.

13. The Bikini Atoll's flag is similar to the USA flag, but with black stars representing islands destroyed by nuclear testing, to serve as a reminder of the debt the US still owes them for nuclear fallout and radiation poisoning.

14. Forest growth in the US has exceeded harvest since the 1940s, and the USA has more trees now than at any time in the past 100 years.

15. A scientist at the University of Florida, USA, grew a "living 'brain" a network of 25,000 rat brain cells" that when "connected to an array of 60 electrodes that can interact with a computer" learned to fly a simulated F-22 stealth fighter jet in a range of weather conditions.

Every 19 minutes in the USA a baby is born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome due to an addiction to opioids. That’s 27,000 reported cases in 2013, a 5x increase since 2003, and many states aren’t required to report cases if the mother was taking painkillers or narcotics prescribed by a doctor.

17. Smallpox is the first and only disease that has ever been eradicated. Smallpox now only exists in high-security labs in Russia and USA. Vaccinations played a major role in achieving this eradication.

18. 62% of bankruptcies in the USA are due to medical bills. Almost 4/5th of these people had health insurance but went bankrupted anyway because of co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services. Others got so sick that they lost their job and then lost their insurance.

19. People in the USA used to drink 48 gallons of coffee per person per year in 1948, but today they only drink 23 gallons, partly due to soft drink companies marketing sugary sodas as healthy, and coffee as a poison that caused heart disease and birth defects in the 1970s. Soda is now a leading cause of diabetes and obesity.

20. Charlie Chaplin openly pleaded against fascism, war, capitalism, and WMDs in his movies. He was slandered by the FBI & banned from the USA in '52. Offered an Honorary Academy award in '72, he hesitantly returned & received a 12-minute standing ovation the longest in the Academy's history.

The budget for nuclear weapons in the USA is not included in the Department of Defense spending. It falls under the Department of Energy.

22. In 1966, USA lost a hydrogen bomb in the Mediterranean Sea and struggled to find it. Finally, a Spanish fisherman helped them find it. The U.S. secretary of defense said the bomb was worth $2 billion. The fisherman asked for $20 million, or 1 percent of the bomb's value in accordance with the custom of maritime law. The Air Force eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

23. The US Government still pays for medical compensation for those that returned to the Bikini Atoll after their atomic weapons testing there. The USA allowed the native population to relocate there in 1970

24. The Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, and PETA are all considered by the USA to be "special interest terrorist" groups.

25. Human poop and farts get their foul smell from the chemical compounds Skatole and Indole (among others). At low concentrations, these compounds smell flowery and are used in perfumes. USA and Israel have used Skatole in crowd control sprays. The stench does not wash off skin for 3 days.