How Geography Gave the US Power
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
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Music: My Luck by Broke For Free & Sunday by Otis McDonald
Animation by Josh Sherrington ( / heliosphere )
Sound by Graham Haerther (www.Haerther.net)
Fact-checking by William Mayne
Thumbnail by Joe Cieplinski (joecieplinski.com/)
Full script with references available here: bit.ly/2uYyrL0
Big thanks to Patreon supporters: Kevin Song,
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"The Americans are a lucky people. They are bordered by the north and south by weak neighbours, and to the east and west by fish"
Otto Von Bismarck
Henry Ficklin Canada ain’t that weak.
Edit: Holy sh*t people I posted this almost 2 years ago I was stupid ok now quit spamming my notifications lol
Canada would capitulate in 2 months time to the US if we went to war.
Autismos, God of Autism It took 5 years for 3 major powers to defeat Nazi Germany.
Natearl13 Germany was nearing superpower status, and without supplies from sea (threatened by U-Boats) both England, and by proxy, America, wouldn't be able to fight on the European mainland.
If they were to get control of the Ottoman oil, they would have been able to avoid attacking Russia and the Third Reich would be a major annoyance in the US's side.
And then we have Canada. Fragile transportation, reliant nearly entirely on imports, and a hulking land border on the south with one of the 3 largest land forces.
Individuals could hold out, but good luck keeping the government in once piece without the British Commonwealth and EU involved.
Natearl13 - Canada has never been on the same level as Nazi Germany in terms of population, military strength, industry.
I'm a Brazilian. The video is good, but it forgets others American advantages: massive amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. All key natural resources.
That kind of counts under being blessed by Geography, though, don't you think?
Resources aren’t key to success (Japan, Germany, France, Britain ect) but they do help but they can also be a curse
@@binozia-old-2031 in the wrong hands, yes, but here, no.
DID YOU SAY OIL? LOOKS LIKE AMERICA NEEDS SOME DEMOCRACY
Venezuela has the world largest Oil reserves, but its not particularly powerful
reminds me of how in civ games, if you get a good starting locaiton on a continent with nobody else but city states, you basically won the game.
It reminds me of how if you play Victoria 2 and start as USA you basically won the game.
well, I play domination, so...
Nah Prussia into Germany is the most powerful.
Alex MacKenzie only if you form Greater Germany. By 1915 no one can compete with USA because they have MASSIVE immigration, capitalism and a whole lot of capitalists + when oil is discovered half of all oil fields are in USA so their Automobile industry can thrive too as every nation serves itself first.
AND they are on a whole other continent with no one to invade them succesfully.
The only real threat in 1836 is UK but if they focus on America they wont be able to keep India subdued and no sane person would trade India for America.
With each passing year from 1836 onwards USA gets stronger and stronger and stronger to the point where in 1870 NO ONE can threaten you anymore. After that it gets boring lol
on chieftain difficulty - yeah, you bet :)
US: doesn't have to fear any kind of invasion because they have the perfect geography
also US: has the worlds biggest military
Thore well someone has to spread freedom
Zakary Loreto Just saying how does that spread freedom. And lol on the original comment someone is overcompensating 🤣😉🤪
Bacca Lover just a joke, on how America wants to spread freedom and democracy
Someone has to keep all the idiots in line. Who better than the country that has no enemies on our borders and by far the largest economy on the planet?
I think 3 countries share first place.
China, United States, and Russia
China: has the most active soldiers in the military
United States: best military budget and Air Force
Russia: good ol’ nukes
This should become a series. "How Geography Gave Britain Power", "How Geography Gave China Power", "How Geography Gave Germany Power", etc.
I think he did China. Except he stated China's geography was more of a weakness than a strength. Economically China has viable land, but strategically, China is not in a strong position
The 1st one never happened
The I mean we totally didn’t own more than half of the world
Britain is easy... it's an island
@@brbjuke45 exactly that helps when you (not anymore) have a big navy
10 minutes of Wendover not talking a single word about plane???
Guys, this uploader kidnapped the real Wendover!!!!
sicupu15 He started his CZcams channel by talking about all sorts of random things. His plane niche has run out of ideas.
You must be fun at parties
I've become a huge plane fan by going through his archive. I'm bit disappointed he didn't mention planes
sicupu15 I knew it
reminds me of reallifelore not mentioning toyota corollas in some videos
The US is almost in the sweet spot between the frigid tundra of Canada and the arid desert of Mexico.
you really don't know anything at all about where the tundra starts huh? No doubt you're the kind who thinks people in Vancouver and Montreal live in igloos.
J Aranda yes but Mexico is extremely mountainous and rugged
Mike Cleven doesn't Montréal have an ice castle or hotel or something every winter? Probably just to house memories of having a good hockey team...
Parts of southern canada are alright, but it's at the end of the nice lands of north america. USA has several times the temperate, non-arid land as canada.
Almost is right, because there isn't much difference between Minneapolis and Edmonton, or Burlington and Montreal, Vancouver and Seattle. But to your point, almost all the population of Canada lives close to the border
Fun fact California has a bigger population than all of Canada
Fun Fact : California's winter temperature is like Canada's summer temperature.
Can we sell (or give) away California to Canada (or anyone that will take it)? California is mostly a shit hole that is a drain of both US taxpayers and morals. It's also where all the idiot liberals live.
@@mississippirebel1409 Lol California has the biggest economy in the country and Mississippi is the poorest. Red states are more of a drain on taxpayers.
Terry James
West Virginia’s now the poorest thanks to the Democrats ruling it for decades.
canada is like russia all those white snow/ice arent inhabited
Napoleon: Hey Americans, I need money. Are you interested in buying any land?
Congress: How much?
Napoleon: Its 3¢ per acre. Just hurry up and buy the land. I’m at war with-
Congress: Deal! We’ll take all of it.
Napoleon: Excellent! I need this money to kick the Germans’ asses.
Congress: Yes, yes. Now go away.
This need more likes
Articulate Pineapple Actually the USA originally offered 10 million to buy New Orleans but the France let them have the whole Louisiana territory for 15 million.
Congress was actually pissed about the purchase.
It’s not like France was going to do much with it anyway...
@@justinsutton5005 should have seen them when Alaska was purchased They Were PISSED.
Another factor in the success of the U.S.A. was adopting new technology - the telegraph and railroad - to make such an enormous country workable.
Daniel Payseur and friends. Another 'gift' from France...
Laura Halliday The success is because of American Conservatism. Entrepreneurship, Rule of Law, Property Rights, Free Market and Globalization.
@@jundelarguelles3039 Under "property rights' include a robust patent system of I.P.
@@jundelarguelles3039 basically take european people and technology and build for weakened europe
When you say “adopting” did you mean inventing? Because The Telegraph and the Railroad were both invented by USA
Thank you Napoleon Bonaparte for Louisiana!
No thank Haitians lol.
He is right^ the entire reason they held middle america was to produce food for Haiti but once they revolted France saw no potential LOL and sold it relatively cheap
If Napoleon didn't sold Louisiana, Americans would took it, as they did with half of the Mexico. I live in Brazil.
Most likely yes since napoleon didnt really have a military presence in Louisiana, so on his part it was a good deal since he would've lost it anyway.
Thank the Coalition for fucking with napoleon till he needed money and could only get it from the US
Everyone: Can't invade the US
US: Fine I'll do it myself
civil war u mean or upcoming civil war 2.0 one
@@piyushprasad2878 hey hey hey guess what
@@sunsset7153,I saw what they did and personally I really don't want us civil war cause if these guys destroys themselves then facing dragon would be very difficult for world
USA invaded once again lmao
@@-xnnybimb-9398 I have a bad feeling for 20 jan
There is a great document at the national archives which is s military report stolen from Russia in the cold war. Essentially the report was analyzing an invasion of the US using conventional weapons and concluded it was impossible. The list of reasons why did not even mention the US military assets just geography and demographics
1.Inability to supply troops in another continent
2. US food production, and other strategic resources(oil) are in the center and eastern portions of the country. (They literally said every strategic resource for war and production is within the country making blockade ineffective.)
3. Very large population and well armed, making it difficult to occupy
4. The county is thousands of miles across spreading out forces to an unacceptably thin degree.
5. lack of soviet sympathizers or possible allies
In short, invading the US, not going to end well. I think the American military gets too much flak for its numerous military bases overseas. I think it is in part a reasonable response to put your best military assets next to possible conflict areas where they can respond quickly. They do not need to be stationed in the isolated mainland to ward off an invasion.
Sean Cauffiel confirmed between 70 and 90 million gun owners (based on gun registration). Estimated to be over 100 million when you include unregistered guns.
If you created an army of all armed US civilians, that army would be larger than all the militaries in the world combined.
This is the main reason why if another Civil War broke out between gun owners and the government, the gun owners would win.
number 3 is bullshit.
civilian grade guns are like toys, when compared to a modern professional army.
why do you think the usa government doesnt allow you to have nukes, tanks, war planes, war ships, attack helicopters, etc?
yeah. they took your second amendment and took away all the power it had. according to jefferson in the federalist papers the idea of your second amendment was so that your civilian population would ALWAYS have more firepower than your military, as that's the ONLY way to make sure you cant get tyranny(tyranny can only happen with the full cooperation of the military). it would be interesting to find out the exact moment where your government betrayed you and made sure your military always had the monopoly of firepower....
+sabin97
it's not about fighting the military head on, it's about guerrilla movements. there's millions of US vets who could provide insight to the general populace about tactics and could potentially form counter-government or counter-occupier rebel groups. i don't doubt that eventually the US military could eradicate insurgents but that would take literally decades and hundreds of billions if not trillions to accomplish, double that time and monetary investment if it's a foreign occupier.
+himajama
do you think the brown folks of the middle east fight the usa military head on?
no. they arent retarded(no matter what white supremacists tell you).
and they have more military experience than you.
they have a huge advantage when it comes to the weather, and they have a deep terrain knowledge advantage too.
and they have some access to some military grade weapons.
and yet the usa military rapes, pillages and murders with impunity.
you would fare even worse against the usa military, or any other modern professional military.
tell me this, how many Vietcong had military experience before enlisting?
did North Vietnam have 20 million military veterans like the US currently does? veterans who served in the army they're going to be fighting against and who know the doctrine, tactics and equipment they're going against, if only a superficial understanding of it?
do you not think that most Americans have a decent understanding of their own climate and terrain? that the millions of hunters, for one example, don't know their own regions' landscape?
does the US not have an extremely large amount of guns per capita (not even accounting for the huge amount of unregistered weapons), along with open smuggling channels on their north and south borders?
not even to mention that this is on the US homefront. in Afghanistan and Iraq the US could ship out their planes and tanks to the location. this is where those planes and tanks are _made_ . this is where the bowels of the US war machine are, and if the military tries shit against the populace they'll have a terrible time trying to defend their supply lines. this is 320 million angry people they suddenly need to keep under control. good luck with that.
I’m surprised that he didn’t mention farming more. Since we are a wide nation rather that a lengthy nation plants work better
I agree. Just recently I was curious about this topic and searched which nation has the most arable land, basically mean land that has the potential to grow crops and be cultivated. The US has the most, and while Russia is almost twice the size of the US, they have 5,000,000 km2 or arable land to use.
US has the most farmland out of any country, thats why food is so cheap and big in the US. The US is the only place where poor people are fat
@@PleaseDoNotDoThis are you kidding the us has the most farmland
@@zakaryloreto6526 hahaha man you clearly have not come to Mexico
Jorge Garcia thats true I live right next to Mexico and your right, the ending was more of a joke than anything
Damn I can't even get first on my own video.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video!
FIRST COMMENT ON YOUR COMMENT
second comment on your comment GG BRO
Wendover Productions haha good one. Love your videos bro
no im first comment in this comment now
give me likes
Wendover Productions both Alaska and Hawaii aren’t mentioned in this video. Alaska is separated from Russia by as little as 3 miles. And Hawaii is isolated in the Pacific Ocean. I am actually surprised that a video about the geography of the USA only talks about the contiguous USA.
As an agronomist (unemployed), I am reminded that in relation to the United States:
1- Brazil has no part of its territory in temperate climate. The overwhelming majority of the American territory is temperate. It is the zonality. Except when there is a volcano, tropical lands tend to be poor. And poor lands give poor people; even more before they had fertilizers, which was the case of Brazil, for some centuries. No part of Brazil has highly fertile soils. Even in Brazil's area of reasonable soil fertility, this part of Brazil fits in the territory of neighboring Uruguay. While the United States has the largest area of high natural fertility soils in the world, partly because of the temperate climate and partly because of the super volcano, which is in the present Yellowstone Park and has released fertilizers throughout the American and Canadian territory there hundreds of thousands of years ago.
2- In a key natural resources, coal, the United States not only has coal in huge quantities, thing of hundreds of billions of tons, but also this coal is high quality and highly cheap and easy to exploit. Brazil has few mineral coal, which is poor in quality and difficult to exploit.
3 - In a third key natural resource, oil, Brazil only began to exploit oil 80 years after the United States and today, Brazil's land oil is lower than the oil produced in the United States of 1890.
That is, nature gave Americans and Brazilians:
1- Nature has given Americans the largest area of highly fertile soils in the world. For Brazilians, nature gave no area of highly fertile soils, and very few percent of regular fertility soils.
2-Nature has given Americans the largest and easiest and cheapest to exploit coal reserves in the world. To Brazilians, nature gave a low quality mineral coal, only in small reserves and over expensive and difficult extraction. Today, Brazil produces less coal annually than the United States produced in 1878.
3. Nature has given Americans vast oil reserves, which have been exploited since 1859. To Brazilians, land reserves of oil are only 2% of the original land-based oil reserves in the United States. And Brazil only found oil in 1939, 80 years after the Americans.
In short: God is not Brazilian. God is American.
The problem with Brazil's ambitions to become an agribusiness world leader is that the ONLY thing the country has in it's geographical favor for that dream is a large supply of land. Land and perhaps an all year round growing season depending how far north you go. Basically a very high quantity of very low quality farmland that you first have to convert from a landform that already has potentially high economic value if left in it's original state.
This is not the mark of a country that is destined to be some sort of world breadbasket. Maybe it's just that Brazil looks at all its other highly agriculturally productive South and central American neighbors and thinks "If these tiny countries are all so good at growing food, then imagine what our big gigantic superduperpower country could produce if we just got rid of that annoying green desert up north!" The problem as you mentioned is that Brazil is uniquely situated far from any source of volcanic nourishment.
But wouldn't it be great if there was a part of brazil that was much more fertile, closer to the equator, and isn't a world renowned nature hotspot that you have to commit an ecological holocaust on when you convert it to farmland? Oh yeah, the Caatinga. This is something that is seriously perplexing me as a non-brazilian. The Caatinga is the most fertile part of brazil after it's south, has an obviously all year growing season being right up north, and it's a lousy good for nothing desert that no "sovereignty defying" international environmental organization could ever give a damn about. Especially at the expense of the amazon rainforest, or even the Cerrado for that matter. The Caatinga even has it's own (and 100% Brazilian!) major river called the Sao Fransisco that could easily be used as a transportation corridor for agricultural product. Maybe you could help answer this because I'm genuinely curious, why isn't brazil focusing it's infrastructure plans on developing the Caatinga? Is there something that I'm missing or misused? If not, is Bolsonaro smart enough to realize this, or is he just a puppet for the ruralista who are only more interested in accumulating more wealth for themselves, economy or no economy?
Argentina has most of the same advantages as the US but is more comparable in development to Brazil. It's not solely geography.
not coal my friend. OIL. ever since obama unbanned fracking in 2015, since we had then developed the technology to drill oil in a safe manner... US is net energy exporter and doesn't need to rely on Middle Eastern oil supply.
@@ssssaa2 Argentina chose to not industrilize and reinvested agricultural earnings on science and infrastructure like the US did. US rich people invested and expanded, Argentine rich elite bought whole Parisian palaces and vacationed half year in Europe. They didn't care about infrastructure and development, they were already rich, let the British and French do what they want so they can export the production and pay and done.
We entered later industrialization, yet we were good. SKorea was a poor third world country when Argentina had higher GDP per capita than Germany in the 1950s, but we managed to just freeze in mediocrity.
Native american. Dont forget you stole that land.
It was easier to go on the Ohio river to the Mississippi river and go ALLL the way around Flordia and up the coast, just to get to New York.... That's mind blowing, makes some sense but mind blowing none the less.
Water travel and transport is 12-15 times less expensive than land. And that's if you already have the infrastructure in place. Otherwise its 50-100 times more expensive depending on terrain.
juscurious
And now with modern trucking and highways it costs almost nothing.
if they traveled by land, they'd have to cross a mountain range to get to New York
So I suppose similar factors led to Britain becoming a superpower in Europe thanks to the English channel? Pretty interesting.
Exactly
Jamie Cottrell
Yup, the English channel and Napoleon's continental system that ruined Amsterdam led to the U.K. being the first country to benefit and even spearhead the industrial revolution.
No wars spilling over into Britain and slow growth of the revolution into post-Napoleonic France.
Yeah remember when everyone kept invading and conquering Britain?
Dziadek I hate comments like this, the royal navy defended the UK not the channel
Without the chanel the navy would do nothing.
Wendover your channel is criminally underrated
maymay I wouldn't say that 750k subscribers is underrated
I wish my channel was as underrated as his
I wouldn't call a relatively recent channel that made 500K+ subscribers within a year "underrated"
Underrated? Search "brain4breakfast"
Maybe because the name isn't very good. It's not descriptive nor catchy.
Just to think, we almost bought Greenland and Iceland. That would be interesting
Then, for sure, they would have bought Canada too.
I wonder if US could buy Russia too...
I wonder if the U.S. could buy Alask- oh wait.
@@thore345 One of the main reasons the U.S. bought Alaska was because they thought that if they owned land above and below Canada that Britain would just give Canada to the U.S.
@@ryanovr8 - Russia feared that the UK would seize Alaska, so the Russians opted to sell it to the U.S.
Less than a minute in and Wendover dissed Canada :(
I love Canada! Just compared to the US their military is rather weak.
Canada Military Budget: $14.5 billion USD
US Military Budget: $600 billion USD
Lmao
But all those canadians trains that bring crops from the midwest!?
To be fair, "militarily weak" could describe any nation in the world when compared to America. As designed.
M SBC tru cuz I lived in the Great White North but you still have to admit our Trans Canada thingy is not even close to the network of Interstate highways in the.....well, states.
Arguments about the US's modern spending aside, can we all just agree this was an exceptionally well made and narrated video?
I've watched his videos for a long time and it seems every project gets better by leaps and bounds. Serious respect to Wendover.
Has an annoying and distractingly loud background music
Canadians hardly ever use that road through Western Ontario. It's faster to cross the border in Detroit, and either go through Michigan (Mackinac Bridge) or drive around lake Michigan through Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. But Canadians barely use that road.
What a genius move to use US roads. Less costs for maintenance for Canadian roads.
But would us let them is that road in a war scenario?
Thats the issue, they have to rely on a foreign power
Most of the Highways you would use are toll roads (at least if you want to get there faster than using the Trans Canada Highway).
Wait, but do Canadians hardly use that road or...?
Canada using US to solve their problem :(
what else is new
Basically:
The US has land that's like Europe's, but bigger and better.
TheLucidDreamer and they own the whole thing so they don’t have to worry about other people who also have that land
HeadCanon The United States belongs to the British throug war learn your history kid.
@@dasenya1761 the US doesn't belong to the British, I think you meant they USED to.
Strawberry Daily sorry for the misspelling i was really high that day .
@@dasenya1761 this is why you dont do drugs
Next Video: Why geography lead to the US having 75% of the worlds tornadoes
I’m dead serious ??? What
Wrong, UK has the most tornadoes, USA has the most severe tornados, UK has small tornadoes
@@haroldinho9930 Wrong. Canada even has more yearly than the UK lmao
@@xJohnny_Ax wrong! Saturn has the most!
@@takeurpills6024 Uranus has more!
The question is what would have happened to the Americas if Russia didn't sell Alaska and France didn't allow the Louisiana purchase?
What would have happened if France didn't ally with the colonies during the American Revolutionary War?
Bunny Warren The British would still be in control rather than "Americans"
Canada 2.0
Country would be called Louisiana
Masta Macca less oil. Bigger reason to invade Canada
Alaska would eventually become independent Russian state or part of the USSR and then become a state. Canada would be the same. There would be a French Republic in the Louisiana where industry was along the river near the ocean and the outer territories would be dominated by French speaking Plains Indians.
The US would basically be the eastern seaboard. Mexico would still own the southwest. Texas might have still gotten rebellious but it wouldn't annex the US because of the distance
Regarding the fall line: waterfalls and faster moving waters meant that any mill that used a water wheel would be more effective, so having access to these waters was a big benefit to the production of things like lumber, flour, and any other mill based commodity.
2:48 is SO visually satisfying
I bet France regrets selling the middle country now xD
France was broke from the wars Napoleon fought, so they NEEDED to sell it. It was a desperation sell.
Napoleon was planning on extending the empire by invading the americas (which is why France kept the Lousiana territory at first) but then the Haitian Revolution happened and that meant no more slaves to fund the invasion so I guess you can thanks Haiti.
How were they going to hold onto it though? I think it was inevitable.
D3C3n50r Napoleon needed money for the war against Britain so he sold the Louisiana purchase that big land plot to save troop mantaince that far and got money well only 15 million dollars you can buy 15 acers for that and Jefferson got half a continent
D3C3n50r It only did so because Toussaint L'Ouverture beat their invading army to bits
We basically got 2 massive oceans protecting us from foreign powers. We are also rich in resources. We're number one in economic power and in military.
Don’t forget mountains.
@@kokofan50 yeah we got a lot of those on the west coast.
@@comradepolarbear6920 and east coast dummy
And two massive mountain areas ln west and east sides enclosing the US like a protective barrier, lucky bastards USA is and a desert lol
Damn we won the lottery I feel kinda proud. 😂
A colony that became more powerful than its colonizer, and indeed the most powerful nation to have ever existed. Go USA
Aiden Teszke there very clearly is it’s the United States
Most powerful in history ? You can barely handle you’re own nation right now
@@IncrediibleHauck name a more powerful one? I'll wait
@@georgejr.7182 Powerful? Militarily? No, I cannot name one.
Better education? Germany.
Better effort per damaged caused to
opponent’s military? Sweden.
Better democracy? Sweden.
Better constitution? Sweden.
Better quality in manufacturing? Germany.
Better quantity in manufacturing? China.
Better prevention of murder? 65% of the world.
And another one, the USA “land of the free” has the largest wealth gap in the world, while you worship the flag and continues to insist you’re the best at everything, people are dying in hospitals with bills they can never afford tagged with their names on them and billionaires partying on yachts exploiting your people.
Doing nothing about the problem and insisting there isn’t one, watching Lady Freedom Land die is your definition of patriotism?
@@saechiru6750 Cherry picked things for what other countries are good at does not mean those other countries are greater.
Literally every other country in this series ""geography problem""
And America ""geography power""
Omg
Yes
America really does have the most optimal geography for a Western European Civilisation. It has all the climate types successful European countries have but over a larger land area and it has every climate type and therefore natural resource it needs within its borders. It's also the world's third-largest country with two geographically distinct ocean coastlines. It occupies the widest stretch of the Americas that's in the temperate latitudes, meaning it has the most fertile farmland in the entire Western Hemisphere. No other country has the geography and therefore power to challenge it within its own continent. Today, only China is large enough to challenge the US as a global superpower. No one else even comes close to these two, and these two have very similar geography.
Well their is a reason why the US became so powerful
@@TheLucidDreamer12 Yes, but China is fractured by geography and it has literally no oil.
@@TheLucidDreamer12 What do you mean Western European Civilisation? That can be said about entire Americas, the latin Americans are more European than us. The Only country we were really influenced by was Britain and I'm not sure if they even consider themselves Europeans let alone a "Western European civilisation"
American Colonists actually tried and did expand somewhat westward, but were prevented from proper expansion by the British, on account of their preexisting treaties with tribes and the French. American merchants wanted to speculate on western expansions and were furious at British prevention. It was actually a pretty fundamental reason for the revolution. It's a bit laughable to suggest there wasn't incentive.
“America became one of the biggest destinations of the Atlantic slave trade.”
This literally could not be more incorrect. The British colonies/US accounted for a whopping 4.4% of slave imports from 1650 - 1860. 4%. Brazil alone claimed 35% of all slaves. The Caribbean basically claims the remaining 60%.
People associate the US with slavery because we brought its horror to the worlds attention - not because we were the most brutal offenders. The fact that the US has such a massive slave-descended black population is a testament to the relative flourishing of blacks in America - not an indictment against it!
Also America did not accept new slaves from Africa and relied on only home grown. That's why the Slaves of the Amistad mutiny, (July 2, 1839) were released and sent back to Africa.
Also kidnapping free slaves from the north to sell was common.
Not to mention, America was the only country that fought itself to end slavery. Even Haiti conducted slaver after overthrowing the French.
@juscurious slavery is not humane.
@@jamescollins9569 Be historical. Don't think 2019 when discussing 400, 300, 200 years ago. Though I'm sure we all agree with you, @Juscurious is accurate in his statement. The English colonies in North America took in far less slaves than their Spanish, and French counter parts, but overall the Portuguese and the English took the most slaves from Africa. Of the 10,700,00 slaves who were brought to the New World 400,000 came to what would become the United States. Look at what the French did to their slaves. For them it was more economical to let them die and import more from Africa. In the US there was an effort to keep your chattel alive, healthy and to breed more (yeah it sounds awful and it is) than to simply let them die. So by comparison the Colonial/US slave owners were more "humane" it is also important to note that many Northern States had abolished slavery before 1800. England was 1833, France 1848, Spain 1811 (last slave owning territory was Cuba in 1886) Brazil 1888, and more recently Saudi Arabia and Yemen 1962, and Mauritania 1988 and in Mauritania it's still practiced openly.
Yeah came looking for a comment like this shame it doesn't have more likes
It would take one hell of a fuck up to counteract this massive advantage
US: "Hold my beer..."
Tiger TV so are conservatives we're all fucking it up
lol
[Yoshikage_Kira] well with the technological advancement is getting easier since the cold War the US has a real threat to its existence the weapons capable to cross the ocean
Like invading Canada, eyyy
The river map forgot the Mohawk river. That river was the foundation of the Erie Canal. The canal helped make Chicago, Buffalo, Clevland, etc.. powerful
A 100% positive video with a comment section containing 100% negative comments.
Just like most of CZcams
Then sir you haven't met real Americans...
Fuck this American propaganda. Of course China and Russia have problems but the US is perfect, complete biased bullshit.
Purple Turtle nah, pretty sure it’s just people from other countries hating on America for no discernible reason, like usual.
Reid Vaughan-Williams everything in this video is factual. China does have problems because of how much of a shitshow the South China Sea is, but Wendover also praised China’s handling of Tibet and how they’ve utilized it, as well as their extremely powerful seaports like Shanghai. He didn’t just criticize them dude.
I've been watching you for a long while. Just want to say that I really enjoy your videos, and I think your success is very much deserved!
I agree, his success is 100% deserved!
I watched your videos about the geography of russia ,China and usa . It made me have interest in geography. Thanks for explaining to us how geography can influence a country 's progress and pose challenges for it.
I will surely recommend your channel to my friends.
Instead of watching the video, I’m getting involved in the drama in the comment section.
The people are what make America great
I didn't even notice there was music playing until I scrolled down, calm your shit people
"you can devote more time to education"
- Yeah I can see that
Yeah they did spend more on Research, development and education. No wonder its the land where such great things like the internet were invented. Now education is loosing its importance though, sadly.
@@meanmachine2003 "now education is losing its importance"
Where the hell do you live? 💀
@@meanmachine2003 considering America still has the best universities, yeah I don't see how education is losing its importance
Because of America's blessed geography it can choose how isolated or engaged it wants to be with the rest of the world, on her own terms. No other nations can afford that luxury. If you look at the world map, United States is situated in the centre - between Asia and Europe. It's the true Middle Empire so to speak.
A United African state can have that as well. Africa has even better geographical advantage as well.
@@indridcole7596 but africa does not have as much farmable land. that's their biggest geographical disadvantage.
@@diakounknown1225 were did you read that at?
the US is in the middle only in maps made by Americans. in the rest of the world. Africa/Europe is in the middle.
@@Chad.Commenter Not really. Think harder.
The little kid inside me screams in joy whenever Wendover Productions uploads. Keep up the great work.
"They are bordered to the north and south by militarily weak nations." Rest in Peace well trained Canadian and Mexican soldiers.
Canadian here. We have some of the best marksman and pilots in the world, but no matter how well trained our soldiers are the US would rock both Canada and Mexico at the same time in full scale war. Assuming allies wouldn't be involved in this scenario our only chance would be to salt the earth and retreat further north hopefully deterring any more conflict.
Canada is a close ally of the US, and a shield against possible Russian nuclear attacks. Natural decision is to deploy anti-missile shield in this zone, provided that Russia becomes more and more hostile, pushing NATO into the second Cold War
@concernedamerican forsure completely agreed, was mainly stating a hypothetical war scenario.
Just a fact that Canada and US are allies and no one want that friendship to be broken , actually We can never , US - Canada forever and also we have no reason to imagine such situation of conflict , we respect and we represent democratic sovereign countries so Chill out.
Canada and the US might be the friendliest neighbors in history. So little conflict during a time when the world was trying its best to dominate its neighbors.
“ITS OVER CHINA, WE HAVE THE HIGH GROUND!”
China: You underestimate my power!!
🤣🤣 exactly
AMERICA has the GEOGRAPHY while CHINA has their PEOPLE. The question on who wins during these era is clear. Geography doesn’t matter anymore when the World becomes a tangled mess.
@@Cucumberick Geography still matters a lot... European countries have been in war without each other for so long because of how close they are. Have you ever heard a war in any other continent? No... I do agree with your point. USA has better Geography, but China has been around for FAAARRR longer. 2000-4500 years
Alex Mercer China has great geography but they don’t have natural protection like the US does. Unlike the US, China is surrounded by regional superpowers like India,Russia and to a lesser extent Japan and Korea. So while China does have amazing geography, their geography is also their curse
Nice and informative video.
You forgot to tell that Alaska was under Russian control and Tuscon area was under Mexican control. Both strategic areas were intelligently purchased by The USA
Gadsden Purchase wasn’t that intelligent it was purchased by a South dominated Congress that wanted to use the flat desert area south of the Rockies (the Gadsden area) to put the Transcontinental Railroad so it started in the South rather than in the North where they were already building it. The Railroad finished elsewhere and the terrain of the Gadsden purchase proved ineffective to develop until just recently. Kinda dumb purchase, and extremely weird to have an unpatrolable land on your southern border. But yeah Alaska was a steal of a deal
JoJo2TheGoGo well I think it still produces natural resources like copper.
@@dmeads5663 But the rest of the US already produces so much of that. The pre-Gadsen borders were much more defensible for both countries.
Jeff Benton well it’s not like we have to worry about defending our southern border from a Mexican invasion.
Alaska was sold willingly by Russian and Mexico was stolen
It seems a lot of these same advantages would apply to Australia as well. I guess climate and arable land would be a big difference.
Australia doesn't have the same amount of natural resources or inhabitable land, so there's really no comparison
luuchoo G Nevada is built on a desert I don't see the issue
Ben Paulsen not all countries have the capacity to build huge cities (Las Vegas, Dubai) in deserts. You need a large source of water, and a multimillion investment in infrastructure to allow the water to travel thousands of miles. That's a city, not a whole country...
yes, most of the US. is arable and producing land, while australia has a lot of desert, also a low popuation for a long time.
luuchoo G Only 18% of Australia is desert, but 35% don't receive enough rainfall to naturally sustain life. So it's hardly a whole country that needs to be sustained.
I am a simple man, i see new Wendover Productions video, i watch
OMG! THAT WAS THE MOST ORIGINAL COMMENT
The Infamous Pringle Association nice joke
Mr. Kebab ii
Mr. Kebab correct you're a simpleton
USA 🇺🇸 sea to shining sea 🌊
soo we just gonna ignore the fact that half of america was stolen from mexico?
bkeelin As a Mexican who lives in the states, I'm pretty happy this land (Texas) is part of the U.S. and not Mexico.
sounds like youre a sell out trump building that wall too
bkeelin Why so hostile? Mexico lost the Mexican-American war and the US even paid for that land
Okay it seems your knowledge of the war is pretty basic. It’ll be more like you taking my shoelace, me wanting to fight you in retaliation, _then_ you taking my shoes after my defeat with throwing me some change.
Also, no it isn’t stealing and I wouldn’t call you a sell-out Nike fan supporting child labor in east Asia afterward
8:30 its almost like our highway system was designed to allow easy movement of soldiers and equipment...
It was. That's why Eisenhower supported such a questionable expansion of federal responsibility. The auto companies were involved in that as well.
The US landscape is like the best RTS map ever created. Plenty of gold, iron, wood and farmland
>That Canada part
"Follow the only rooaad"
Get ready for all the Anti-American comments.
@ shane tennyson you cant handle the truth your country sucks must be a shithole :D
The USA is what happens when you take Britain's Island diplomacy, stretch it over a continent, and also have no continent where there are significant powers to have a tie to the continental diplomacy. This is a position that will be largely untouched for likely hundreds of years more. The challenge will be whether or not it can continue its power projection as time moves on.
Louisiana Purchase: $250 million
Neymar: $213 Million/ €222
Just pointing this out
Hungry Gamer the fuck lmaooo
Neymar is worth more than the Louisiana Purchase though, I know I'd rather go see him play than visit any of the flyover states XD
dernwine SD is a fun state.
Another professional, high quality, fascinating and amazing Wendover Productions video. Good job.
I love the geography videos! Maybe do one about how geographically amazing the Great Lakes region of the US is?
Not to mention that we started out with the greatest document in all of history- the US constitution (including amendments)
God bless America! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
7:30
so..
mexico = too hot
canada = too cold
usa = perfect inbetween
USA: "Canada it's free real estate."
Canada? LOL Pfft thats inferior land compared to USA
Brain4breakfast- america is on easy mode
What u want?
Australia on the other hand...
You forgot about the St Lawrence river that has Montreal and Quebec City and it connects to the Great lakes which has Toronto.
canada’s most important waterways also being shared with the US... yea usa is too op
I really want to move to America when I'm older or even study there when I'm 18
Jaden Aaron Brown 12 I wish
You luck and enjoy.
Were you from?
Yeah right on!
Do good research on the schools before you go. Some of them are not so good and others are outright corrupt. Tricky thing about the US is that we possibly have some of the worst universities in the world and some of the best. They all claim the ladder though.
Make sure to save LOTS of money. Our college prices puts a large amount of debt on a person's shoulders. Other than that I hope your dream comes true, never stop chasing them. And once you become successful with that college education the debt will go away.
For anyone asking. Connecticut has no giant port city at the mouth of its river (Old Saybrook) because the river is too shallow for large cargo ships.
This is absolutly fantastic, subscribing.
I'm Korean Chinese Christian.May God Bless America.I thanks America.
The United States does have one small weakness in its geography: the Caribbean. While the nations of the Caribbean aren't exactly strong, it's full of small islands well suited for naval bases, or, more importantly, air strips. If a powerful nation with modern technology took over some of those islands, they could threaten most of the United States with bombing raids or nuclear weapons. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? The U.S. even did something similar against Japan in World War II. We never invaded the Japanese mainland, we just crippled their navy, took over the surrounding islands, built air strips on them and bombed the island into rubble.
Like I said, it's not a huge weakness, the U.S. does have a very powerful navy and airforce, and much more production, but it's still a potential one, which is probably why the U.S. has such a history of meddling in the Caribbean and making sure the governments there aren't a threat to the United States.
Can someone explain why Canada got a bit of the Louisiana land? It's been bothering me for a while now because USA bought the entire area but Canada/Britain got a sliver of it in the far north
They just agreed on the 49th parallel line in Britain ,US border negotiations back then to simplify things in the mid and far west.
We did not manifest destiny so much as destiny manifested what we were destined to manifest.
Commenting just so I can read this quote over and over again
We have no idea how blessed we are as Americans! God bless America!
Americans think they are way luckier than they are. Europeans travel to America and think how lucky they are not to live there
Peter Franklin how exactly do you come with that conclusion. I’m curious. Do you not believe that America is a great country?
@@ernestogeorgi2357 No, they are so far behind in quality of life.
Ernesto Georgi Go mind your chaos hurricanes, "God Bless America!" Sure God will bless your land with hurricanes.
OMG, Americans are so full of themselves!
To be fair, there only needs to be one highway crossing Canada. Since all but one of the major cities are actually located along that road.
my favorite country ❤ i hope to move there soon
Good luck, I hope you can do it :)
@@karenwang313 thank u so much 💕
Good luck!!! Do you have an idea what city or state you would like to move to?
@@allisonslone402 thank you ❤ yes! i love california, los angeles
@@allisonslone402 awesome!! i love there 😍
I love this country.
Great video. You forgot one large reason why geography helped America to rise to power: natural resources in the borders.
While Europe was industrializing, they had to colonize abroad. They chose to cut up Africa. However, Africa is home to disease, bad terrain, and resistant local populations. Thus, it was costly for Europeans to industrialize.
America? All they needed to do to gain natural resources is to march west through some of the best farmland in the world. Right at their doorstep was enormous wealth guarded by decimated native populations. The United States was the only country that was industrializing early that could also feed the industrialization. Why? Geography.
It wasn't _quite_ that simple. The U.S. has rich coal deposits but those were actually pretty far from our industrial core at the time, which was New England. The U.S. was able to connect its resources to its population centers by means of railroads and canals, which wouldn't have been possible without an already strong market economy, a large tax base, and a VERY large number of professional engineers (the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was the world's first polytechnic university). Human capital is an underrated part of what makes the U.S. so prodigiously wealthy, and that comes from tradition and education more than geography.
and they also has to wipe out an entire culture and people(native americans)
I was hoping for an “America’s Geography Problem” video. Got the exact opposite.
Not disappointed
Well now lets not get a stick up our butt here...
*starts descending down the sewer pipe*
There's gotta be a problem here somewhere.
Wendover Productions, you could also talk why Brazil, despite it amazing location geographically speaking, still couldn't offer any real threat to USA.
PS: Also do a Brazil problens please, I would be eager to hear what you have to say about.
You might be interested in a channel called Caspian Report. I can't remember if he has anything on Brazil, but he does that kind of thing for many countries and has hundreds of videos now.
You left out the Gadsden purchase. Interesting note as it is about...geography
If you think of it, US is in the "goldilocks zone" of North America. Canada is too cold and Mexico is too hot. USA is in the direct middle of both
New England was like “Stop...maritime.”
If anyone ever played Sidmeir's Civilization Geography has a big impact on how you win the game especially on where your capital is.
8:10
South Park made a joke about this in one of their episodes, and at the time, I thought it was just a silly joke at Canada’s expense. How more hilarious that episode has just become to me
to the east:Japan(3rd largest economy and 3rd powerful navy)
to the west: India(1.2billion ppl and 4th powerful military)
to the north: Russia(2nd powerful military)
to the south: Vietnam(u know, the vietnam war)
guess what country it is?
One with lots of rivals.
China?
china?
Here before its trending
This is taking shortcuts with history. At the time of the Louisiana purchase, Napoleon was fighting a slave rebellion in Haiti and realized (correctly) that the US would start a war over the territory if it were not sold to them from France, which was exactly what happened to Mexico later. Thus Napoleon sold on good terms.
The treaty negotiator was actually surprised when they offered to sell the whole territory. He had only been instructed to buy the city of New Orleans, and the State Department was willing to buy it for $10 million. $15 million for the whole Mississippi River system was such a steal that he put on his best poker face and made them that offer on his own initiative.
Wrong, Napoleon sold it because he needed money and didn’t want it anymore not becuase of US fear of invasion
Loving your channel!!! Just wondering, could you do a video about affirmative action and discuss the benefits and disadvantages of this system?
Once you’ve been shown how warped the mercator projection you can’t unsee it.
Huh? People cant even talk people cant even fucking talk bro, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING????! English Nigga DO U SPEAK IT!?
MURRIICAAAAAA
Fuck yea!!
Pat Bateman The hell is Murricaa? sounds derogatory...
Nunya Bizness its from the team america theme song:
czcams.com/video/tX5ZRE26YWM/video.html
FUCK WENDOVER PRODUCTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pat Bateman huh?...hmmm, based on a character from a book (a non-American invention), or the film directed by a Canadian, using the English language. Patrick - an Irish name, Bateman - an English name, played by Christian Bale - born English, grew up in Wales. MURRRICA......yay. ;)
You are factually incorrect. Only ~3% of slaves went to the American colonies, while most went to South America. #TheMoreYouKnow
@Angel S It bears mentioning, because there's a LOT of political opportunists trying to make slavery a definitively American thing as part of a bigger critique of capitalism. Edward E. Baptist's book is one of them, and the 1619 Project is another.
Especially during the Cold War, and since then, the 7.3 million dollars spent to purchase Alaska from Russia (irony alert) shortly after the Civil War was not such a bad idea either. Huge mineral resources, and, in effect, a huge forward operating base for the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force.
What most don't realize that Alaska was a U.S. Army District from the date of purchase to the date that it became a U.S. territory in 1912 - about 40 years.
Could you please make a video about Spain's geography? I think it could bring up some curious topics, just saying, as someone who's studied the history of said country
Perfect geography,a ton of natural resources and arable land...
When you start on a large island in civilization by yourself.
This is the best history lesson ever.
Atlanic Ocean: She protecc
Pacific Ocean: She attacc
But most important of all, she made USA the best.
I look up "united states geography problem" and this pops up! Hahaha
Thank you so much! I've learned so much from your channel!
New England Colonies - ports, shipping and manufacturing
Middle Colonies - breadbasket colonies
Southern Colonies - Tobacco cultivation and slavery
Louisiana purchase
Dred Scott SC case
Western expansion
1848 Oregon territory
Mexican American War
APUSH PTSD Flashbacks 😬😬😬
ptsd? that class was easy as shit, so was the exam
@@PeterParker-yg6fc the class was no more advanced than regular history, however the workload in APUSH was easily double. Meaning if you had 2 preps, no sports, and no other honors or AP classes, APUSH was easy. But if you were taking multiple honors classes, had only 1 prep or less, and had APUSH as the first class in the morning, and you had a teacher who eliminated 50% credit from any homework or assignment if it wasn't ready when you walked in the door and eliminated 80% if it was late by a day, (like me) than you were swimming in homework and essay assignment. APUSH was hard due to quantity, not quality.
The APUSH final (the one given in the classroom) was easy.
The AP exam, while nowhere near as hard as ones like AP CALC, was difficult if you did not extensively study and take notes on early colonial America and the Guilded age period (from the 1870s after the reconstruction era to around 1900 before Theodore Roosevelt and the progressive era) since they made up around 60-80% of the multiple choice questions and almost all of the DBQ and LEQ questions when I took it (in 2018).
And since 1870s-1900 was relatively uneventful and (in my opinion) less significant in American history compared to the other periods of times studied, most people were least prepared for all the questions about that time period. Yes I understand there were still significant events and changes such as the urbanization and industrialization, the rise of monopolies and populists. Those parts were reviewed by everyone when getting ready for the exam. But whereas questions about events, movements, and people from other times were primarily asking about their significance, their causes, their motives, etc, most of the questions about things from 1870s-1900 were just a name game - e.g. if you didn't memorize every name of anyone mentioned during that period and the exact date when events happened or a law was passed (not 1887 or 1889 but 1888) you weren't going to do so well.
#1 Country in the world.