In case you hadn't noticed,
the United States
is a really weird place. Not that "weird" is always bad.
Sometimes "weird" can keep life interesting. But without a
doubt, the United States
is one of the most unique nations in the history of the world. Some of
the weird facts about the United
States listed below may be difficult for you
to believe. Others are likely to completely shock you. Hopefully
there is a little something for everyone in this article, and hopefully you
will learn some new things from reading it. I know that I certainly
learned some new things as I wrote it. In general, everything tends to be
larger in America.
The people are larger, the cars are larger, the divorce rate is the highest on
the planet and the U.S.
government has piled up the largest debt in the history of the world.
Whether America
does something good or bad, it usually does it in a very "big"
way. It is easy to love the United States and all the good that
it has done, but it is also easy to be horrified by how far this nation has
fallen and by the direction that this country is currently headed. So
where does America
go from here? That is a very good question.
The following are 40 weird facts
about the United States that are almost too crazy to believe....
#1 The highest point
in the state of Florida
is only 345 feet (115 yards) above sea level.
#2 Today, 66 percent of all Americans are
considered to be overweight.
#3 The state of Alaska is 429 times larger than the state of
Rhode Island
is. But Rhode Island has a significantly larger
population than Alaska
does.
#4 The average
supermarket in the United
States wastes about 3,000 pounds of food each year.
#5 Approximately 48 percent of all Americans are
currently either considered to be "low income" or are living in
poverty.
#6 Alaska
has a longer coastline than all of the other 49 U.S. states put
together.
#7 In the UK, an average of about $3,500 is
spent on healthcare per person each year. In the United States,
an average of about $8,500 is spent on healthcare
per person each year.
#8 Montana
has three times as many cows as it does people.
#9 The average U.S. citizen
drinks the equivalent of more than 600 sodas each year.
#10 The only place in
the United States where
coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaii.
#11 The United States has 845 motor vehicles for every 1,000 people. Japan only has 593 for every 1,000 people and Germany only
has 540 for every 1,000 people.
#12 The grizzly bear
is the official state animal of California.
But no grizzly bears have been seen there since 1922.
#13 For many years it was the other way
around, but today a majority of all Americans (including Pat Robertson)
actually support the legalization of marijuana.
#14 Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president
to have been born in a hospital.
#15 In the middle of the last century, the United States
was #1 in the world in GDP per capita. Today,
the United States
is #13 in GDP per capita.
#16 Today,
approximately 25 million American adults are living
with their parents.
#17 One survey found
that 25 percent of all employees that
have Internet access in the United
States visit pornography websites while they are at work.
#18 In 2011, our
trade deficit with China
was more than 49,000 times larger than it was
back in 1985.
#19 One out of every
seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
#20 The city of Juneau, Alaska
is about 3,000 square miles large. It is actually
bigger than the entire state of Delaware.
#21 The United States puts a higher
percentage of its population in prison than any other
nation on earth does.
#22 There are more
unemployed workers in the United States
than there are people living in the entire nation of
Greece.
#23 The original name
of the city of Atlanta
was "Terminus".
#24 Sadly, more than 52 percent of all children that live
in Cleveland, Ohio are living in poverty.
#25 The median price
of a home in the city of Detroit
is now about $6000.
#26 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States
had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States
have jobs.
#27 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
#28 According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, approximately 167,000
Americans have more than $200,000 of student loan
debt.
#29 There are three
towns in the United States that have the name "Santa Claus".
#30 There are 313
million people living in the United States. 46 million of
them are on food stamps.
#31 In the United States as a whole, one out of every four
children is on food stamps.
#32 In 1940, 68.0% of
all women in the 20 to 34 year old age group in the United States were married.
In 2010, only 39.2% of women in that age group
were married.
#33 The United States has a teen pregnancy
rate of 22 percent - the highest in the
world. New Zealand
is number two at 14 percent.
#34 According to the CDC,
there are 19 million new cases of syphilis,
gonorrhea and chlamydia in the United States
every single year.
#35 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the
globe by a wide margin. Puerto Rico is
number two. Perhaps Puerto Rico really
would fit in as the 51st state.
#36 More people have
been diagnosed with mental disorders in the United States
than in any other nation on earth.
#37 The United States has more government debt
per capita than Greece, Portugal,
Italy, Ireland or Spain.
#38 If Bill Gates
gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S.
government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.
#39 The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger
than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.
#40 It took from the
founding of the nation until 1981 for the U.S. national debt to cross the one
trillion dollar mark. Today, our national debt is well over 15 trillion
dollars and we add more than a trillion dollars to our debt every single year.
Do you have any other weird facts
that you think should be added to this list? Please feel free to leave a
comment with your feedback below....
