You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
19 points

On that last point, George Washington is still considered the most popular president of the USA. In his own time he would come to cities and people (all of them) would swarm the streets. When the Constitution was signed Washington was in retirement, but the writers of the Constitution assumed Washington would be the first President. There were roughly 8 candidates running for the position, Washington wasn’t one of them, and when Washington announced he would come out of retirement the other candidates dropped out of the running. Washington won the first election unanimously.

A lot of Europeans don’t realize this, but the Constitution wasn’t the first government of the new USA. First there was the Articles of Confederation which went from 1777-1789 so Washington had been gone for quite some time and was still so popular.

It’s not at all surprising that it’s one of the most popular landmark names in the US (street and city names).

Some other popular names include Lafayette, MLK, Lincoln, and Jackson, Jefferson, and Madison.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Similar to the names Elizabeth and Victoria in the UK. The first being mostly named after Elizabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII) and the second being Queen Vic. Although we don’t tend to name towns after people since most of our town names stretch back to Roman/Saxon/Celtic/Norman times. But train stations, schools, pubs, etc commonly incorporate these names.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

The confederation of states is the American version of people in Russia who think the USSR still exists. They go around trying to act like the Articles of Confederation still exist.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I’m not sure how you got onto this point, but you’re referring to Sovereign Citizens and they’re mostly crazy ultra libertarians.

I wasn’t trying to make the point you brought out, I was simply saying that 12 years had passed with Washington being in relative retirement and he was still the most popular man in the country. Many Europeans might think that the US Constitution was right after the Revolutionary War and thus Washington went straight from General to President.

permalink
report
parent
reply

memes

!memes@lemmy.world

Create post

Community rules

1. Be civil

No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politics

This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent reposts

Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No bots

No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads

No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

Community stats

  • 13K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.1K

    Posts

  • 95K

    Comments