Here's my five:

1. Instigated the United Nations
2. Polio cure
3. Televison
4. Foreign aid to impoverished countries
5. Internet


Your thoughts?

 

1. Great coporations such as Google were created

2. Medical research in areas such as cancer research

3. Super books written by new authors

4. Wonderful movies produced

5. Awsome broadway shows

 

1. Helping to end WW1
2. Lend lease act
3. Entering WW2 on the side of the allies and destroying Nazism.
4. Amy Lee (lead singer of Evanescence)
5. Jessica alba

ok the last two were a bit tongue in ...... but the first three were biggies.

 

You can't.

However, and some of these might not be exactly within the last 100 years on the dot but are very close

Perfected the 20th Century train thanks to innovators like Philadelphia's own Matthias Baldwin
Perfected flight thanks to innovators like Pan-Am and Howard Hughes, as well as inventing long-distance passenger flight
Foremost innovator of space flight and many aspects dealing with the study and exploration of space since the 1960s
Serving as a place for people living under oppressive regimes to find personal freedom and the freedom to find themselves and express themselves in whatever way they please
Hollywood and the movie industry, the foremost music industry in the world, and the invention of rock n roll, R&B, hip hop music and culture, and jazz to name a few, as well as the spread of many local US cultures to the world

Yes of course we could mention many other things but I think these are probably the biggest due to the impact they've had all over the world.

 

Lucky Strike cigarettes.

 

Putting a man on the moon is head and shoulders above the rest.. It is probably the greatest achievement of mankind.

 

Oh yeah, why? How has it improved the lives of people?

But then again I don't get the big deal about climbing mountains or sailing around the world by yourself. Just seems like a bunch of glory seeking wankers to me, and the mission to the moon would be the national equivalent.

 

The space race inspired a whole generation of scientists, engineers and innovators, it is those people that pushed boundaries of technology. It led to the country being the worlds leading nation for science and technology, which brought academics from across the world to come and study here. The motive behind the space race may have been war, but the outcome has been profound.

There are a whole bunch of NASA bi-products, there is also the leading frontier of exploration, but the inspiration instilled in the nation is practically immeasurable.

 

I'd like to see the hard evidence before I accepted all this as more than a patriotic anecdote. What if the money spent on the space race had been spent on medical research or power generation research? Would there not have been even more to gain by this?

 

1.Ford/GM,automobiles for the masses
2.entering WW1/WW2,using the considerable resources and manpower to overthrow tyranny
3.jazz/rock'n'roll/television,entertainment for the world
4.Boeing/Mc Donnell Douglas,fast national/international travel
5.John F. Kennedy,greatest president of the 20th century

and the bad...

1.the nuclear bomb and near nuclear war of Oct.1962
2.allowing corporations/special interests to determine policy/multibillion dollar corporations not paying their fair share of taxes
3.Iraq/Afghanistan,completely unecessary wars costing young American lives and draining the national coffers
4.Slavery/Jim Crow
5.George Bush/Jim Cheney/Karl Rove and their ilk,a puppet and deceiver in the highest seat in the land.not going to war with the real culprits of 9/11,Saudi Arabia because they have so much oil and the Bush family is deeply involved with the Saudi Royal Family.all of them common criminals immune from justice.

 

1> Given that the USA refused to join the League of Nations and was chiefly responsible for its eventual failure, I'm not sure how much credit is due, just for realising they fucked up the first time around.

3> Television was invented by a Scot, in 1926.

 

1.) Wasn't the League of Nations kind of a joke compared to the UN though?

 

We contributed to the defeat of the Axis powers during World War II.

We pioneered the use and development of the computer.



Give me time, and I might be able to think of three more.

 

My list, very abstract -- but genuinely felt:

1. Created the first representative democracy in the world, based on one of the most revolutionary political manifestos ever produced -- that is, the Declaration of Independence.

2. Introduced the inheritance tax, which has limited the ability to create a permanent aristocracy in this country and introduced a mechanism for 'creative destruction' that has allowed more people to become millionaires and billionaires than in any other country in the world.

3. Created an amazingly free economic climate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that allowed the production of such important industries as movie making, high-tech, and biotechnology.

4. Approved use of The Pill, which redefined sex practices and sexuality in America and is still having an impact.

5. Through numerous Supreme Court decisions continued to insist upon the separation of church and state, thus denying one group power over any others -- if only the rest of the world could adopt this live and let live point of view!

 

It is sad that people need to "reach" just to find 5 examples.

I will give you 325:

Nobel Prize for Chemistry ... 62 awards
Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences ... 49 awards
Nobel Prize for Literature ... 11 awards
Nobel prize for Peace ... 21 awards
Nobel Prize for Physics ... 87 awards
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine ... 95 awards.

http://www.jinfo.org/US_Nobel_Prizes.html

 

I honestly don't think enough people in the US even know or understand all of the things our country has given to the world.

 

Considering that those 325 awards probably translate into 325 thousand (or even million) good things as an indirect result ... I tend to agree with your statement.

The USA is one of a few countries in the world that you can love and hate at the same time.

 

"given" ???

Would it not be more honest to say developed for it's own interests and then sold at a premium to the rest of the world for profit?

Not that I'm slating the US, that's just the nature of capitalism, which I wouldn't swap for anything else.

It just seems a bit over-patriotic or possibly even self-righteous to say the US has "given" all these things to the world.

 

Nope

The majority of the things that the US has given to the world have nothing to do with capitalism. The many local cultures and everything that has come from them had absolutely nothing to do with capitalism, for instance.

 

OK, so interference in middle east affairs has nothing to do with capitalism? US foreign policy has nothing to do with capitalist interests? Grow up and smell the Starbucks coffee!