People Count
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History July 28 - August 3.
It’s funny when you begin a country basically from scratch. You need to know how many citizens you have. And since the House of Representatives was created in the Constitution, and the number of people determines that legislative body, you'd best be getting out there to determine how many of us are there.
The first U.S. census was taken on August 2, 1790. It took nine months to complete, and the record was published a year later, showing a population of 3,929,214 people.
All males 16 years old and older were counted, which meant you were old enough to work the farm, fight the war, and be blamed for all the problems within the colonies. They asked many questions about how many white people lived in the house, and the last question was how many slaves did you own, which shows you how America wanted to quantify racism right from the beginning.
Congress had to pass a special law to get Rhode Island on the books since it took the OKH 48th-ranked state forever to ratify the Constitution.
The census included territories that would eventually become states, like Kentucky and the District of Maine.
The United States was a relatively small country. Great Britain had about 10 million, and Spain had 12 million. France had roughly 35 million, and China was already outpacing everyone with 300 million people. Scholars in this area of work estimate that the world’s population was around 800 million.
Today, there are over 8 billion people on Earth, and the United States has grown to 336 million. That’s a 10-fold increase in the world population since 1790! The United States was less than a percentage of the world during the first census; now, we make up 4%.
That’s all the math for me today!
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
1. President Johnson signed Medicare into law on July 30, 1965. The federal program provides medical care to people over 65 and younger with disabilities. Roughly 67 million people are covered. Remember, we have 902 billioniares in this country, but somehow, it’s 67-year-old Nancy from Roanoke, Virginia, who is messing everything up.
2. James Hoffa was reported missing on July 30, 1975. They have yet to find the body of the former Teamsters Union president who clashed with the Mob and the federal government. Some suggest that he is buried under Giants Stadium. But is it the old one, or the new one? It’s all confusing because it’s New Jersey, where they pump your gas. Jimmy was 65, which made him eligible for Medicare.
3. The Other President Johnson died on July 31, 1875. The 17th and low OKH-ranked president was the guy who didn’t want all three Reconstruction Amendments passed and kept the presidency by one vote during the impeachment trial. He suffered a stroke, refused treatment, and died at 66. They wrapped him in the American Flag and placed a copy of the Constitution under his head. Weird.
I’m flying back from London today. Anonymous will stay an additional two weeks overseas. I guess a lot of spying needs to be done at the moment.
It was a fun trip! We were fortunate to visit the US Embassy. It’s a massive building, and in the basement, there is a long hallway with portraits of past American Ambassadors to Great Britain.
There’s Joseph Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy Clan. I recognized a few others, like Charles Dawes, who became ambassador after four rocky years as President Coolidge’s vice president. One guy insisted his wife be included, so they created a picture of her on his desk, which looks hilariously stupid (I did not take a picture of it).
We were visiting friends who live in London. Anonymous’s favorite band, Oasis, is back on tour, their first since 2009. About a million people packed into Wembley Stadium in London to watch two hours of rock.
It was a great concert. Lots of people were wearing bucket hats. I had to laugh at Liam Gallagher, who looked like the villain from the original movie " I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
One last note. We ran into my brother and sister-in-law as well! Earlier in the week, my Mom mentioned that my older brother was leaving for London in a few hours. Grateful for the chance to meet up and take a picture. It’s one of those situations where we live about an hour away, but see each other when we cross the Atlantic.
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Have a great week. On Friday, I’ll share a very personal Even More Okay essay. See you then!
Okay,
Chris
