How did the America we know today come to be?
An exciting historical and cultural journey through the 50 states of the United States!

* Which state in the United States has the largest white population?
* Where did the people of Roanoke, the first colony, disappear to?
* California was the name of an island that appeared in a Spanish novel.
* How did Mexico lose Texas?
* Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan… Why are there so many place names in the US that start with ‘mi’?
* Was Alaska really a useless land?
* Why did the United States annex Hawaii as its territory?

This book provides a glimpse into American history through the names of the 50 states and cities.
Place names contain the stories and history of the people who built that region.
The British who came in search of religious freedom, the French who settled in Canada, the Spanish who first established colonies, and even the indigenous people who were the original owners of this land.
What history did the North American continent undergo, and into whose hands did it come? How they created their own world on the continent can be revealed by examining the names they left behind.
The author, a linguist, explores the diverse landscape of America through linguistics, anthropology, and mythology.
It not only details the process by which the United States expanded its territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but also the sorrows of the indigenous people who lost their homelands and the unique cultures and episodes of each state, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the United States.
As you read the story of the 50 states, you will find yourself with the entire history of the United States in your head.

In fact, when Spain arrived in the Americas, there were a whopping 25 million people living in Mexico.
It was virtually impossible to conquer the natives by force.
However, smallpox, an infectious disease introduced by Europeans, killed 90% of the natives.

--- p.43

France abandoned the New World, which was just beginning to emerge, in order to seize the fading kingdom of Spain.
In 1754, the British colonial population reached one million, but the French population of New France was only 80,000.
Hegemony in North America had already shifted to Britain.
The fact that the French did not migrate to New France is proof that their home country was a comfortable place to live, and the decisive difference was that the French government prevented the immigration of the Huguenots, who formed the middle class.
In the end, the winner of the North American continent was Britain.

--- p.47~48

Wall Street, now Manhattan's most famous street, was once a place of frequent conflict between Dutch and Indian people.
The Dutch built a fence (wall) across the island here as a truce line to prevent attacks, and this is the origin of Wall Street.

--- p.59

The reason the United States does not designate an official language at the federal level is because many ethnicities and languages ​​coexist in the United States, and to respect linguistic and cultural diversity.

--- p.62

The United States uses an indirect election system rather than direct elections.
Voters do not vote for a presidential candidate, but rather for a group of electors who have pledged to support a particular candidate, and the electors then choose the president.
The candidate who secures a majority of the electoral votes assigned to each state is elected president.
Because the so-called "winner-takes-it-all" system means that if a state has just one more vote for a particular candidate, the entire Electoral College will vote for that candidate, swing states that do not tend to support a particular party hold an important position.

--- p.73

Until recently, there have been many studies on the reasons for the disappearance of the Roanoke Island immigrants.
According to archaeological excavations at East Carolina University in 1998, a 16th-century British signet ring was discovered on the island.
A study of weather conditions in the late 16th century revealed that the Roanoke Island area was experiencing a severe drought.
Some scholars even claim that the Croats massacred the immigrants and offered them up as sacrifices.
Roanoke, the first British colony, disappeared overnight.

--- p.114

Ohio means "good river" in the language of the Iroquois tribe.
The French who settled in this area translated 'Ohio' into French as 'Bonne Riviere (good river).'
Among the names of states, those that come from the languages ​​of the Indians are often derived from the names of rivers.
If France had conquered Britain in North America, Ohio might have been called Bonne-Rivière.

--- p.139

Minnesota, located in the northernmost part of the central United States, is one of the states with the highest percentage of white population in the country.
While the average white population in the United States is 72%, Minnesota's white population is nearly 90%.
What is unusual is that among them, 38% are of German descent and 32% are of Northern European descent.
Among the Nordic people, the largest number are Norwegians, followed by Swedes and Danes.
In other words, it can be said that Minnesota is the state in the United States where the largest number of Viking descendants live.

--- p.197

There are 565 Native American tribes in the United States, and the Navajo are the largest, with a population of approximately 300,000.
They live on Indian reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, which together cover an area equivalent to 70% of South Korea (7,100 square kilometers).
The Navajo Nation makes Window Rock, Arizona, their capital, and calls the area they live in the Navajo Nation.
But do Indians really live freely in their own country on the reservation?
--- p.229

Three of the top 10 largest cities in the United States by population are located in Texas.
Examples include Houston (4th, population 2.3 million), San Antonio (7th, population 1.5 million), and Dallas (9th, population 1.34 million).
While Texas is often associated with oil and desolate land, it is also economically significant, with a GDP that would rank 10th in the world if it were a single country.

--- p.260~261

The word 'Texas' is a Spanish translation of the word 'Taisha', meaning 'friend' in the language of the Caddo people, the indigenous people of this region.
The United States annexed Texas, the "land of friends" that had called them home, through a war with Mexico.
And the official motto of the state was set as 'Friendship'.
It's ironic that he took his friend's land but still wanted to keep his friendship with him.
The United States, Spain, and France fought over control of Texas, but the United States ultimately prevailed, and Texas brought enormous wealth to the United States.

--- p.262~263

In the early 19th century, there were 60 million buffalo living in North America.
The Indians lived by eating buffalo meat and making clothes from its hide.
Since buffalo was a totemic symbol to the Indians, they hunted only as many buffalo as they needed.
As they pioneered the West, white people began slaughtering buffalo.
The reason was that buffalo were an obstacle to laying the railroad.
But the real reason was to take over the Indians' land by destroying the buffalo that provided food, clothing, and shelter for them.

--- p.277

By the end of the 19th century, the Kingdom of Hawaii was gradually modernizing itself by accepting Western civilization.
But at that time, many Americans came to Hawaii to manage sugarcane farms.
The same method used to incorporate Texas into the United States was also applied to Hawaii.

--- p.298