The Slacker's Guide to U.S. History: The Bare Minimum on Discovering America, the Boston Tea Party, the California Gold Rush, and Lots of Other Stuff Dead White Guys Did (24 page)

As the newly drafted American soldiers settled into the luxurious surroundings of war, the Russian military began pulling their troops out of the conflict, significantly reducing the number of available Allied combatants. With the Russians out and the battle-anxious Americans in, the tide of victory began to turn in favor of the Allied forces. In September 1918, nearly 900,000 mostly new-to-the-military Americans joined another 100,000 troops from the coalition of the winning in the Battle of the Argonne. Despite the heavy casualties suffered on the red, white, and blue side, the United States and their allies were victorious. Within weeks, the Germans waved a little white flag signing an armistice treaty to cease the killing at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918.

With the conflict over and a blueprint for peace agreed to with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, the announcements of the human cost associated with the reaction to the archduke's assassination were sobering. A combined total of over 13.5 million people died and over 21 million people were wounded. Most of the deceased had been leading regular civilian lives before Princip ended the life of the archduke. After everything was all over, people from around the world reflected on how things would have been different if the archduke had been without friends in June of 1914.

After the French predictably fumbled the ball, making a deadly mess out of their attempt to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean with a man-made waterway built by pastry chefs, the United States stepped in and picked up where the French failure left off.

Starting in 1880, France sent its most experienced éclair makers to Panama to begin construction of a forty-eight-mile-long birthing canal that would allow sea-weary sailors to avoid the trip around Cape Horn when attempting to ocean-hop from one to the other. For sailors who loved the scenery but not the sailing, a trip from New York to San Francisco was cut by 8,000 miles when using the Panama Canal.

The idea for the canal dates as far back as the sixteenth century but it wasn't until the French showed their incompetence beginning in 1880 that anything really got started. Drawing on their egocentric yet underqualified and undermotivated workforce, the French government sent scores of soon-to-be quitters to the jungle and mountain ranges of Panama. With their spirits low and their ingenuity lower, the project quickly ran into many problems, not the least of which being the one-two-three punch of malaria, yellow fever, and a shortage of white wine. By 1889, the French had predictably given up.

Ashamed of our French allies' results, President Theodore Roosevelt scolded the French prime minister for their continued tradition of running and hiding when things get tough and then bought the equipment they left behind in Panama for $40 million. John “Frank the Tank” Stevens was appointed chief engineer on the project. Stevens convinced Roosevelt that the canal needed to be a series of locks, which the French felt was an ugly and dirty solution, beneath their standards.

With a workable solution from an engineer perspective in place, the United States made a large investment to control the diseases that had devastated the French construction force. This effort resulted in the deaths of a much more manageable 5,600 workers. Once the disease issue was under control, work progressed much more swiftly. To the disappointment of the French, the canal was completed in 1914, a full two years ahead of schedule.

With the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean now connected through a manmade canal that to this day stills gives Sheiks from Dubai a little wood for its engineering brilliance, trade around the world is easier than ever. The total American investment in the project was approximately $375 million.
AT A CAMPAIGN STOP IN OHIO DURING HIS RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN, THE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH WAS OVERHEARD SAYING, “FOR THAT PRICE, THEY SHOULD HAVE BUILT TWO!”

If a woman walked into a polling station on the second Tuesday in November of an election year in the early nineteenth century, she would be turned away. The mystic powers of the female may include a tendency to change their mind at a moments' notice and the ability to give birth, but it did not include participation in America's electoral process. The responsibility to ensure that only the most capable men were elected to shape government policy through democracy rested solely on the willing shoulders of American males.

Beginning in 1848, social reform hopefuls Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott got out in front of women's quest for a devalued vote. It all started in 1840 when Mott and other women were denied being seated at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. During this freedom reigns conference Mott met the more radical Stanton, who in addition to liberating slaves, had hopes of freeing turtles from their shells, and tea from the oppressive pot.

Mott and Stanton became fast friends. Once they began talking, they decided there was a laundry list of rights women should fight for. In addition to the right to vote, the dynamic duo also decided to fight for tampons in women's restrooms, sports jerseys to come in pink, and Vietnamese-owned nail salons in every strip plaza. Just as momentum seemed to be building, the Civil War came along to distract attention away from women's voting rights. Women and blacks shared the distinction of being equally unimportant when it came to selecting the president of the United States. But the passing of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were about to have the same effect as if women's husbands around the country told them they did indeed look fat in that dress.

Women were royally pissed in 1868, not because it was their time of the month, but at the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment because it defined “citizenship” and “voters” as “male,” and raised the question as to whether women were considered citizens of the United States at all. Then the insulting Fifteenth Amendment came along and gave black men the right to vote. The black man had successfully leapfrogged women on the rights ladder. Tempers flared among women's rights groups, and incidents of burning bras and hairy legs began to rise at an alarming rate.

After years of nagging, whining, foot stomping, and withholding of sexual favors, women got the right to vote as both houses of Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, and in 1920 it became ratified under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
MANY SEXIEST MEN FELT THE PASSAGE OF THE NINETEENTH AMENDMENT WAS LIKE GIVING THE CAR KEYS TO A DRUNKEN MONKEY.
Unfortunately, for the many women who decided to vote, they soon realized that even with the right to vote, super-delegates and the Electoral College still guaranteed that men would continue to get the final say on the issue of who is elected as president.