Do you know any of the things that America did before anyone else?
Everyone is aware that the United States was the first nation to do several important things, like sending a man to the moon or employing nuclear weapons in a worldwide conflict.
But these are not the only things that our incredible country has managed to do. It was also the first nation to carry out many other initiatives that not a lot of people know about.
That is true: the United States has made some historical firsts that might have slipped your mind. Some of them might not be as astonishing as the moon landing and aren’t life-altering or multi-million dollar spectacles. However, they’re all eye-catching!
Being one of the most powerful countries in the world has its drawbacks, including the potential for misuse of that authority. But here’s the thing: a few items on this list might prompt you to salute our flag.
Let’s not keep this intro too long, because this subject is too good! With that being said, here are 5 things America did before anyone else and you didn’t know about them.
1. Cigarette packs and health warning
Whether you smoke or not, you surely know that each cigarette package has a health warning, which typically consists of an image and a short text. What many people don’t know is that the first country in the world that required a health warning on cigarette packaging was the United States. This happened in 1965, and a lot of other nations followed suit.
America decided to label cigarettes as a response to the Surgeon General’s 1964 report, “Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service.”
The first message was this one: “Caution: Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health” (keep in mind the word “may”). However, there was a law that prohibited any additional warnings until at least 1969. The New York Times said that this action was simply a frightening piece of special interest legislation designed to guard the economic health of the tobacco industry.
In 1969, the officials came up with another variant, which said: “Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health” (the word “may” was replaced with “is”).
The year 1984 was the first time the packs mentioned specific health issues, including heart disease, emphysema, and lung cancer. In 2012, a judge ruled that the FDA’s plan to almost print pictures of dead people on cigarette packs went against the First Amendment rights of tobacco companies.
…Did you know about this?
2. PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as simply PTSD, is a disorder that affects people who have experienced events that traumatized them, whether they went through something scary, shocking, or extremely dangerous.
After a traumatic experience, people are more likely to be afraid of anything that is similar to that situation or of things that make them remember the experience.
As many experts say, it’s completely normal to feel scared, but it’s not a syndrome that should be neglected. When you feel scared of something, your body quickly goes through changes that help it defend against a crisis or escape from it.
PTSD was officially recognized as a real, curable diagnosis for the first time in the United States, which helped a lot of soldiers deal with the experiences they’ve been through during wars. Some years ago, David Morris, a former marine, said that PTSD is an “American invention, a result of the war in Vietnam.”
He added that they’ve always been required to fight far away from home, and America was the first country that accepted PTSD was real and people needed help. When a soldier finally returns, they might feel “extra-terrestrial” due to the distance, which then aggravates the issue even more.
When he talks to veterans, one of the things that he hears the most is “when I went back, I felt like a Martian.” What can we say? We are proud that our nation realized PTSD was real and that people truly needed help to feel good again.
3. Floating Nuclear Power Plant
Even though building a floating nuclear power station seems like getting ready and waiting for something tragic to happen, America went ahead and did it anyway.
In the 1960s, the Navy converted a transport ship named USS Sturgis and turned it into the MH-1A by adding a 10-megawatt nuclear reactor to its belly. These people were so intelligent that America successfully modified the ship to make it the first floating nuclear power plant in the history of the planet. Let’s get the disastrous idea out of our minds and admit that it is pretty impressive, isn’t it?
Why would our beautiful America do that, you might ask? Obviously, to assist in driving the pumps that controlled the locks at the Panama Canal. From 1967 to 1975, it did what it was supposed to do, but it cost too much to keep up, so it was taken away.
4. Lethal Injection and Executions
…This might sound a bit harsh, but think of it as a way of being human to someone who was cruel!
This one might not be something that presidential candidates will precisely mention at rallies, but it’s still something that America did first: lethal injection.
When a person is sentenced to death, they are injected with one or more drugs, usually a barbiturate, a paralytic, and a potassium solution, with the goal of speeding up their demise.
The United States was the first country that used lethal injection in 1982 when they executed a prisoner. Supporters say that this approach is more “humane” toward inmates than previous approaches.
However, according to different sources, there were many cases when the executions didn’t go according to plan, and it caused prisoners huge amounts of pain. Lethal injection is still used for executions in 32 states as of 2014.
5. Outer Space and Commercials
…Everyone wants to have the best commercials and the most creative ones ever, and America surely knows how to do that!
At a time when the majority of other countries didn’t even have satellites, America used space for commercial objectives. That’s totally a flex in our opinion. With financial support from AT&T and Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA launched the Telstar 1 satellite in 1962.
That was the first satellite to ever transmit live TV, telephone, and fax transmissions. The move would help the corporations get back their investment many times over. And it was simply incredible!
People communicated with it from Earth using an enormous antenna. The first live transatlantic TV transmission was broadcast on July 11, 1962, and it featured reporters from CBS, NBC, and the BBC. The Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower were the first images transmitted, and President John F. Kennedy’s live speech was the next one. As you can imagine, a lot of people were interested in this invention! It was great!
…What’s your opinion on these impressive things America has done over the years? We can say that we’re very proud to be part of a country that keeps looking for ways to improve and makes great discoveries.
…Whether you love America so much and you want to know more things about our history or you want to read something about famous figures of the past, we have everything you need to know! Here’s a good one for you: 10 Rare Photos of the Most Beautiful Actresses When They Were Young! We hope you’ll like it!
