Made in America

5. By the Dawn's Early Light: Forging a National Identity

The Gettysburg address contained just 268 words, two thirds of them of only one syllable, in ten most short, direct and memorably cristalline sentences. It took only a fraction over two minutes to deliver — so little, according to several contemporary accounts, that the official photographer was still making preliminary adjustments to his camera when the President sat down.

In an era when no speaker would use two words when eight would do, or dream of using the same word twice in the same week, Lincoln revelled in simplicity and repetition.

6. We're in the Money: The Age of Invention

In 1894 America displaced Britain as the world's leading manufacturer. By 1914 it was the world's leading producer of coal, natural gas, oil, copper, iron, ore and silver, and its factories were producing more goods than those of Britain, Germany and France together.

15. The Movies

[Edison] suspected [cinema] would prove as a passing fad, and had so little confidence in it that he decided against spending $150 on an international patent, to his huge eventual cost.
[...]
Rival systems began to sprout up everywhere, particularly in Europe where there were no copyright problems thanks to Edison' miserly failure to secure a patent.

20. Welcome to the Space Age: The 1950s and Beyond

McDonald's buys more beef and potatoes and trains more people than other any organization, the US Army included.