Context: Donald Trump spewing bullshit about annexing Canada and Greenland. Meanwhile, Congress has been dragging their feet for YEARS on resolving Puerto Rico’s territorial status.
Citizens living in US territories do not receive equal representation in congress. For instance, PR has one “delegate” to the House (not an official voting member) and no senators. Taxation without representation.
Although, at this point I wouldn’t blame PR if they changed their minds about wanting to become the 51st state.
Fun battleship fact: all US battleships have been named after states except for one: BB-5, the USS Kearsarge. The original Kearsarge fought in the Civil War and sank the Confederate raider Alabama; ever since then the US Navy has always had a ship in commission named Kearsarge - presumably as a giant fuck you to the South for losing. BB-5 got the name in 1900, forever ruining an otherwise-perfect ship naming convention. For this reason, I support Puerto Rico becoming a state, but only if they rename themselves Kearsarge.
What was Kearsarge named after?
Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire.
Interesting, were there a series of ships named after mountains at some point? Seems like an odd thing to name boats after: the things the most distant possible from the sea.
The Imperial Japanese Navy named their battlecruisers and heavy cruisers after mountains. You gotta name your ships after something, and the problem is worse the more you have - the British named a ton of their warships after flowers of all things.
I mean:
And if you really have hundreds of vessels (say destroyers) you could just number them.