United States
From the mid-nineteenth century, the image of the sun never setting can be found applied to Anglophone culture, explicitly including America as well as Britain, for example in a speech by Alexander Campbell in 1852.
It was subsequently applied specifically to the American sphere of influence. An 1897 magazine article titled "The Greatest Nation on Earth" boasted, "he sun never sets on Uncle Sam". In 1906, William Jennings Bryan wrote, "If we can not boast that the sun never sets on American territory, we can find satisfaction in the fact that the sun never sets on American philanthropy"; after which, The New York Times received letters attempting to disprove his presupposition.
A 1991 history book discussion of U.S. expansion states, "Today ... the sun never sets on American territory, properties owned by the U.S. government and its citizens, American armed forces abroad, or countries that conduct their affairs within limits largely defined by American power."
Although the United States no longer has any possessions further west than Guam or further east than the Virgin Islands, it currently has military presence in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Brazil, the British Indian Ocean Territory, Bulgaria, Cuba, Djibouti, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and others. The phrase is sometimes used critically with the implication of American imperialism, as in the title of Joseph Gerson's book, The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases.
Read more about this topic: The Empire On Which The Sun Never Sets
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... it is probable that in a fit of generosity the men of the United States would have enfranchised its women en masse; and the government now staggering under the ballots of ignorant, irresponsible men, must have gone down under the additional burden of the votes which would have been thrown upon it, by millions of ignorant, irresponsible women.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1954)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)