Word: america
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...Colonial America--where moneylending was governed as much by moral codes as by legal ones--defaulting on your debts was considered a moral failing. Accordingly, owing as little as 40 shillings (less than the price of a fine pair of bedsheets) could get you thrown into a Dickensian debtors' prison. Amid the financial turmoil that followed the Revolutionary War, however, delegates to the Constitutional Convention predicted the nation might need laws that would facilitate going belly-up in an orderly fashion. The first federal bankruptcy law, which drew on English statutes, was signed in 1800 and redounded to the benefit...
...just be coincidence, but The Tonight Show somehow seems to know when America is going through a generational moment. Johnny Carson took over the show in Camelot-era 1962, after J.F.K. became the first greatest-generation President. Jay Leno replaced him in 1992, just before baby boomer Bill Clinton defeated our last greatest-generation President. Now, just after Barack Obama's Inauguration, NBC has put another tall, skinny young guy, Conan O'Brien, behind the desk. (O'Brien and Obama, who did a guest bit on Conan's second night, may be technically a hair shy of Gen X status...
From outside government, Ross watched these developments with increasing alarm. He became convinced that Obama could change the context of the relationship with Iran. An Obama presidency, he thought, could transform the Iranian image of America and "make it easier to explain your policies and get more of a hearing" from Tehran, Ross told me last July. "Iran's almost reflexive suspicion of the U.S. would be removed. That's not insignificant." (See pictures of Bush in the Middle East...
Most presidents are easy to pin down on our cultural maps. Ronald Reagan was raised in Dixon, Ill., but we placed him in Hollywood, telling America's story on the big screen. Bill Clinton may have been the Man from Hope, Ark., but the mischief of nearby Hot Springs was in his blood. George W. Bush was practically born on the Yale campus, yet Texas was his true terroir...
...pictures of Pope Benedict XVI visiting America...