After America’s War of Independence, the Paris Peace Talks took place in 1783. At one point the British were prepared to give up a good chunk of present day Canada. The Red Line Map showed these concessions. However, the Americans were never shown the map and therefore never demanded the Canadian territory.

The red area would have been conceded to the young United States.

Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton and Halifax would all be American today.

How people commute to Manhattan.

World War I map

Native American pre-contact food sources.

Is America still Number One? Depends on which metrics you use. By at least one measure, China’s economy already is the world’s biggest (1). Other criteria still put the U.S. ahead, at least for a few more years.

This map presents another way to gauge the size of the American economy, and one less prone to the ‘declinism’ of the eternal comparison to China.

By comparing states with countries that have a similar GDP, it demonstrates the formidable size of the U.S. economy. Irrespective of whether it’s second or first, it’s as big as the GDPs of these 51 countries put together.

The figures used for the map are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (for the U.S. states) and the IMF (for the countries). According to the IMF, overall GDP for the U.S. has increased to $17.9 trillion in 2015.

Some things have remained the same: California and Texas still are the #1 and #2 economies in the U.S., and their GDPs are still in the same ballpark as France and Canada, respectively. The third-placed state’s economy is still comparable to South Korea’s, although that state is no longer Florida (down one place, to 2015’s Indonesia) but New York (surging four places, from 2007’s Brazil).

Nevada lost most ground, from 22nd place in 2007 (when its economy was about the size of Ireland’s GDP, at $203 billion) to 34th in 2015 (its $140 billion GDP roughly comparable to New Zealand’s).The biggest winner was Maryland, up from 26th place in 2007 (in the neighborhood of Iran’s $195 billion GDP) to 15th place in 2015 (with a $361 billion GDP comparable to Austria’s).

Canadian town sorry for pink tap water

BBC

A Canadian town has apologised after a water treatment plant turned the water supply pink.
Residents of Onoway, Alberta, complained to the town office when taps began running pink water on Monday.
In a statement, Mayor Dale Krasnow said there was no public health risk but the town “could have done a better job communicating what was going on”.
The mayor said it was the unfortunate side-effect of a common water-treatment chemical, potassium permanganate.
The chemical is commonly used to remove iron and hydrogen sulphide from water, and the town office said it got into the reservoir when a valve malfunctioned during “normal line flushing and filter backwashing”.

“The reservoir was drained, however some of the chemical still made it into the distribution system.

“While it is alarming to see pink water coming from your taps, potassium permanganate is used in normal treatment processes to help remove iron and manganese and residents were never at risk.”

The chemical can cause skin irritation, according to the World Health Organization, but there were no reports of any adverse effects.

Complaints were more about being kept in the dark – residents said they were annoyed they were not told why the water was fluorescent pink until Tuesday morning.

“This is a situation we can certainly learn from and develop a strategy for better response and communication should we ever face the same or similar situation in the future,” the mayor said.