Thinking of flag star arrangements, the Master speaks:
I wasn’t born yet. I do recall some discussion in my history classes that the lack of infrastructure was a concern in Alaska. Everyone knew it would cost a fortune to create highways, airports, sewers etc. for such an immense state. Even getting cities built is problematic. Politicians like Ted Stevens spent decades fighting to get Federal funding for airports and roads in Alaska. The infrastructure is still nothing like other, older states. Their one Interstate is just pieced together from various highways. Many packed dirt or gravel. But it is an important start to opening up travel for businesses and manufacturing.
It is a beautiful state. I always enjoy visiting in the summers. Not the winter.
I was alive but too young too recall anything about it. But I can tell you it apparently came as something of a surprise to Hawaiians that Alaska beat them into the Union. For years, Hawaiians were sure they would be the 49th state. There was even an old local record label out of Honolulu, specializing in traditional Hawaiian music, that called itself 49th State Records.
But it all worked out for the best. Can you imagine a TV show called Hawaii 4-9? Or Alaska 5-0?
Not just anti-Asian racism. I’ve seen political cartoons from the day portraying Hawaiians as blacks, because no one at the time quite knew what Hawaiians looked like. (Anyway, native Hawaiians are Polynesian, not Asian, but there was a substantial Asian population there by then.)
I was about to ask you if I was being wooshed until I looked it up. I honestly had no idea that the slang term for the police had its origins in Hawaii being the 50th state.
Learn somethin’ new every day…
I can’t swear to the accuracy, but here is a site with all the flags.
Someone call Puerto Rico!
Oh, we’ve prime location, prime weather (though AGW is futzing it up), prime rum, prime golfing, prime babes, but as mentioned it’s not a prime number. I’d take it anyway. As if…()
The period 1912-59 had been at the time the longest ever w/o a new state, and the first time ever whole decades passed w/o one new state; only surpassed later by the current period since 1959.
(I’ve mentioned before that the 50-star flag is now the longest-lasting tesselation, having passed the 48-star rectangle of the World Wars in 2007)
( small consolation is that DC is almost as much of a long shot to get in)
You knew about the TV show, didn’t you? Didn’t they remake it recently?
Look it up. It’s surprisingly ugly. The 50-star arrangement is a fortunate improvement to say the least.
I knew about the TV show during it’s original run, but I never really watched it. I guess I had always assumed (not a lot of deep thought involved, here) that the show was called Hawaii Five-0 because “Five-0” was already a term for the police. I didn’t know the show created the term, and never made any connection with it being the 50th state.
Side note: The elite 5-0 force on the show was based on an actual squad that had existed in the 1940s. I don’t know what they were called though.
I always thought it was because the police drove 5 liter Mustangs, though of course in hindsight it’s obvious that the show predated those (at least in police use). :smack:
There are actually four “interstate” highways in Alaska, for some reason. Infrastructure is still an issue there, as the federal government still treats Alaska as some sort of feudal state in many respects. No other state has the oversight and scrutiny that Alaska has, or has to jump through as many hoops in order to build something as simple as a road. It’s not surprising to me that the politics there lean hard right.
There are interstates in the contiguous US that don’t go to any other states, too. I-4 runs from Tampa Bay to Daytona, for example. It’s an “interstate highway system” rather than a system of “interstate highways” - as in, interstate modifies “system” rather than highway.
Hawaii has interstates too, and while they’re handy for general use by the public, my understanding is they all lead to military bases and are meant to be used to facilitate military movements in the event of a crisis. I was told the reason they’re interstates is because that designation was needed in order to receive federal funding.
For some bizarre reason I don’t even remember, I looked up the California state laws on flying the US flag. The only flag that had a specific exemption to being required for government offices and schools as the “current flag” was the 49 star flag from 1959 to 1960.
When I was a kid I had a nice stack of ‘49th State’ records (all old varnish 78’s) as well as some Japanese Teichiku recordings of the same vintage. Wish I still had them (my folks probably tossed them when I was in the Navy, along with my 1930’s Erector set in its wooden crate). :smack:
Similar here.
I watched the original show and never managed to “get” that 5-0 was for the fiftieth state. To be fair, I was pretty young when it started, but still…
At least it wasn’t named for McGarrett’s football jersey number.
Useless fun fact: The original show is “5-O”, the letter, and the new show is “5-0” the number, which sort of renders the “50” meaning incorrect.
cite?
So even the government didn’t buy the things. Did anybody?