The USA would not have amounted to much if we had not acquired all those territories to the west, north and south.  Maybe President Donald Trump's manifest destiny for Greenland, Panama Canal and Canada might well be visionary.  Make American Even Greater! Original size of U.S. in 1789 = 864,746 square miles. We then grew to 3,531,905 square miles through territorial acquisitions. 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France, 828,000 ( almost the same size as originally ) square miles (sm) for $15 million, now worth $389 billion. 1818, British Cession, 45,417 sm. 1819, Florida, $5 million, Spain, 72,101 sm. 1845, Texas cession, 389,166 sm. 1846, Oregon territory, UK, by contested occupation, 286,541. 1848, Mexican Cession from Mexico, $15 million, 529,189. 1853, Gadsdend Purchase from Mexico, $10 million, 29,670. 1857-1858, Islands in the Pacific, 16 sm. 1867, Alaska, $7.2 million from Russia, 591,000. 1967-1947, islands mostly in the Pacific, like Hawaii, small sums, about 120,0...

The oldest person in the world today is Kane Tanaka at the age of 118 years.  That's her when 20 in 1923. The USA is more than twice as old, for today we celebrate our 245th birthday.  Mind you, this is not particularly elderly, for the  top six  are: #1  Egypt  8000 years old #2  India  5300 #3  Afghanistan  5000 #4  China 4091 #5  Georgia  3700 #6  Ethiopia  3000  ( their  monarchy  lasted more than 700 hundred years until 1974 when Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974) the British monarchy is going strong at 1200 years so is the one in  Japan for 2700 years The USA is also not the first democracy.  Five thousand years ago  Mesopotamia  invented written language and had a primitive form of democracy.  Some say that around 3000 years ago  India  actually formed republics which practiced democracy.  Greece had that Athens versus Sparta rivalry 2600 years ago...