2018-11-29 08:00:00
London, Granada, Holland – America’s founding fathers showed little ingenuity when they named the new settlements. But how did Prince Otto von Bismarck get the capital of North Dakota to be named following him?
Bismarck, the current seat of North Dakota’s government, is named following the former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. (Image: PD)
Americans like to think of themselves as great innovators. But the founding fathers showed little ingenuity when it came to naming new settlements: London, Paris, Holland – the European settlers strikingly often copied well-known things. The traces of the Germans in particular are still tattooed into the American landscape today: Schoeneck is in Pennsylvania, Schaumburg in Illinois, Mecklenburg in New York and Stuttgart in Kansas. There are 20 Hamburgs, and between California and Vermont there are more than 40 Berlins – often small towns with a fraction of the population of its big brother.
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