Forty years ago, when I travelled around the United States (pictured left in Miami at the age of three) with my family, we didn't have a guide book.
Here are six facts from a guide to the USA for children I wrote, part of a series which The Times described as 'Fun, easily accessible...and witty'.
DID YOU KNOW?....
Uncle Sam is a cartoon character of an old, honest man with a long white beard who represents the United States. No one knows for sure who created him – way back in the 1800s – but it is thought that his name comes from his initials ‘U.S’ which are the same as those of ‘United States’.
The first skyscrapers, like the famous Empire State Building, were built by Native American Indians because many of them do not have a fear of heights. Even today nearly half of all skyscraper builders are Native American because as high up as eighty floors they don’t need to wear safety harnesses.
In winter in some parts of America it’s so cold that children need to wear special fur-lined snowsuits to school which cover everything except their eyes. In Minnesota it sometimes gets to minus 50 degrees with 50 inches of snow – about half as high as a front door.
The Dutch bought the island of Manhattan in 1624 from the Native American Indians for some beads worth about £15 and called it New Netherland. When the English took it from them in 1664 they called it New York after the Duke of York.
The Statue of Liberty was a present from France to celebrate the French and Americans working together during the Revolution. It took hundreds of people ten years to make and had to be sent in 350 pieces to New York where it took a year to put together in the harbour in 1886.
Wall Street in New York got its name from the high wooden wall the Dutch built in 1653 to defend themselves against attacking Indians. The very first traders met under a buttonwood tree in 1792 and the street is still known all over the world as a centre for trading.
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