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The US was really feeling its oats at the turn of the 20th century [US grabs oats]

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even though it was going through some growing pains during the changes of the

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Progressive Era it also was starting to feel like a grown up nation no longer [US by a rollercoaster]

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did America have to sit at the international kids table yeah it wanted

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to be taken seriously as a world power but if it was going to do so it had to

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up its geopolitical game well back in the day this usually meant do an extra [US doing sit ups]

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sit-ups push-ups and dabbling in just a little imperialism well until this point

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the US had really only focused its expansion on area throughout North and

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South America and the Caribbean at this time though European nations were [European nation grabs cookies]

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snatching new territories all over the place in a wave of expansion called new

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imperialism well there were European colonies popping up on every corner of [European ships appear]

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the world kind of like Starbucks - Grande pumpkin spice lattes for example

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in a hungry hungry hippo asked Scramble for Africa European powers managed to

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gobble up about 90% of that continent it's pretty impressive if one happens to

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be impressed by awful thing this giant land grab by Europe was basically the [Europe grabs Africa]

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worst thing ever for Africa and it's still trying to recover from the whole

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debacle because another story point is that the u.s. saw all this expansion

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happening and decided it needed to get in on the imperialism gain another major

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motivator was a massive boom of American manufacturing what's the main thing mass [Building explodes]

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manufacturers need the masses making tons of stuff is pretty worthless unless

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one has massive numbers of consumers to go along with it so you know you can

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sell it to him the big wide world was a new market that American companies were [Woman outside world market store]

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itching to exploit well this led to what was called the open door policy which

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paved the way for trade with China ironically around about the same time

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that the China exclusion act made things tough for Chinese immigrants here it

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also led to an American naval officer named Matthew Perry no relation to

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Chandler Bing steaming off to Japan where he held a gun to the Shogun's head

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until Japan opened itself per trade isn't it fun when US history sounds like

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a Quentin Tarantino movie one well another big motivator for [Man watching theater production]

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American imperialism was expanding naval power at that time a big intimidating

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Navy was crucial at the country wanted to be taken seriously as a world power [Navy officers appear on stage]

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well to do this America needed more ports that would allow chips to restock

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supplies and get the curl needed for steam power so the u.s. started eyeing

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Pacific Islands strategically like Guam and the Philippines which were sure to [US using telescope on boat]

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do the trick while also helping Imperial Americans to get some sweet suntan

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America's imperialistic schemes were also motivated by some deep-seated

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ideology America still had the residual tastes of the mid 1800s manifest destiny

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in their mouth kind of like that extra anchovy garlic and banana pepper pizza [Man burps at another man]

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that lingers the morning after yeah by late 1870s the theory of social

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Darwinism had also started inspecting American thought lots of Americans were [Darwin sneezes on US]

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pretty convinced that America deserved to take whatever it wanted law of the

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jungle right well the social Darwin has figured that if a country didn't want to

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be invaded by or force the trade with America well then it ought to just

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toughen up there was also a fun concept floating around called American [American exceptionalism flying]

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exceptionalism folks like Josiah strong and Senator Albert Beveridge named after

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the drink believed Western cultures especially American culture were better

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than any of those other dumb world cultures out there American number one

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mix that attitude with social Darwinism and many Americans who felt it was their [Social darwinism blended]

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moral duty to bring democracy industrialization and other supposedly

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superior values to the supposedly uncivilized world well all this led to

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shenanigans like the spanish-american war during which America snatched [Troops dead on the floor]

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control of Puerto Rico Guam the Philippines and Cuba from Spain so

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plenty of Americans weren't down with all this detractors thought that

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meddling and taking over other territories would just lead to war and

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major financial strength others like famous activist Jane Addams argued that [Man stretching dollar bill]

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this was all just downright morally wrong so yeah not all Americans rank the

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imperialist kool-aid which is good because that would have [Kool-Aid jug burst through wall]

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left the kool-aid man feeling pretty empty inside oh yeah

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