38,000 died building Panama Canal?
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Haha no thanks. Just made me shake my head. I feel like the guy (Tim Robbins) in this video after hearing Dr Evil's ransom request.
Link to video -
@89th said in 38,000 died building Panama Canal?:
I'm finally getting around to watching Trump's inauguration speech. He said "38,000 Americans died building the Panama Canal". WTF? I believe 350 Americans died building it, and if you include everyone who died building it from any country, it's like 5,000 people.
He also said China operates the canal (which is completely false). China does have the 2nd most ships (behind the USA) that uses the Canal and has invested in nearby ports, though.
Does anyone care about the truth anymore?
I would argue that over 38K Americans did die. At least 20K. Many historians believe the numbers were likely 3-4 times the reported deaths and the reported deaths were over 20K during the French attempt and another 5500 during the US attempt. And while most of those Americans were Central Americans, they are still Americans.
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BBC fact check on Trump’s assertion. He may very well have inflated the numbers:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5b6v
Note the date the clip was produced.
while most of those Americans were Central Americans, they are still Americans.
I highly doubt that Trump considers people from Central America as fully human let alone Americans.
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@LuFins-Dad said in 38,000 died building Panama Canal?:
@89th said in 38,000 died building Panama Canal?:
I'm finally getting around to watching Trump's inauguration speech. He said "38,000 Americans died building the Panama Canal". WTF? I believe 350 Americans died building it, and if you include everyone who died building it from any country, it's like 5,000 people.
He also said China operates the canal (which is completely false). China does have the 2nd most ships (behind the USA) that uses the Canal and has invested in nearby ports, though.
Does anyone care about the truth anymore?
I would argue that over 38K Americans did die. At least 20K. Many historians believe the numbers were likely 3-4 times the reported deaths and the reported deaths were over 20K during the French attempt and another 5500 during the US attempt. And while most of those Americans were Central Americans, they are still Americans.
Trump was referring to our country:
"the United States — I mean, think of this — spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal."
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Estimates vary
The Panama Canal was one of the deadliest construction projects in world history, leading to the deaths of ~25,000-30,000 people in the process.
https://historyincharts.com/the-history-of-the-panama-canal-railroad/
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It's fairly obvious he just makes shit up as he goes along. It's not really lying, it's bullshitting. It's what he's best at.
What I find funny is the convoluted series of hoops people will jump through to justify his nonsense.
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@LuFins-Dad said in 38,000 died building Panama Canal?:
And while most of those Americans were Central Americans, they are still Americans.
I once used "USian" to refer to United States nationals and "Americans" to more generally refer to all nationals of the Americas continents. Many of you folks did not like it, not sure if @LuFins-Dad was among them.
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@Axtremus said in 38,000 died building Panama Canal?:
@LuFins-Dad said in 38,000 died building Panama Canal?:
And while most of those Americans were Central Americans, they are still Americans.
I once used "USian" to refer to United States nationals and "Americans" to more generally refer to all nationals of the Americas continents. Many of you folks did not like it, not sure if @LuFins-Dad was among them.
In South America they’ll say ‘Norteamericano’ to mean US citizen.
In Mexico, since they’re North Americans too, they say ‘Estadounidense’
That’s when they don’t just say ‘gringo’
