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- [Briggs] What is going on, everyone?
Welcome back to the World According to Briggs.
Have you ever wondered if there's more to the United States
than the 50 states we have in Washington DC?
Wonder no longer, there is.
They're called territories.
The U.S has 14 territories.
Well, they got five legit good-sized territories
and the other nine, they're called minor outlaying islands.
Each has some very interesting history.
Sadly, here in the United States,
we don't learn much about our own territories.
They like briefly go over it in American history.
I put up on Facebook a couple of weeks ago
before I thought about doing the video,
and I asked my friends without Googling it,
how many territories does the U.S have?
Most said two or three.
And then they've named one that probably isn't,
actually one person I used to work with,
she thought New Mexico was a territory.
I explained to her that it's actually state,
her response was, oh yeah, that's right.
Mexico is a territory, right?
And I said, no, Mexico is its own country.
And I, but I don't know.
I guess that's the type of smart
she get from a 21 year old girl
that had to borrow 200 bucks from you to pay rent
because her car needed detailing
and she needed to pay her tan membership.
And she couldn't believe all those things
fell on the same day.
She also couldn't understand why her nail lady
wasn't considered an essential worker
at the beginning of the pandemic.
Yeah, she's entertaining.
All right, moving on.
Today we're gonna learn about U.S territories, all right?
Let's see what we got.
Number one, Guam.
Guam is the Western most point and territory
of the United States in Oceana.
It's got a population of almost 170,000.
Guam has a tropical rainforest climate,
which is always perfect for tourism.
Most people dream about spending some time
on a tropical island.
Guam is very much tropical island.
As a matter of fact,
tourism pretty much pays all Guam's bills.
Well that in the U.S military,
they have some decent bases there.
The first year of paying to travel to Guam was Portuguese,
and he was the navigator for Nan Magellan.
He was sailing for the king of Spain.
when he cited the island on March 6th, 1521
during his fleet circumnavigation of the globe,
he thought he'd stop by and check it out.
Magellan encountered the indigenous people of Guam
known as Chamorro and almost 150 years later,
the Spanish colonization commenced on June 15th, 1668.
Around 1823, Whalers started using it
as a place to get supplies and sort of a rest stop.
But after a few centuries, as part of Spain,
the United States occupied the island
following Spain's defeat in the 1898 Spanish American war.
As part of the treaty of 1898,
Guam was transferred to the United States Navy's control
on December 23rd, 1898 by executive order
from president William McKinley.
Most people don't realize that Japan attack Guam
about the same time they attacked Pearl Harbor.
They won the battle and occupied the island
for almost 2 1/2 years
and then the United States showed back up.
As you can imagine, we weren't in a good mood.
The Navy, the Marines and an army division
showed up and it took them about a month
to round up all the invading Japanese.
These days, if you visit Guam,
you'll find that it is a combination of traditional,
Chamorro customs along with American,
Spanish and Mexican traditions.
Guam is a great place to visit.
If you ever get a chance, go to Guam.
The people are very friendly.
Every time I've ever talked to a person from Guam.
And that used to be on a regular basis
when I worked at Netflix 'cause they're American territory,
so we gave them DVDs and everything else like that,
just like any U.S state.
But if you ever get a chance to go,
it's great for Americans 'cause there's no money difference.
It's the same U.S dollar,
and you don't need a passport.
Even if you do need one, it's just a beautiful island
that you should visit if you ever get the opportunity.
Number two, American Samoa.
The territory of American Samoa
is located in the south Pacific, Southeast of Samoa.
There are two, there's Samoa and there's American Samoa.
American Samoa consists of five main islands
and two coral atolls.
This territory has a long history going way back,
but as far as Europeans go,
the Dutch showed up around 1722
followed by a couple of French explorers in 1768
and then again in 1789.
The French explorer in 1789 gotten a little dust up
with the locals in what is still called massacre bay.
And they call it this because his second in command
and some of the crew were killed during that dust up.
American Samoa has its own immigration law.
That's really weird.
It's kind of separate from the laws
that apply to any other parts of the United States.
No other territory does this.
While the U.S national can freely move to American Samoa,
the American Samoan government via its immigration office
controls the immigration of aliens to the island.
Special applications and forms and all that stuff
gotta be filled out based on your family
or employment sponsorship.
Now, as far as employment goes, they don't have a tan,
but tuna canning is the backbone
of American Samoa's economy.
I thought this one was really interesting.
American Samoa is noted for having the highest rate
of military enlistment of any U.S state or territory.
This is a beautiful island.
Ask any of its 46,000 residents.
They'll tell you the same thing, it is beautiful.
If you look at the video and if you look at the pictures,
it looks like something that they could film
a tropical romance movie on, it's just great.
Number three, Northern Mariana Islands.
North of Guam, you have the Northern Mariana Islands.
These were the first islands settled by humans
in this remote Oceana area.
For Nam Magellan had a big year in 1521.
He and his crew were the first Europeans to arrive
at the Mariana Islands.
He landed in Guam and claimed the whole area for Spain.
Spanish ships were met off offshore by locals
who delivered refreshments
and then help themselves to a small boat
belonging to the Magellan crew.
This course, as you can imagine, kind of became a problem.
It was really a culture clash.
In local tradition, little property was private
and taking something someone needed
such as a boat for fishing ,didn't count as stealing.
Well, the Europeans didn't feel that way.
So it became a problem.
The Northern Mariana Islands,
played a few important roles in World War II.
The battle of Saipan happened here.
Saipan's the biggest island in the chain,
and a year later, the island of Tinian,
which is just north of there.
That was the takeoff point for the Enola Gay.
If you don't know,
that's the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
Historically, the Island's economy was tourism,
mostly from Japan and in the garment manufacturing sector,
the economy has declined since 2005,
eventually leading to all the garment factories on Saipan
to close by 2009.
Tourism also went on a steep decline in 2005,
when Japan airlines stopped serving the Mariana's.
So if you go visit, they'll be very excited
to see you I bet.
I worked with a girl from Saipan,
she told me all about it.
She was at Nike with me, and she said that these days,
most of the young people, can't wait to leave the island.
"'Cause you can get a job sometimes,
"but it's not paying you hardly anything," she said.
Now that I think about it, the building I worked at there,
there's a few people from Tinian and a bunch from Saipan.
Their population peaked in 2010 with 69,000 residents.
But right now it's down to 51,000.
Number four, The United States Virgin Islands.
Technically they're called the Virgin Islands
of the United States, but everyone knows them
as the United States Virgin Islands.
This territory consists of three main islands,
St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas.
They also have 50 other surrounding minor islands in case.
So the three main islands are pretty much the only places
anyone ever really visits.
Most of those small 50 islands are just inhabited by birds
and turtles I imagine.
Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493
is thought to have been the first European
to see these islands, giving them their current name.
And him and his crew being the first tourist
to ever visit the islands,
these days, they still got ships going there,
but they're cruise ships
and they're filled with people from Iowa.
They're wearing funny packs.
This is a major cruise stop though.
This and the British Virgin Islands
cruise lines go to both of them.
Like Norwegian Cruise line has a really great cruise
I've been looking at it to go there.
Hopefully I'll be there next year.
The U.S Virgin Islands main source of income
is the 3 million annual visitors.
Tourism is responsible for 60% of the Island's GDP.
The population of this territory peaked in 2000
with 108,000 residents, then in 2010,
it went down to 106,000,
and right now, a little above 105,000 residents.
One thing that caught me off guard about this one
is they only have like national guard forces
of the locals and some reserve units,
but no like Naval base or anything.
This seems to me like a perfect location for one,
but now nothing major.
Number five, Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is probably the next one on deck
for U.S statehood.
Maybe they'll give it to Washington DC eventually,
but I think Puerto Rico will be the next one.
It's official name is the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
and it was first colonized by Spain
and that's who gave it the name Puerto Rico,
which is Spanish for rich port.
Puerto Ricans have been uU.S citizens since 1917,
and they can move freely between the island
and the mainland, no paperwork, no nothing, they just go.
Just like going from Utah to Nevada.
Now, how do we get Puerto Rico?
Well, it was the same way we got Guam
and a bunch of other places.
On July 25th, 1898, during the Spanish American war,
the U.S invaded Puerto Rico.
After the U.S prevailed in the war,
Spain had to give up Puerto Rico along with the Philippines
and Guam under the treaty of Paris.
Which went into effect on 11, April, 1899.
Puerto Rico has some financial problems
for the local government right now
and their economy isn't the best.
They have manufacturing jobs, finance,
insurance and real estate.
A lot of people work for the government,
but also tourism plays a big role
in the economy of Puerto Rico.
As you can imagine, tropical islands seem to do that.
Puerto Rico has seen a drop in population
in the last two census.
In 2000, they peak at 3,808,000 residents.
Then in 2010, they went down to 3,725,000.
And then this last census in 2020,
they went down to 3,285,000 residents.
That's the first time
since they've been involved in the census
that they've lost population the last two census.
United States minor outlaying islands.
Number six, Wake Island.
Wake Island is about the midway point
between Guam and Hawaii,
right in the middle of Pacific Ocean.
During World War II, this was a scene of a serious battle.
Basically the defender Wake Island we're going to be overrun
and the island was going be captured by the Japanese.
And it was so bad that the Marines were teaching
construction workers who were there
to build better runways and stuff like that,
how to use weapons
because they were going to be fighting, and they did.
Eventually the Japanese took the island,
forced all the people captured to help build bunkers,
things like that.
And then in the end, they shot them all.
U.S military kept a presence on Wake Island until 2017.
Right now, nobody lives there.
Number seven, Johnston Atoll.
For nearly 70 years, this isolated Atoll
was under the control of the U.S military.
During that time, it was used as a Naval refueling depot
an air base, a testing site
for nuclear and biological weapons, a secret missile base,
and a site that stored the disposed chemical Agent Orange.
Those activities left this place basically contaminated
and nobody goes there, we just monitor it.
Number eight, Midway Island.
Midway is called midway
because it is supposed to be the midway point
between Hawaii and Japan, it's not.
It's only like a third of the way to Japan,
but you get the idea.
There was also a giant battle here during World War II.
The Japanese wanted the island because they figured
they can start attacking the mainland and Hawaii
and eventually take over Hawaii,
but we had this big battle there.
And it didn't go well for the Japanese
because of some mistakes.
They probably should have won,
but they made some mistakes and some bad judgment,
and yeah, they didn't win that battle.
In the late 1970s, the Navy downgraded midway
from a Naval air station to Naval air facility
and a large number of the personnel
and dependence began leaving the island.
With the Vietnam war ending
and just different things like satellites
coming into play,
they really didn't need this outpost
in the middle of the anymore.
In 1988, Midway became a national wildlife refuge.
It also serves another interesting purpose.
They have an airstrip on there from World War II
that is maintained as an emergency landing spot
for trans Pacific airliner.
So if they're leaving Hawaii going to Japan
or something like that,
and they're having problems, can't make it back,
they try and go for Midway.
Number nine, Kingman Reef.
Kingman Reef is south of Hawaii, and there's nothing here.
This is just a reef, it's got a little patch of land
that you probably even couldn't set up a house on.
And there's nothing here.
But we own it, it's a territory.
Number 10 Palmyra Atoll.
South of Kingman Reef, you have this small atoll,
which is actually kind of a cute place.
It looks really nice, you wouldn't be able to live here.
I don't think they have any fresh water,
but if you bring your own water,
a lot of people do and they go snorkeling here.
That's about all you do here.
Number 11, Jarvis Island.
Yeah, there's nothing here, but birds, no trees, no nothing.
At one point in the 1930s,
we did this thing called the American Equatorial
Island Colonization Project,
where we left some settlers there for a while every year,
they'd pull a shift for like six months or a year,
and then we'd bring new ones there.
And we had to maintain a presence on the island
or we'd lose it.
It was just some weird thing,
but there hasn't been anyone there in decades.
And there's nothing to see there.
Number 12, Baker Island.
Just like Jarvis Island, there's nothing here,
and we did the same thing.
We put some settlers there for six months at a time
back in the 1930s.
And I think they launched a couple of flights
during World War II from there,
to bomb different little islands the Japanese had occupied,
but really there hasn't been anyone there in decades also.
Right now the population is zero.
Unless you count birds,
then it's probably a couple thousand.
Number 13, Howland Island.
Not too far from Baker Island, is Howland Island.
This one is another little nothing place
out in the middle of nowhere.
No trees, no nothing, no fresh water,
no reason to go here.
Only one person ever tried to find this place and couldn't,
and that was Amelia Earhart.
She was supposed to meet a U.S Navy ship on the island
to be refueled and resupplied,
and then continue on with their trip.
They think they heard her on the radio a couple times,
but they couldn't really help her.
They just heard her briefly, and that was about it.
Never to be seen again.
Number 14, Nevassa Island,
Nevassa Island is a little bit interesting.
There's no one there nothing goes on there,
just mostly birds.
It's totally uninhabited.
I don't think they've ever really had anyone living there,
but we claim we own it,
and it's U.S territory while Haiti claims they own it.
This has been an ongoing dispute.
I mean we haven't gone to war with them over it.
But they claim it and we claim it, so who knows?
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All right everyone,
those are your 14 U.S territories.
I hope you found this interesting,
I wanna thank all the people that have been asking
for this video for a long time.
I kind of wanted to just knock this one out
and if there's enough interest,
I wanna do a bigger one on the five main territories,
they've got a lot of great history
that I just barely touched on, on this.
So we'll see, if you guys give it enough thumbs up,
we get enough views, I'll definitely knock that one out.
All right everyone, have a great day, be nice to each other.
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