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Patient Zero
How historical accidents combined to make the USA in every way the sickest nation on Earth
Most people have a totally false notion of the USA. Outsiders see what Hollywood projects: slender happy people having all sorts of interesting adventures, albeit very often involving firearms. US citizens, meanwhile, are from their earliest years fed propaganda about how their country is “the greatest nation on Earth” and because very few ever live elsewhere or bother to study history, no one knows it’s a lie.
The reality of the USA is far more complicated and far more interesting.
Whereas most other nations evolved slowly, gradually morphing from one type of society into another, the USA evolved in a succession of abrupt shifts. First of all, Europeans colonized tiny portions of the North American landmass. The British established a colony at Roanoke 1587 and created tobacco plantations in the area of Virginia commencing from 1612 when John Rolfe began planting tobacco seeds he’d obtained from Florida. This was to take advantage of the growing British desire for “the stinking weed” that had begun to flourish in the late sixteenth century.
The French had already begun to colonize North America, commencing with the development of Fort Caroline in Florida in 1562. The Spanish, of course, were likewise interested in this exciting lump of real-estate and…
