Then in December 1773 the Dutch in New York City started celebrating the St. Nicholas celebrations. It was here where the American people first met the acquaintance of the saint. After the Americans changed is name to Santa Claus, which is a degeneration of the dutch name Sinter Klaas, more and more people started writing about the ‘new born’ saint of New York. Even though his name had changed, his appearance was still different to the modern-day version. Santa Claus his appearance would differ all the time from a ‘rascal’ to a man gallivanting a huge pair of Flemish trunk hose. 

When Clement Clark Moore wrote his famous poem “An account of a visit from Saint Nicholas” in 1822, the first baby steps to the modern-day image of Santa Claus where set. But the jolly old, kind of obese but that is a different topic, man we all know today, was finally born when political cartoonist Thomas Nast stole moore’s painting to create the modern-day Santa in 1881. And this is how the image of the jolly, old, bearded, red suit wearing and sleigh riding man was born. 

When Fidel Castro won the revolutionary war in Cuba, he reformed the island nation into a communist ally of the soviet-union. This meant that there was a communist country right near the US shore. The US responded by closing a deal with Turkey to install nuclear missile installations within its borders. 

Then in 1962 an American spy aeroplane spotted nuclear weapon installations on the island of Cuba. US generals and the secretary of defence believed this was the ultimate opportunity to invade Cuba. But cautious, even afraid perhaps, of the missiles president John Fitzgerald Kennedy discarded the advice of his officials and decided not to invade Cuba. He instead broadcasted a television statement in which he revealed the direct nuclear threat. Understandably people got really scared and there where hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people who sought shelter in bomb shelters. Furthermore, president Kennedy elaborated his plans to enact a naval blockade to prevent the Soviet-Union from shipping more weapons to Cuba.   

The Soviet-Union responded that this blockade was an act of war and would therefore be ignored. Afraid of yet another world war, the nuclear threat in America went up to defqon 2 (the highest nuclear threat ever in the US). 

Luckily an agreement was found between the US and the Soviet-Union before the standoff escalated. The US promised not to invade Cuba and to withdraw all nuclear weapons from Turkey. And in return the Soviet-Union would retrieve all nuclear weapons from Cuba. 

And this is how the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear war, began and thankfully deescalated just in time.  

During the Spanish-American war in 1898 Theodore Roosevelt became colonel of the first U.S. volunteer cavalry, notoriously known as the ‘Rough Riders’. Roosevelt lead the Rough Riders to victory in the battle of San Juan, probably the most distinctive victory of the war. Roosevelt became immensely popular because of this and was hailed home as the wars most visible hero. 

The Republican party, in which he had been involved with for quite some time, saw a golden opportunity to fed of the success of the war. They elected him for the republican position of governor of New York. Using his charm and characteristics Roosevelt defeated a popular democratic candidate to become governor of the state of New York. 

Roosevelt was later appointed as the running mate for, at the time, serving president McKinley. Roosevelt did an excellent job promoting McKinley in over 24 states, travelling a distance of 21.000 miles in total! 

But then, on September 6 1901, president McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Even though president McKinley initially survived the hit on his live, he passed away eight days later. Although this was extremely tragic news, this also meant that new opportunities would arise for Roosevelt. 

As McKinleys running mate, Roosevelt was sworn into office as the 26^th president of the United States. He was only 42 years old at the time, thus being the youngest president in the history of the United States. Roosevelt would go on to reform image of the American government and stabilize the American society.   

The biggest reason for the decay of Detroit is ironically the thing that made it flourish. After the car industry took a massive blow from the recent financial crisis, it was forced to make severe cuts. One of these cuts resulted into job losses, due to outsourcing. This greatly effected the employment rate in Detroit. 

But besides the fall of the car industry, mismanagement paid a massive role as well. On its peak 38 cents to every dollar were spend on debt repayment. This mismanagement was so bad that the government was not able to keep the lights on, over 40% of the street lights in Detroit where out of order.  

Cumulative causation resulted into companies fleeing Detroit. Therefore, all knowledge, money and employment drained out off the city, leaving it almost defend less over its destiny 

Over the course of several years the feared nightmare became reality as Detroit filed for bankruptcy, the single largest municipal bankruptcy in world history. Leaving behind a deserted concrete jungle of empty skyscrapers. 

To emphasize the detrimental effects the above stated happenings had on Detroit, I have listed some relevant figures: 

-          The unemployment rate is 25% 

-          Crime rates are at an all-time   high 

-          Almost 80.000 homes are empty   

-          A third of the 700.000 people in Detroit live in Poverty. 

So let us learn from history and prevent this from happening again, as none of us want to live in the second ‘lost city’.