Consumers’ options for managing their finances were greatly broadened on this date in 1934 after President Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act the day before, promoting the nationwide formation of credit unions. These differ from banks by being member owned and controlled. Credit unions are nonprofit institutions where groups of people can save, borrow, and obtain other financial services. There are nearly 18,000 credit unions in the U.S., employing about a quarter million people. These establishments range from a small cooperative for a single church or factory, to those that serve employees of giant corporations. By contrast, there are over 92,000 commercial banking establishments in America’s $3.5 trillion finance and insurance sector of the economy. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.
Saturday, June 28th. On this date one century ago, what was perhaps history’s most consequential assassination took place to surprisingly little notice at the time. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, was killed along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist. After a month of bluster and failed diplomacy, by early August 1914, most of Europe was at war, one that the United States joined in 1917. When the smoke cleared in 1918, and the Ottoman, Russian, Austria-Hungarian and German empires had fallen, more than 8.5 million people had died out of some 37.5 million casualties. The last American veteran of the so-called Great War died just over three years ago, but there remain more than 21 million living veterans in the U.S., including just under 21,000 from between the world wars. Profile America is in its 17th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sunday, June 29th. On this date in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill establishing the Interstate Highway System, originally of 41,000 miles. Today, that system is America’s main street — linking all 48 continental states along its nearly 47,000 miles, and making it the largest highway system in the world. The original cost of the interstate system was more than $25 billion. From rural dirt roads to the interstate highways, there are nearly 4 million miles of roads in the U.S., on which we travel more than 4.7 trillion passenger miles annually. Building new roads and bridges involves almost 11,000 businesses, employing over 260,000 people in work worth more than $106 billion a year. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.