I looked at the list of bills at http://congressionalbills.org/download.html . It starts with the 80th Congress in 1947. The first to mention Iceland was in the 85th Congress (1957-1959), titled "For the relief of the Government of the Republic of Iceland", and "arising out of accidents involving United States Armed Forces during their presence in Iceland from July 7, 1941, to April 5, 1947.". Nor did I find mention of it at govtrack.us.
I did a Google newspaper search, and couldn't find any mention of that proposal.
"The intention of the Icelandic people to preserve their newlywon independence needs to be emphasized, since it is overlooked in many plans for her future which others propose. Iceland, "kingpin of the Atlantic," is certainly not for sale. If there ever was a possibility that the United States could buy Iceland from Denmark, as Seward hoped, it obviously no longer exists. The suggestion has been made that Iceland would serve her interests best after the war by applying for statehood in the American Union. This idea is even more fantastic.... But none of these possibilities seems likely in the light of Iceland's actions and of the psychology of her people."
Therefore, Iceland statehood was at least an idea floating around in post-war international politics. Then again, another idea floating around was for it to join "a commonwealth of Scandinavian nations", so it seems ideas were all over the place.
Speech recognition is getting better. I predict that within the next 10 years it will be good enough that the back archives of all the available TV shows, news shows, radio broadcasts will be searchable. We might then have some evidence that people said "pie hole" before King wrote it down. Archive.org already offers a service like that, at https://archive.org/details/tv?q=%22pie%20hole%22 , but it doesn't extend that far backwards in time. Etymologists no doubt look forward to that new era.
Most are designed to appeal to a man who might otherwise think that wearing a ring is effeminate. It's been enculturated that rough or chunky surfaces and machine parts are signs of manliness.
When I moved to Sweden, I was told this about the people up north. Then I noticed that even people in the south do it. I certainly enjoy using it, and it's intruded in my English. It's used in about the same way we say "uh-huh", that is, as "yes" in "Do you want the receipt? Uh-huh.", and as a signifier that someone is listening "I went to the beach yesterday." "Uh-huh".
It bugs me that Superman wrote "The last time Robin asked me" instead of "The last time you asked me". Why would Superman be talking to Robin in the third person?
"The racial diversity found in the group reveals the progressive nature of the Spanish regarding citizens of African descent, in a time when the United States had only recently abolished slavery."
The US didn't abolish slavery until 1865, at which time California was already part of the US.
From my own knowledge of New Mexico history (Santa Fe was founded in 1610), the presence of people with African descent doesn't mean equality in Spanish society of the time. There was a strong social ranking based on how "pure" your blood is, the limpieza de sangre. Those of African descent were lower in the ranking than those of American Indian descent, which were lower than those of Spanish descent. See http://www.shmoop.com/spanish-colonization/race.html for a summary.
I guess I just don't laugh about harassment. I don't find jokes about how women walking down the street need to be told to smile more, or be given wolf whistles as compliments, to be funny either. Perhaps I'm wrong - do you have other funny jokes encouraging random street harassment that you want to share?
I did a Google newspaper search, and couldn't find any mention of that proposal.
But I did find http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/70377/hans-w-weigert/iceland-greenland-and-the-united-states ! It's from October 1944. It mentions that Seward, of Seward's Folly/Alaska wanted to acquire Greenland and Iceland. It also says:
"The intention of the Icelandic people to preserve their newlywon independence needs to be emphasized, since it is overlooked in many plans for her future which others propose. Iceland, "kingpin of the Atlantic," is certainly not for sale. If there ever was a possibility that the United States could buy Iceland from Denmark, as Seward hoped, it obviously no longer exists. The suggestion has been made that Iceland would serve her interests best after the war by applying for statehood in the American Union. This idea is even more fantastic.... But none of these possibilities seems likely in the light of Iceland's actions and of the psychology of her people."
Therefore, Iceland statehood was at least an idea floating around in post-war international politics. Then again, another idea floating around was for it to join "a commonwealth of Scandinavian nations", so it seems ideas were all over the place.
The US didn't abolish slavery until 1865, at which time California was already part of the US.
From my own knowledge of New Mexico history (Santa Fe was founded in 1610), the presence of people with African descent doesn't mean equality in Spanish society of the time. There was a strong social ranking based on how "pure" your blood is, the limpieza de sangre. Those of African descent were lower in the ranking than those of American Indian descent, which were lower than those of Spanish descent. See http://www.shmoop.com/spanish-colonization/race.html for a summary.