Photo History Talking

The US States That Produce the Most Oil A boom in oil production is profoundly changing the U.S. economy and impacting worldwide energy markets. As of 2015, 90% of U.S. oil production, excluding federal offshore drilling, comes from eight states: Texas, North Dakota, California, Alaska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming. The surge in U.S. output is due in large part to the wide use of horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as new technologies give drillers access to some of the largest oil deposits in the world that were once too tight to exploit. Fracking is controversial as some believe the chemicals injected into the wells lead to extensive pollution of the water supply. Some also argue the unconventional horizontal drilling awakens dormant faults, causing earthquakes. With domestic crude oil production averaging 9.4 million barrels a day over the first six months of 2015, the United States bypassed Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of crude oil...

Humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons founded the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross. Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and wounded during the American Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” for her tireless dedication. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war, and with the extensive records she had compiled during the war she succeeded in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp. She was in Europe in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and she went behind the German lines to work for the International Red Cross. In 1873, she returned to the United States, and four years later she organized an American branch of the International Red Cross. The American Red Cross received its first U.S. federa...