7 Things You Didn’t Know About American Greatness

1

American generosity has kept hundreds of millions of strangers alive

For a century, American abundance didn’t just feed Americans. When famine struck Belgium, the new Soviet Union, postwar Europe and a newly independent India, it was American grain that arrived—often given, not sold, while Americans rationed at home to send more.

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Belgians fed for five years from 1914

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Soviets fed per day at the 1921 peak

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Tons of food sent worldwide through UN to avert World War II-era famine

At one point, U.S. wheat shipments amounted to nearly half of India’s entire wheat crop. Today, U.S.-funded food assistance still reaches more than 100 million people worldwide each year. It may be the largest sustained humanitarian effort ever undertaken by a single nation—yet it is scarcely noticed.

2

America turned both world wars and won the Cold War

If Britain provided the time and Russia the blood to defeat the Axis, America provided the arsenal. It produced half of all Allied aircraft, outmanufactured every Axis power combined, and then rebuilt the very nations it had fought.

Getty Images

In the Cold War, the U.S. prevented Soviet domination of Western Europe, preserving ancient states from a totalitarian regime that killed tens of millions of its own people.

Today a single U.S. carrier still reaches the site of an earthquake or tsunami within days as the world’s most capable first responder—a hospital, a power plant and a rescue fleet in one hull.

The global economic order America has defended with billions in aid and security has been history’s most powerful anti-poverty force.

Share of humanity in extreme poverty

Thanks largely to America, ~100,000 people have escaped extreme poverty every day since 1990.

3

The world’s oldest constitution was built on the Bible

America is one of the youngest major nations, yet it has the oldest written national constitution still in force. While other nations have churned through dozens of charters, America’s has endured. A major reason is that its framers drew its deepest principles from the immutable principles of Scripture.

Washington at the Constitutional Convention

Junius Brutus Stearns / Chrysler Museum gift

Constitutions adopted since 1787

United States1

France15

Venezuela26

Dominican Republic32

Rule of law over rule of force. Equal justice for rich and poor. Government is deliberately limited and divided into three branches, reflecting the founders’ belief that human nature cannot be trusted with unchecked power. The founders traced each idea to the Bible. To this day, all 50 state constitutions reference God.

4

It was handed the most blessed geography on Earth

One of America’s deepest advantages is the land itself. The largest contiguous stretch of farmland on the planet, overlain by the world’s greatest network of navigable rivers, and moated by two oceans.

Infographic map: the most blessed geography on Earth

Infographic · The Trumpet

America has over 250,000 rivers and 3.5 million miles of flowing water, making up the largest network of navigable rivers on Earth. So exceptional is America’s geographic situation that experts have called the U.S. “the inevitable empire.”

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of the world’s people

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of global economic output

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of the world’s wealth

When the country was first crossable by car

America—first coast-to-coast highway1913

Russia—first cross-country highway2008

These geographical advantages are no accident. They were created by God for a specific purpose—at a specific time in history.

The founders knew the source of America’s blessings—and we forgot it

In 1863, with the nation split and bleeding, Abraham Lincoln did something unimaginable for a modern leader: He called the entire country to a day of prayer and fasting, and named the danger plainly.

Alexander Gardner, 1863 · Library of Congress (public domain)

We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. Abraham Lincoln · Proclamation, March 30, 1863

Americans took credit for blessings they did not create, and lost sight of where they came from.

The division, debt and disorder we see in America today aren’t the real crisis. They are symptoms of the people forgetting God—a problem now far advanced.

Read more: “How America Became Great”

6

America’s greatness was promised in Genesis

The sudden, improbable rise of America and Britain around 1800 had been foretold. It was actually the fulfillment of a promise of wealth and power given to the descendants of Joseph, postponed for 2,520 years, then poured out exactly on schedule.

The 2,520-year delay

A prophecy of postponed greatness, fulfilled on time

721–718 B.C. A.D. 1800–1803

+ 2,520 years

Israel falls;
blessing withheld America and
Britain rise

Exactly when the prophesied postponement ended, the Louisiana Purchase doubled the U.S. overnight—the most fertile territory on Earth, for about 3 cents an acre. This is one dramatic piece of evidence, among many more, that America is modern Manasseh and Britain modern Ephraim, the prophesied heirs of Israel’s birthright.

7

We are going to lose it—unless we change course

America’s greatness is not assured. Many patriotic Americans can recognize that the nation faces serious problems—socially, morally, economically, spiritually. The world’s greatest-ever single nation is in danger of going the way of every empire in history that has preceded it.

Julia Henderson / The Trumpet

In fact, the same prophecies that explain the blessings that made America great carry a warning. A nation that receives so much and forgets the God who gave it invites correction. And today there is no Lincoln calling the nation to its knees.

It is crucial that we recognize the national sins that are causing the uncertainty and decline. History and prophecy prove that unless we repent, our nation is facing its end.

Thankfully, America’s story will not end in decline. The correction is meant to turn the nation back, not destroy it. Ultimately, the nation will turn back to God. The blessings that flowed out to the world were only a foretaste. America’s greatest contribution lies still ahead.

Though the city upon a hill has dimmed, it will shine again—brighter than ever.

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The Philadelphia Trumpet, July 2026 — How America Became Great

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