No Taxation - No Representation

In keeping with the spirit of not looking things up, here's what I seem to remember about U.S. territories:  I think the reason they are called territories is that the first one was called "The Northwest Territory".  When the 13 colonies won their independence, the Brits threw in the Northwest Territory at no extra charge.  The United States of America hadn't been organized yet, so the Brits gave the Northwest Territory to the Continental Congress, which subsequently passed The Northwest Ordinance to govern it.  When the U.S. Constitution was written, it gave Congress the power to govern new territories and carve them up into states.  Residents of U.S. territories are U.S. citizens, but they don't pay income tax and they don't vote in national elections.  At least that's what I thought, but I remember hearing reports of election returns from some territories during the last presidential election, so maybe that was changed at some point.  When I went to school, each territory got to send one non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, and I have no reason to believe that has been changed.  Puerto Rico has voted down statehood resolutions a number of times.  I understand that about a third of their people want statehood, another third want independence, and another third want to retain their territorial status.

Most, but not all, South and Central American countries speak Spanish.  Brazil speaks Portuguese, Haiti speaks French, and I think Jamaica speaks its own dialect of English.  None of them speaks Latin but, for some reason, they are all called Latin American countries.  They were all European colonies at one time, and I think that Jamaica still is.  A guy named Simon Bolivar was instrumental in liberating several South American colonies during the 19th Century.  He envisioned a United States of South America, but it never came to be.

Our former Governor Snyder was always trying to persuade business interests to locate in Michigan.  He even solicited one from Red China, but the deal ran aground when it was revealed that an inordinate number of their Chinese employees had committed suicide to escape their unpleasant work environment.  I seem to remember there was some talk about a space center too, but I don't think anything ever came of it.