interactive global map, kept updated, on the overlapping territorial areas of pre-contact indigenous tribal land

In the early 1940s, the United States Army was testing the idea of parachuting from planes as a way of deploying troops. The first group to really experiment with it and begin developing paratrooper techniques was a unit of 50 men known the Parachute Test Platoon.These guys were based out of Fort Benning, Georgia, and spent most of their summer working through grueling training sessions in the afternoon heat, wearing parachutes on their backs along with the rest of their standard gear. When training was done for the day, the troops liked to loosen up and cool down a little. Usually, most of the guys went to the air-conditioned Main Post Theatre in the evenings to see whatever movie was playing. One night in August 1940, that movie happened to be the Paramount western, Geronimo, about the Apache chief.After the movie, there was beer. After beer, there was, as there often is, a boast. On their way back to their bunks after the film, the group got to talking about the jump they were...

A $500 million lawsuit was filed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe against some of the world's largest beer makers, as well as their distributors, and four beer stores in the reservation border town of Whiteclay. Whiteclay has a population of 11 people and sold the equivalent of 4.3 million 12-ounce cans of beer last year. Tribal leaders and activists blame the Whiteclay businesses for chronic alcohol abuse and bootlegging on Pine Ridge Reservation, an area the size of Connecticut with approx 40,000 residents. The lawsuit asks that breweries, retailers and distributors pay damages for health care and law enforcement costs, developmental problems in children and other alcohol-related problems on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The tribe also wants a judge to restrict alcohol sales in Whiteclay.

One in four children born on the reservation suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and the average life expectancy is estimated between 45 and 52 years.