WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
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CROSSING THE RUBICON
Profile America - Sunday, January 12th. Near this date in 49 B.C., Julius Caesar, leading the 13th Roman legion, crossed the Rubicon, a minor river in northeastern Italy, marking a boundary south of which a Roman general could not bring his troops. Crossing the Rubicon, which has since come to mean passing a point of no return, precipitated a civil war. Caesar triumphed, effectively ending the Roman republic and launching imperial Rome. Many generations later, the descendants of the Romans crossed a more formidable water barrier: the Atlantic Ocean. In 1832, three Italians were recorded as immigrants to the U.S.; in 1914, immigration from Italy peaked at over 283,000. Today there are nearly 17 and a half million Americans of Italian ancestry, around 5½ percent of the population. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.
Sources: http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2012/01/10/the-rubicon.htm
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 105, 106
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_1YR_S0201&prodType=table
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
