My 12 year old daughter wants to know. I did search google, reddit and the FAQ, but I think I am using the wrong search terms.
A statue of George Washington sits in Trafalgar Square in London. Washington said he would never step foot on British soil again. When the statue was sent over, a bunch of dirt from Virginia was also sent and put under the statue.
We also sent another statue of George Washington to Argentina to celebrate their first full century of independence in 1910.
EDIT: Added sources.
The city of Bismarck, North Dakota was named after the German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck in order to attract German investors. He was quite pleased about having an American town named after him, and corresponded with Bismarck's city officials several times. While I think you are asking about the US federal government, Otto Von Bismarck did recieve a gift from the City of Bismarck.
I hope you don't mind me quoting from a secondary source:
On von Bismarck’s 68th birthday that same year, the people of Bismarck sent the prince a special gift: a beautiful map of the city bound in maroon leather, lined in white silk, and stamped with golden letters. Despite all the other grand presents he received that day, the Chancellor was highly pleased with this map, showing it off to his guests at the party.
I'm not sure if this is famous enough, but the US rebuilt the library of the Catholic University of Leuvan after the Germans burned it in WW1. US universities also donated many books, but most came from German reparations. My brother studied there for a time and told me about it.
http://bib.kuleuven.be/english/bibc/cb-cultural/history-and-architecture
There is a famous statue outside the largest church (and previously largest building) in Iceland that was a gift from the US. It might be obscure to USonians but is very prominent in Iceland. Any Icelander would recognize a picture of it, although they might not know its origin.
Wiki sums it up pretty well:
The statue of explorerLeif Eriksson (c. 970 – c. 1020) by Alexander Stirling Calder in front of the church predates its construction. It was a gift from the United States in honor of the 1930 Alþingi Millennial Festival, commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Iceland's parliament at Þingvellir in 930 AD.
Wiki link: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallgr%C3%ADmskirkja
In 2012, the US gifted [3000 Dogwood trees to Japan] (http://www.npr.org/2012/05/01/151795110/dogwood-diplomacy-u-s-to-send-japan-3-000-trees) to mark the 100 year anniversary of the Cherry Blossom trees.
The Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek in Berlin (American Memorial Library) was gifted by the US to the german people after the blockade of Berlin.
It is the biggest public library in germany.
Unfortunately the only official source on their page is in german. The english part has nothing about the history but the wikipedia article says the same.
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Proper comments for this subreddit should be in-depth, comprehensive, and informative while properly situating the answer in its historical context. It should also be backed by appropriate primary and secondary sources, whether or not explicitly mentioned in the comment (i.e. you should always be ready to provide sources if asked). In other words, answers here should be such as an historian of the subject would give.
Thank you.
This was the most interesting one that I found in a previous thread on the subject:
As trellises spread across the landscape, Missouri viticulture soon raised another flag of worldwide acclaim. In 1876, an insidious louse began a relentless assault on vineyards throughout France. The parasite had come from America and found the France roots particularly appealing-pushing the French wine industry to the brink of ruin.
Fortunately, Missouri's first entomologist Charles V. Riley made an important discovery. In 1871, at the invitation of the French government, Riley inspected France's ailing grape crop. He diagnosed the problem as an infestation of phylloxera, an American plant louse. He found that some Native American rootstocks were immune to the advances of the dreaded louse. By grafting French vines onto them, healthy grapes could be produced. Millions of cuttings of Missouri rootstock were shipped to save the French wine industry from disaster. Statues in Montpelier, France, commemorate this rescue.
This particular quote is from the Missouri Wine Country website.
This, of course, isn't the whole story. Charles V. Riley worked with Jules Émile Planchon, a French botanist, and others, to save the world's supply of wine. Granted, it was an American aphid that caused all the fuss, but it was also american roots that saved the wine.
If you'd like to read the whole story, there is a book on the subject: The Botanist and the Vintner: How Wine Was Saved for the World
This is a rather.. er.. paltry list of gifts.. statues of George Washington? One even shipped with his own dirt? I understand his significance to the American people, and ultimately I guess, what it stands for... but er.. wouldn't it be more relevant to gift something that is a little more relative to the recipient country?
Can anyone explain if there is any deeper reason to gifting statues of GW?
The Goodwill Moon Rocks were given as gifts to other nations by the Nixon Administration.
It's not exactly what you're looking for, but about $656 billion dollars worth of supplies in today's money were given to the Allied countries during WWII under the Lend Lease Act.
The US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa provided West Berlin with almost 5,000 tons of supplies per day, including food and coal for almost a year during the Berlin Airlift.
It's not pretty like a statue or a bunch of trees, but I think it was a worthwhile humanitarian gesture.
Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of the best schools in China, is sort of a gift from the United States- after the Boxer Rebellion, US Secretary of State John Hay gave the Chinese $10mil off their $30mil reparations bill if they built a university that would prepare Chinese students for study in the US (funny how that turned out!)
I was always under the impression that the U.S gave to Australia a WWII memorial in the 50's but, under further investigation, it looks like the prime minister at the time, Sir Robert Menzies, got people to donate more than £100,000 to build it as a thank you. It's a octagonal tapered column with a sphere and an eagle on top and resides in Canberra at one of the big government offices, not far from Parliament House. There's an on-going joke that it's actually a transmitter/missile, ready to launch. Here's what it looks like: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Australian_american_memorial_in_russel.jpg Source: I lived in Canberra for 10 years.
