And that is unique and powerful and sometimes admirable but it is also a historical accident.

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Okay, so the majority of Americans, sort of -- partly for historical accident.

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This kept congressional attention on the consequences of deficit spending, whether those deficits were planned or the result of historical accident.

FORBES: Republicans must mark their budget territory

Conservatives see it as an unfortunate historical accident that Mr Fischer and his disorderly friends ever came to power in September 1998.

ECONOMIST: Germany's generation gap

London's status as a global financial centre is, in part, an historical accident driven by American regulations in the 1960s that created an offshore lending business (the Euromarket) in Britain.

ECONOMIST: London as a financial centre

It is an historical accident: employers began offering health insurance during the second world war as a way of attracting workers at a time when wages were fixed by the government.

ECONOMIST: Business is right to be scared by the costs of Obamacare

The historical touchstone for this kind of event is Chernobyl, an accident that occurred in 1986 in the Ukraine.

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"It's almost a forgotten accident, " said Rick Zitarosa, historian for the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society.

NPR: Forgotten US Airship Crash Recalled 80 Years Later