European powers were running out of places to colonize in africa, while trade in East Asia was becoming more and more profitable, but the cost in time and money of traveling all the way around africa and through the india ocean (or the long trek down the silk road) was hampering European profits off of trading. So the Spanish sent Columbus to find a shorter root to Asia. Columbus didn't set out looking for America, it was just a happy accident.
The RMS Lusitania was a ship that sailed from New York and had American civilians in - at that point the US was neutral in the WWI -, when the ship came to the sight of the Irish Coast the German U-boat attacked it.
Despite the fact that Americans were horrified at the Lusitania attack, many Americans did not like the idea to enter the war, Irish Americans did not enjoy the idea of helping Britain because the country denied Ireland its independence, German Americans were sympathetic towards their ancestral homeland and Americans saw no reason to enter into a war between European powers. The US only entered war two and a half years after it started.
Answer:
Europeans and Americans enjoyed technological superiority and possessed a modern navy with powerful warships powered by steam engines. If they wished, they could have inflicted great damage on Japanese ports and armies. Due to isolation and limited contacts with the outside world, Japan had lagged behind the West technologically and scientifically by the first half of the 19th century. After the fall of the shogunate, the leaders of the Meiji Era began a modernization process, a relatively quick catch-up with the West.
Explanation:
An executive order is not passed by Congress