> (As an American, I find this phenomenon extremely silly and very foreign feeling. I don't really care whether "my" ancestors get credit for something or not, especially given that national boundaries and people move around all the time. I find it vaguely nationalistic in the ugly sense. Maybe it's because there were plenty of great Americans who were clearly not born here in the first place?)
Most of the countries in the America are largely populated by immigrants and their descendants, and have a relatively shallow history of culture [1], which gives them few opportunities to engage in these arguments, and little reason to care about the result.
[1] I should note here that the fact that the modern countries do not derive authority from any pre-existing indigenous polities gives them little influence in the development of culture.