1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
3.
University of Southern California
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The University of Southern California is a private research university founded in 1880 with its main campus in Los Angeles, California. As Californias oldest private university, USC has historically educated a large number of the regions business leaders. In recent decades, the university has also leveraged its location in Los Angeles to establish relationships with research and cultural institutions throughout Asia, an engine for economic activity, USC contributes $8 billion annually to the economy of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and California. For the 2014–15 academic year, there were 18,740 students enrolled in undergraduate programs. USC also has 23,729 graduate and professional students in a number of different programs, including business, law, engineering, social work, and medicine. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the world, consistently ranking among the top 3 in external contributions, multiple academic rankings list the University of Southern California as being among the top 25 universities in the United States. With an acceptance rate of 16 percent, USC is also among the most selective academic institutions in the nation. USC maintains a tradition of innovation and entrepreneurship, with alumni having founded companies such as Lucasfilm, Myspace, Salesforce. com, Intuit, Qualcomm, Box, Tinder. As of 2014, the university has produced the fourth largest number of billionaire alumni out of all institutions in the world. USC is home to the world’s most powerful computer, which is presently housed in a super-cooled. The only other commercially available quantum computing system is operated jointly by NASA, USC was also one of the earliest nodes on ARPANET and is the birthplace of the Domain Name System. Other technologies invented at USC include DNA computing, dynamic programming, image compression, VoIP, USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Members of the teams, the Trojans, have won 102 NCAA team championships, ranking them third in the nation. Trojan athletes have won 288 medals at the Olympic games, more than any university in the United States. If USC were a country, its athletes would have received the 12th-most Olympic gold medals in history. In 1969, it joined the Association of American Universities, the University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge Robert M. Hellman. The three donated 308 lots of land to establish the campus and provided the seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that no student would be denied admission because of race, the university is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952
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SRI International
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SRI International is an American nonprofit research institute headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support development in the region. The organization was founded as the Stanford Research Institute, SRI formally separated from Stanford University in 1970 and became known as SRI International in 1977. SRI describes its mission as creating world-changing solutions to make people safer, healthier and it performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. It also licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships, sells products, SRIs annual revenue in 2014 was approximately $540 million. SRIs headquarters are located near the Stanford University campus, jeffrey has served as SRIs president and CEO since September 2014. Sarnoff Corporation, an owned subsidiary of SRI since 1988, was fully integrated into SRI in January 2011. SRI has received more than 4,000 patents and patent applications worldwide, in the 1920s, Stanford University professor Robert E. Swain proposed creating a research institute in the Western United States. Herbert Hoover, then a trustee of Stanford University, was also a proponent of an institute. The development of the institute was delayed by the Great Depression in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s, with three separate attempts leading to its formation in 1946. In August 1945, Maurice Nelles, Morlan A. Visel, a second attempt was made by Henry T. Heald, then president of the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1945, Heald wrote a report recommending a research institute on the West Coast, a third attempt was made by Fred Terman, Stanford Universitys dean of engineering. Termans proposal followed Healds, but focused on faculty and student research more than contract research, the trustees of Stanford University voted to create the organization in 1946. It was structured so that its goals were aligned with the charter of the university—to advance scientific knowledge and to benefit the public at large, not just the students of Stanford University. The trustees were named as the general members, and elected SRIs directors, if the organization were dissolved. Research chemist William F. Talbot became the first director of the institute and this and other issues, including frustration with Tresidders micromanagement of the new organization, caused Talbot to repeatedly offer his resignation, which Tresidder eventually accepted. Talbot was replaced by Jesse Hobson, who had led the Armour Research Foundation. SRIs first research project investigated whether the plant could be used as a source of natural rubber
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United States Department of Defense
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The Department is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as of 2016. Adding to its employees are over 801,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists from the four services and it is headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D. C. The Department of Defense is headed by the Secretary of Defense, Military operations are managed by nine regional or functional Unified Combatant Commands. The Department of Defense also operates several joint services schools, including the National Defense University, the history of the defense of the United States started with the Continental Congress in 1775. The creation of the United States Army was enacted on 14 June 1775 and this coincides with the American holiday Flag Day. The Second Continental Congress would charter the United States Navy, on 13 October 1775, today, both the Navy and the Marine Corps are separate military services subordinate to the Department of the Navy. The Preamble of the United States Constitution gave the authority to federal government, to defend its citizens and this first Congress had a huge agenda, that of creating legislation to build a government for the ages. Legislation to create a military defense force stagnated, two separate times, President George Washington went to Congress to remind them of their duty to establish a military. In a special message to Congress on 19 December 1945, the President cited both wasteful military spending and inter-departmental conflicts, deliberations in Congress went on for months focusing heavily on the role of the military in society and the threat of granting too much military power to the executive. The act placed the National Military Establishment under the control of a single Secretary of Defense, the National Military Establishment formally began operations on 18 September, the day after the Senate confirmed James V. Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. The National Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense on 10 August 1949, under the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958, channels of authority within the department were streamlined, while still maintaining the authority of the Military Departments. Also provided in this legislation was a centralized authority, the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Act moved decision-making authority from the Military Departments to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and it also strengthened the command channel of the military over U. S. forces from the President to the Secretary of Defense. Written and promoted by the Eisenhower administration, it was signed into law 6 August 1958, because the Constitution vests all military authority in Congress and the President, the statutory authority of the Secretary of Defense is derived from their constitutional authorities. Department of Defense Directive 5100.01 describes the relationships within the Department. The latest version, signed by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in December 2010, is the first major re-write since 1987, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is the Secretary and Deputy Secretarys civilian staff. S. Government departments and agencies, foreign governments, and international organizations, OSD also performs oversight and management of the Defense Agencies and Department of Defense Field Activities. OSD also supervises the following Defense Agencies, Several defense agencies are members of the United States Intelligence Community and these are national-level intelligence services that operate under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense but simultaneously fall under the authorities of the Director of National Intelligence
6.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
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Virginia
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Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
8.
American Samoa
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American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of Samoa. American Samoa consists of five islands and two coral atolls. The largest and most populous island is Tutuila, with the Manuʻa Islands, Rose Atoll, All islands except for Swains Island are part of the Samoan Islands, located west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and some 300 miles south of Tokelau. To the west are the islands of the Wallis and Futuna group, the 2010 census showed a total population of 55,519 people. The total land area is 199 square kilometers, slightly more than Washington, American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the U. S. and one of two U. S. territories south of the Equator, along with the uninhabited Jarvis Island. Tuna products are the exports, and the main trading partner is the United States. American Samoa is noted for having the highest rate of enlistment of any U. S. state or territory. Most American Samoans are bilingual and can speak English and Samoan fluently, Samoan is the same language spoken in neighboring independent Samoa. Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century, dutchman Jacob Roggeveen was the first known European to sight the Samoan Islands in 1722. This visit was followed by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville who named them the Navigator Islands in 1768, contact was limited before the 1830s, when English missionaries and traders began arriving. The site of battle is called Massacre Bay. Mission work in the Samoas had begun in late 1830 when John Williams of the London Missionary Society arrived from the Cook Islands, by that time, the Samoans had gained a reputation for being savage and warlike, as violent altercations had occurred between natives and European visitors. In March 1889, an Imperial German naval force entered a village on Samoa, three American warships then entered the Apia harbor and prepared to engage the three German warships found there. Before any shots were fired, a typhoon wrecked both the American and German ships, a compulsory armistice was then called because of the lack of any warships. Forerunners to the Tripartite Convention of 1899 were the Washington Conference of 1887, the Treaty of Berlin of 1889, the following year, the USA formally occupied its portion, a smaller group of eastern islands, one of which contains the noted harbor of Pago Pago. The Navy secured a Deed of Cession of Tutuila in 1900, the territory became known as the US Naval Station Tutuila. On July 17,1911, the US Naval Station Tutuila, in 1918 during the final stages of World War I, the flu pandemic had taken its toll, spreading rapidly from country to country. The result of Poyers quick actions earned him the Navy Cross from the US Navy, with this distinction, American Samoans regarded Poyer as their hero for what he had done to prevent the deadly disease
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Guam
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Guam is an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, Guam is one of five American territories with a civilian government. The capital city is Hagåtña and the most populous city is Dededo, in 2015,161,785 people resided on Guam. Guamanians are American citizens by birth, Guam has an area of 210 sq mi and a population density of 770/sq mi. It is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia, among its municipalities, Mongmong-Toto-Maite has the highest density at 3, 691/sq mi, whereas Inarajan and Umatac have the lowest density at 119/sq mi. The highest point is Mount Lamlam at 406 meters above sea level, the Chamorros, Guams indigenous people, settled the island approximately 4,000 years ago. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to visit the island on March 6,1521, Guam was colonized in 1668 with settlers, like Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Catholic missionary. Between the 16th century and the 18th century, Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons, during the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam on June 21,1898. Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Guam to the United States on December 10,1898, Guam is among the seventeen Non-Self-Governing Territories of the United Nations. Before World War II, Guam and three other territories – American Samoa, Hawaii, and the Philippines – were the only American jurisdictions in the Pacific Ocean. On December 7,1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was captured by the Japanese, during the occupation, Guamanians were subjected to beheadings, forced labor, rape, and torture. Guam endured hostilities when American forces recaptured the island on July 21,1944, since the 1960s, the economy is supported by two industries, tourism and the United States Armed Forces. The original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BC and they evolved into the Chamorro people. The ancient-Chamorro society had four classes, chamorri, matua, achaot, the matua were located in the coastal villages, which meant they had the best access to fishing grounds, whereas the manachang were located in the interior of the island. Matua and manachang rarely communicated with other, and matua often used achaot as intermediaries. There were also makåhna, skilled in healing and medicine, belief in spirits of ancient Chamorros called Taotao mona still persists as a remnant of pre-European culture. Their society was organized along matrilineal clans, Latte stones are stone pillars that are found only in the Mariana Islands, and, they are a recent development in Pre-Contact Chamorro society. The latte-stone was used as a foundation on which thatched huts were built, Latte stones consist of a base shaped from limestone called the haligi and with a capstone, or tåsa, made either from a large brain coral or limestone, placed on top
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Northern Mariana Islands
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The CNMI includes all islands in the Mariana Archipelago except Guam which is the southernmost island of the chain and a separate U. S. territory. The United States Department of the Interior cites a landmass of 183.5 square miles, according to the 2010 United States Census,53,883 people were living in the CNMI at that time. The vast majority of the population resides on Saipan, Tinian, the administrative center is Capitol Hill, a village in northwestern Saipan. However, most publications consider Saipan to be the capital because the island is governed as a single municipality, the first people of the Mariana Islands immigrated at some point between 4000 BC and 2000 BC from Southeast Asia. After first contact with Spaniards, they became known as the Chamorros, a Spanish word similar to Chamori. The ancient people of the Marianas raised colonnades of megalithic capped pillars called latte stones upon which they built their homes, the first European explorer of the area, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, arrived in 1521. He landed on Guam, the southernmost island of the Marianas, the Spanish ships were met offshore by the native Chamorros, who delivered refreshments and then helped themselves to a small boat belonging to Magellans fleet. This led to a clash, in Chamorro tradition, little property was private and taking something one needed, such as a boat for fishing. The Spanish did not understand this custom, and fought the Chamorros until the boat was recovered, three days after he had been welcomed on his arrival, Magellan fled the archipelago. Spain regarded the islands as annexed and later made part of the Spanish East Indies. In 1734, the Spanish built a palace in Guam for the governor of the islands. Its remains are visible even in the 21st century, see the Plaza de España article, Guam operated as an important stopover between Manila and Mexico for galleons carrying gold between the Philippines and Spain. Some galleons sunk in Guam remain, in 1668, Father Diego Luis de San Vitores renamed the islands Las Marianas in honor of his patroness the Spanish regent Mariana of Austria, widow of Felipe IV. Most of the native population died from Spanish diseases or married non-Chamorro settlers under Spanish rule. New settlers, primarily from the Philippines and the Caroline Islands, were brought to repopulate the islands, the Chamorro population gradually recovered, and Chamorro, Filipino, and Carolinian languages and other ethnic differences remain in the Marianas. During the 17th century, Spanish colonists forcibly moved the Chamorros to Guam, by the time they were allowed to return to the Northern Marianas, many Carolinians from present-day eastern Yap State and western Chuuk State had settled in the Marianas. Both languages, as well as English, are now official in the Commonwealth, the Northern Marianas experienced an influx of immigration from the Carolines during the 19th century. Both this Carolinian subethnicity and Carolinians in the Carolines archipelago refer to themselves as the Refaluwasch, the indigenous Chamoru word for the same group of people is gupalao
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Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
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United States Virgin Islands
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The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of islands in the Caribbean that are an insular area of the United States. The islands are part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The U. S. Virgin Islands consist of the islands of Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas. The total land area of the territory is 133.73 square miles, the territorys capital is Charlotte Amalie on the island of Saint Thomas. Previously the Danish West Indies of the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway, they were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of 1916. They are classified by the U. N. as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, the U. S. Virgin Islands are organized under the 1954 Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands and have since held five constitutional conventions. The Fifth Constitutional Convention of the U. S. Virgin Islands met in October 2012 to address these concerns, in 2010 the population was 106,405, and mostly Afro-Caribbean. Tourism and related categories are the economic activity, employing a high percentage of the civilian non-farm labor force that totalled 42,752 persons in 2016. Private sector jobs made up 71 percent of the total workforce, the average private sector salary was $34,088 and the average public sector salary was $52,572. In a May 2016 report, some 11,000 people were categorized as being involved in some aspect of agriculture in the first half of 2016, at that time, there were approximately 607 manufacturing jobs and 1,487 natural resource and construction jobs. The single largest employer was the government, in mid February 2017, the USVI was facing a financial crisis due to a very high debt level of $2 billion and a structural budget deficit of $110 million. The U. S. Virgin Islands were originally inhabited by the Ciboney, Carib, the islands were named by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493 for Saint Ursula and her virgin followers. Over the next two hundred years, the islands were held by many European powers, including Spain, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Denmark-Norway. The Danish West India Company settled on Saint Thomas in 1672, settled on Saint John in 1694, the islands became royal Danish colonies in 1754, named the Danish West Indian Islands. Sugarcane, produced by labor, drove the islands economy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The Danish West India and Guinea Company are also credited with naming the island St. John, the Danish crown took full control of Saint John in 1754 along with St. Thomas and St. Croix. Sugarcane plantations such as the famous Annaberg Sugar Plantation were established in great numbers on St. John because of the intense heat, the establishment of sugarcane plantations also led to the buying of more slaves from Africa. In 1733 St. John was the site of one of the first significant slave rebellions in the New World when Akwamu slaves from the Gold Coast took over the island for six months, the Danish were able to defeat the enslaved Africans with help from the French in Martinique
United States of America