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
2.
Flag of the United States
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The flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag, is the national flag of the United States. S. Nicknames for the flag include The Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, the current design of the U. S. flag is its 27th, the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-star version became official on July 4,1959, the 50-star flag was ordered by the then president Eisenhower on August 21,1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the version of the U. S. flag and has been in use for over 56 years. At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the flag contemporaneously known as the Continental Colors has historically been referred to as the first national flag. The name Grand Union was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Preble in his 1872 history of the American flag, the flag closely resembles the British East India Company flag of the era, and Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design. Both flags could have been constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign. However, an East India Company flag could have nine to 13 stripes. In any case, both the stripes and the stars have precedents in classical heraldry, Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment. The first official U. S. flag flown during battle was on August 3,1777, Massachusetts reinforcements brought news of the adoption by Congress of the official flag to Fort Schuyler. A voucher is extant that Capt. Swartwout of Dutchess County was paid by Congress for his coat for the flag, the 1777 resolution was most probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of a flag did not yet exist. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee, on May 10,1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States. However, the term, Standard, referred to a standard for the Army of the United States. Each regiment was to carry the standard in addition to its regimental standard. The national standard was not a reference to the national or naval flag, the appearance was up to the maker of the flag. Some flag makers arranged the stars into one big star, in a circle or in rows, one arrangement features 13 five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, with the stars arranged pointing outwards from the circle, the so-called Betsy Ross flag
3.
Timeline of United States history
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This is a timeline of United States history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political and economic events in the United States and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of the United States, some dates before September 14,1752, when the British government adopted the Gregorian calendar, may be given in the Old Style
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Civil war
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The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources. Most modern civil wars involve intervention by outside powers, according to Patrick M. Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted on average just over four years, a dramatic rise from the one-and-a-half-year average of the 1900–1944 period. For example, there were no more than five civil wars underway simultaneously in the first half of the 20th century while there were over 20 concurrent civil wars close to the end of the Cold War. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, the Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997,104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007. The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term civil war and this includes civil wars, however no specific definition of civil war is provided in the text of the Conventions. That the legal Government is obliged to have recourse to the military forces against insurgents organized as military. That the insurgents have an organization purporting to have the characteristics of a State and that the insurgent civil authority exercises de facto authority over the population within a determinate portion of the national territory. That the armed forces act under the direction of an authority and are prepared to observe the ordinary laws of war. That the insurgent civil authority agrees to be bound by the provisions of the Convention, scholars investigating the cause of civil war are attracted by two opposing theories, greed versus grievance. Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war, a comprehensive study of civil war was carried out by a team from the World Bank in the early 21st century. A second source of finance is national diasporas, which can fund rebellions, the study found that statistically switching the size of a countrys diaspora from the smallest found in the study to the largest resulted in a sixfold increase in the chance of a civil war. Opportunity cost of rebellion Higher male secondary school enrollment, per capita income, the study interpreted these three factors as proxies for earnings forgone by rebellion, and therefore that lower forgone earnings encourage rebellion
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President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
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Franklin Pierce
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Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States. Pierce was a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to the unity of the nation. Historians and other scholars generally rank Pierce as among the worst of US Presidents, born in New Hampshire, Pierce served in the U. S. House of Representatives and the Senate until he resigned from the latter in 1842. His private law practice in his state was a success. Pierce took part in the Mexican–American War as a general in the Army. In the 1852 presidential election, Pierce and his running mate William R. King easily defeated the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham. While Pierce was popular and outgoing, his life was a grim affair, with his wife Jane suffering from illness. All of their children died young, their last son being killed in a train accident while the family was traveling shortly before Pierces inauguration. Pierce was a Young America expansionist who signed the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico and his popularity in the Northern states declined sharply after he supported the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which nullified the Missouri Compromise, while many whites in the South continued to support him. Passage of the act led to violent conflict over the expansion of slavery in the American West, Pierces administration was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto, calling for the annexation of Cuba, a document which was roundly criticized. Although Pierce fully expected to be renominated by the Democrats in the 1856 presidential election, he was abandoned by his party and his reputation in the North suffered further during the Civil War as he became a vocal critic of President Abraham Lincoln. Pierce, who had been a heavy drinker for much of his life, Franklin Pierce was born on November 23,1804, in a log cabin in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. He was a descendant of Thomas Pierce, who had moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, Norfolk, England. Pierces father Benjamin, a Revolutionary War lieutenant, moved from Chelmsford, Massachusetts to Hillsborough after the war, Pierce was the fifth of eight children born to Benjamin and his second wife, Anna Kendrick. Benjamin was by then a prominent Democratic-Republican state legislator, farmer, Pierces father, who sought to ensure that his sons were educated, placed Pierce in a school at Hillsborough Center in childhood and sent him to the town school at Hancock at the age of 12. The boy was not fond of schooling, growing homesick at Hancock, he walked 12 miles back to his home one Sunday. His father fed him dinner and drove him part of the back to school before kicking him out of the carriage. Pierce later cited this moment as the turning-point in my life, later that year he transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy to prepare for college
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Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
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New Hampshire
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New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, New Hampshire is the 5th smallest by land area and the 9th least populous of the 50 United States. Concord is the capital, while Manchester is the largest city in the state and in northern New England, including Vermont. It has no sales tax, nor is personal income taxed at either the state or local level. The New Hampshire primary is the first primary in the U. S. presidential election cycle and its license plates carry the state motto, Live Free or Die. The states nickname, The Granite State, refers to its extensive granite formations, the state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire by Captain John Mason. New Hampshire is part of the New England region and it is bounded by Quebec, Canada, to the north and northwest, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Massachusetts to the south, and Vermont to the west. New Hampshires major regions are the Great North Woods, the White Mountains, the Lakes Region, the Seacoast, the Merrimack Valley, the Monadnock Region, and the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee area. New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any U. S. coastal state, New Hampshire was home to the rock formation called the Old Man of the Mountain, a face-like profile in Franconia Notch, until the formation disintegrated in May 2003. Major rivers include the 110-mile Merrimack River, which bisects the lower half of the state north–south and ends up in Newburyport and its tributaries include the Contoocook River, Pemigewasset River, and Winnipesaukee River. The 410-mile Connecticut River, which starts at New Hampshires Connecticut Lakes and flows south to Connecticut, only one town – Pittsburg – shares a land border with the state of Vermont. The northwesternmost headwaters of the Connecticut also define the Canada–U. S, the Piscataqua River and its several tributaries form the states only significant ocean port where they flow into the Atlantic at Portsmouth. The Salmon Falls River and the Piscataqua define the southern portion of the border with Maine, the U. S. Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2002, leaving ownership of the island with Maine. New Hampshire still claims sovereignty of the base, however, the largest of New Hampshires lakes is Lake Winnipesaukee, which covers 71 square miles in the east-central part of New Hampshire. Umbagog Lake along the Maine border, approximately 12.3 square miles, is a distant second, Squam Lake is the second largest lake entirely in New Hampshire. New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any state in the United States, Hampton Beach is a popular local summer destination. It is the state with the highest percentage of area in the country. New Hampshire is in the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, much of the state, in particular the White Mountains, is covered by the conifers and northern hardwoods of the New England-Acadian forests
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Vice President of the United States
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The executive power of both the vice president and the president is granted under Article Two, Section One of the Constitution. The vice president is elected, together with the president. The Office of the Vice President of the United States assists, as the president of the United States Senate, the vice president votes only when it is necessary to break a tie. Additionally, pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the president presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College. Currently, the president is usually seen as an integral part of a presidents administration. The Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the president as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the vice president by either the president or Congress. Mike Pence of Indiana is the 48th and current vice president and he assumed office on January 20,2017. The formation of the office of vice president resulted directly from the compromise reached at the Philadelphia Convention which created the Electoral College, the delegates at Philadelphia agreed that each state would receive a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that states allocation of Representatives and Senators. The delegates assumed that electors would typically choose to favor any candidate from their state over candidates from other states, under a plurality election process, this would tend to result in electing candidates solely from the largest states. Consequently, the delegates agreed that presidents must be elected by a majority of the number of electors. To guard against such stratagems, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the first runner-up presidential candidate would become vice president, the process for selecting the vice president was later modified in the Twelfth Amendment. Each elector still receives two votes, but now one of those votes is for president, while the other is for vice president. The requirement that one of those votes be cast for a candidate not from the electors own state remains in effect. S, other statutorily granted roles include membership of both the National Security Council and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. As President of the Senate, the president has two primary duties, to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheneys tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority, as President of the Senate, the vice president oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote. As President of the Senate, John Adams cast 29 tie-breaking votes that was surpassed by John C. Calhoun with 31. Adamss votes protected the presidents sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, on at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters
10.
Chief Justice of the United States
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The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices, the eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1789 until 1866, the office was known as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice also serves as a spokesperson for the judicial branch. The Chief Justice leads the business of the Supreme Court and presides over oral arguments, when the court renders an opinion, the Chief Justice—when in the majority—decides who writes the courts opinion. The Chief Justice also has significant agenda-setting power over the courts meetings, in the case of an impeachment of a President of the United States, which has occurred twice, the Chief Justice presides over the trial in the Senate. In modern tradition, the Chief Justice also has the duty of administering the oath of office of the President of the United States. The first Chief Justice was John Jay, the 17th and current Chief Justice is John G. Roberts, Jr. The office was known as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and is still informally referred to using that title. However,28 U. S. C. §1 specifies that the title is Chief Justice of the United States, the title was changed from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Congress in 1866 at the suggestion of the sixth Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase. Chase wished to emphasize the Supreme Courts role as a branch of government. The first Chief Justice commissioned using the new title was Melville Fuller in 1888, use of the previous title when referring to Chief Justices John Jay through Roger B. Taney is technically correct, as that was the title during their time on the court. The other eight members of the court are officially Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Chief Justice is the only member of the court to whom the Constitution refers as a Justice, and only in Article I. Article III of the Constitution refers to all members of the Supreme Court simply as Judges, the Chief Justice is nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed to sit on the Court by the United States Senate. The salary of the Chief Justice is set by Congress, the Constitution prohibits Congress from lowering the salary of any judge, including the Chief Justice, while that judge holds office. As of 2015, the salary is $258,100 per year, which is higher than that of the Associate Justices. Three serving Associate Justices have received promotions to Chief Justice, Edward Douglass White in 1910, Harlan Fiske Stone in 1941, Associate Justice Abe Fortas was nominated to the position of Chief Justice of the United States, but his nomination was filibustered by Senate Republicans in 1968. Despite the failed nomination, Fortas remained an Associate Justice until his resignation the following year, there have been 21 individuals nominated for Chief Justice, of whom 17 have been confirmed by the Senate, although a different 17 have served
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Roger B. Taney
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Roger Brooke Taney was the fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He delivered the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. S and he was the first Roman Catholic appointed both to a presidential cabinet, as Attorney General under President Andrew Jackson, as well as to the Court. Taney, a Jacksonian Democrat, was made Chief Justice by Jackson, Taney was a believer in states rights. He inherited slaves from his father but manumitted them and gave pensions to the older ones and he believed that power and liberty were extremely important and if power became too concentrated, then it posed a grave threat to individual liberty. He opposed attempts by the government to regulate or control matters that would restrict the rights of individuals. From Prince Frederick, Maryland, he had practiced law and politics simultaneously, after abandoning the Federalist Party as a losing cause, he rose to the top of the states Jacksonian machine. He was bought and sold and treated as an article of merchandise and traffic. The court also declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all of the countrys territories, Taney died during the final months of the American Civil War on the same day that his home state of Maryland abolished slavery. Roger Brooke Taney was born on March 17,1777 in Calvert County, Maryland and he was the second son, and the third of seven children born to a slaveholding family of tobacco planters in Calvert County, Maryland. He received an education from a series of private tutors. After instructing him for a year, his last tutor, David English, at the age of 15 he entered Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, graduating with honors in 1795. As a younger son with no prospect of inheriting the family plantation and he read law and in 1799 was admitted to the bar. He quickly distinguished himself as one of Marylands most promising young lawyers, Taney married Anne Phoebe Charlton Key, sister of Francis Scott Key, on January 7,1806. In 1799, the year he began practicing as an attorney, Taney was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates. He ran for re-election in 1800, but lost, returning to private practice, he served as a director of the State Bank Branch in Frederick, Maryland, from 1810 to 1815. He was elected the Maryland State Senate in 1816, serving until 1821—this time as a Democratic Republican and he was also a director of the Frederick County Bank from 1818 to 1823, when he returned to private practice. When the 1824 presidential election divided the party supporters and opponents of Andrew Jackson, Taney became a staunch Jacksonian Democrat. In 1833, as secretary of the Treasury, Taney ordered an end to the deposit of Federal money in the Second Bank of the United States, an act that killed the institution
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Media related to 1856 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
