1.
San Luis Obispo, California
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San Luis Obispo, or SLO /ˈsloʊ/ for short, is a city in the U. S. state of California, located roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the Central Coast. The population was 45,119 at the 2010 census, the population of San Luis Obispo County was 269,637 in 2010. Founded in 1772 by Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra, San Luis Obispo is one of Californias oldest communities, serras original mission was named for the 13th Century saint and bishop Louis of Toulouse. The city, locally referred to as San Luis, SLO, the earliest human inhabitants of the local area were the Chumash people. One of the earliest villages lies south of San Luis Obispo, the Chumash people used marine resources of the inlets and bays along the Central Coast and inhabited a network of villages, including sites at Los Osos and Morro Creek. Mission San Diego was the first Spanish mission founded in Alta California that same year, on September 7–8,1769, an expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá entered the San Luis Obispo area from coastal areas around todays Pismo Beach. One of the expeditions three diarists, padre Juan Crespí, recorded the name given to area by the soldiers as Cañada de Los Osos. The party traveled north along San Luis Obispo Creek, turned west through Los Osos valley, in 1770, Portola established the Presidio of Monterey and Junípero Serra founded the second mission, San Carlos Borromeo, in Monterey. The mission was moved to Carmel the following year, as supplies dwindled in 1772 at the mission and presidio, the people faced starvation. Remembering the Valley of the Bears, Presidio of Monterey commander Pedro Fages led an expedition to bring back food. Over twenty-five mule loads of dried meat and seed were sent north to relieve the missionaries, soldiers. The natives were impressed at the ease by which the Spaniards could take down the huge grizzlies with their weapons, some of the bear meat was traded with the local people in exchange for edible seed. It was after this that Junípero Serra decided that La Cañada de Los Osos would be a place for the fifth mission. The area had abundant supplies of food and water, the climate was very mild. With soldiers, muleteers, and pack animals carrying mission supplies, on September 1,1772, Junípero Serra celebrated the first Mass with a cross erected near San Luis Creek. The very next day, he departed for San Diego leaving Fr, josé Cavaller, with the difficult task of building the mission. José Cavaller, five soldiers and two began building Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, which would later become the town of San Luis Obispo. The first mission structures were built with whatever materials could be found nearby, later, more permanent buildings were constructed with adobe walls, wood timber roof beams and tile roofs
2.
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
3.
California Polytechnic State University
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Founded in 1901 as a vocational high school, it is currently one of only two polytechnic universities in the 23-member California State University system. Comprising six distinct colleges, the university offers 64 bachelors degrees,32 masters degrees, the university does not currently grant doctoral degrees. Cal Poly is a member of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Cal Poly is known for its learn by doing educational philosophy that encourages students to solve real-world problems by combining classroom theory with experiential laboratory exercise. The most prevalent major at Cal Poly is Business Administration, followed by Mechanical Engineering, Cal Poly is one of four California State Universities that participate in the Big West Conference in athletics. Cal Poly was established in 1901 when Governor Henry T, gage signed the California Polytechnic School Bill. The university started out as the California Polytechnic School founded by Myron Angel, the polytechnic school held its first classes on October 1,1903, offering secondary level courses of study, which took three years to complete. The first incoming class was 20 students, the school continued to grow steadily, except during a period from the mid 1910s to the early 1920s when World War I led to drops in enrollment and drastic budget cuts forced fewer class offerings. In 1924, Cal Poly was placed under the control of the California State Board of Education, in 1933, the Board of Education changed Cal Poly into a two-year technical and vocational school. The institution began to offer Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1940, the school was renamed the California State Polytechnic College in 1947 to better reflect its higher education offerings, and in 1949, a Master of Arts degree in education was added. The college was authorized to offer Master of Science degrees in 1967, from 1967 to 1970, the school’s curriculum was reorganized into different units. Cal Polys FM radio station, KCPR, also began as a project in 1968. The state legislature changed the official name again in 1971 to California Polytechnic State University. Since the 1970s, the university has seen steady enrollment growth, Cal Poly celebrated its centennial in 2001, and kicked off a $225 million fundraising campaign, the largest fund raising effort ever undertaken in CSU history. The Centennial Campaign raised over $264 million from over 81,000 donors, Cal Polys $190.3 million endowment in 2016 was ranked 308th out of 815 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Kellogg Foundation then donated an 812-acre horse ranch in Pomona, California to Cal Poly in 1949, located about one mile from the Voorhis campus, the two became known as Cal Poly Kellogg-Voorhis. Cal Poly Kellogg-Voorhis broke off from Cal Poly in 1966, becoming the independent university, California State Polytechnic University. Since 1949, the two campuses have cooperated on creating a float for the Rose Parade, today, the long-running float program still boasts floats designed and constructed entirely by students year-round on both campuses. On October 29,1960, a plane carrying the Cal Poly football team, hours after a loss to Bowling Green State University, crashed on takeoff at the Toledo Express Airport in Toledo
4.
Multi-purpose stadium
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Multi-purpose stadiums are a type of stadium designed to be easily used by multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event and it is used most commonly in Canada and the United States, where the two most popular outdoor team sports – football and baseball – require radically different facilities. Football uses a field, while baseball is played on a diamond. This requires a design to accommodate both, usually an oval. While building stadiums in this way means that sports teams and governments can share costs, some stadiums were renovated to allow multipurpose configurations during the 1980s. This type of stadium is associated with an era of suburbanization, in many sports teams followed their fans out of large cities into areas with cheaper. They were usually built near highways and had large parking lots, as multipurpose stadiums were rarely ideal for both sports usually housed in them, they had fallen out of favor by the 1990s. With the completion of the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City in 1973, since Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, most major league sports stadiums have been built specifically for one sport. In other countries, such as England, teams rarely share facilities, in Australia, many sports grounds are suited to both Australian rules football and cricket, as Australian rules was originally conceived for play on cricket fields. As of 2016, the Oakland Coliseum is the last multipurpose stadium to serve as a home to both an MLB team and an NFL team. Several stadiums hosted multiple sports teams prior to the advent of multipurpose stadiums, the original configuration of Yankee Stadium was specifically designed to accommodate football, as well as track and field, in addition to its primary use for baseball. Wrigley Field, while originally built for baseball, also hosted the Chicago Bears, just as Comiskey Park hosted the Chicago Cardinals, later venues such as Cleveland Stadium and Baltimore Memorial Stadium were built to accommodate both baseball and football. In the 1960s, multipurpose stadiums began replacing their baseball-only and football-only predecessors, subsets of the multipurpose stadiums were the so-called cookie-cutter stadiums or concrete donuts which were all very similar in design. They featured a circular or nearly circular design, and accommodated both baseball and football by rotating sections of the box seat areas to fit the respective playing fields. The first of these stadiums was Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, as of 2016, seven of these 11 stadiums have been demolished. The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome was unusual in that it was one of the few air-supported dome stadiums that was multipurpose in practice, being convertible between football and baseball. Home of the Minnesota Vikings through the 2013 season, it was home to the Minnesota Twins until 2009. The Carrier Dome was another such air-supported, multipurpose stadium, although it was built to accommodate sports such as football
5.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
6.
Mustang Band
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The Cal Poly Mustang Band, also known as The Pride of the Pacific, is the official marching band of California Polytechnic State University in the city of San Luis Obispo, California. Although the band is not a competitive marching band they serve as a spirit organization. The band functions in two different forms throughout the year, in the fall the band marches as The Mustang Marching Band and during Cal Polys winter quarter they function as a pep band. The band attends athletic events during the year to encourage the schools athletic teams. The marching band is well-known around campus as an exciting and spirited group that brings pep, passion, the marching band is conducted by three directors, Andrew McMahan, Christopher Woodruff, and Len Kawamoto. 1916, First band director was D. W. Scholosser,1921, First women join the band. Marching Band played their first professional game for the L. A. Lakers at the The Forum. 1983, Performed in the Fetes de Geneve Music Festival in Geneva, in 1970, the band performed at professional football games, only to later perform for the L. A. Lakers in 1978. This year also represents the addition of the Brass Band, complementing the already polished, Johnson is currently the coordinator of instrumental music, also conducting the university Wind Orchestra and Wind Ensemble. Between 1993 and 1995, Johnson served as the President of the World Association for Symphonic Bands, preceding his presidency, he was the secretary from 1987 to 1991. Unsurprisingly, Johnson served as the Conference Chairman for the 9th WASBE Conference held in San Luis Obispo, California, currently he is the Chairperson of the WASBE Foundation. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi national band fraternity and is the Sponsor of Cal Polys Iota Pi Chapter. Upon completion of his studies, Rackley entered the United States Air Force Bands and Music Program rising to commander and conductor of Air Force Bands. A published and award winning composer, Rackley has scored video and film productions for the Library of Congress, the A&E Channel, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and the Discovery Channel. His production music credits include Days of Our Lives, Americas Most Wanted, Cheers, Nurses, Picket Fences, L. A. Law, All My Children, General Hospital, Home Improvement, Quantum Leap, and Seinfeld. William V. Johnson Christopher J. Woodruff Andrew McMahan During football season, in 2013, the band became the largest it has ever been with approximately 215 members. The rest of the marching season relies on Tuesday and Thursday rehearsals from 3, 10-5,30 pm. The Mustang Band plays at home football game and attends at least one away game per year
7.
Los Angeles Chargers
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The Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The Chargers compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues American Football Conference West division. The club began play in 1960 as a member of the American Football League. The Chargers joined the NFL as result of the AFL–NFL merger in 1970, between 1995 and 2016, the Chargers were the only NFL team based in Southern California after the Raiders and Rams moved out of Los Angeles at the end of the 1994 NFL season. A return of the Chargers to Los Angeles was announced for the 2017 season, the Chargers will play their home games at the StubHub Center until the opening in 2019 of the Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park, which they will share with the Rams. The Chargers won one AFL title in 1963 and reached the AFL playoffs five times, in the 43 years since then, the Chargers have made 13 trips to the playoffs and four appearances in the AFC Championship game. At the end of the 1994 season, the Chargers faced the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX and lost, the Los Angeles Chargers were established with seven other American Football League teams in 1959. In 1960, the Chargers began AFL play in Los Angeles, the Chargers original owner was hotel heir Barron Hilton, son of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. The Chargers initially considered playing at the Rose Bowl, but instead signed a lease to play at the Los Angeles Coliseum. There is also a theory about an man named Gerald Courtney of Hollywood who won an all-expenses-paid trip to Mexico City. The Chargers only spent one season in Los Angeles before moving to San Diego in 1961, from 1961 to 1966 their home field was Balboa Stadium in Balboa Park. As of August 1967, they moved to the newly constructed Qualcomm Stadium and they played ten years in the AFL before the merging of the league into the older NFL. Their only coach for the life of the AFL was Sid Gillman. The early AFL years of the San Diego Chargers were highlighted by the play of wide receiver Lance Bambi Alworth with 543 receptions for 10,266 yards in his 11-AFL/NFL-season career. In addition he set the pro football record of games with a reception during his career. They also played defense, as indicated by their professional football record 49 pass interceptions in 1961, the Chargers were the originators of the term Fearsome Foursome to describe their all-star defensive line, anchored by Faison and Ernie Ladd. The phrase was later appropriated by various NFL teams, Hilton sold the Chargers to a group headed by Eugene Klein and Sam Schulman in August 1966. The following year the Chargers began head to head competition with the older NFL with a loss to the Detroit Lions
8.
National Football League
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The National Football League is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference. The NFL is one of the four professional sports leagues in North America. The NFLs 17-week regular season runs from the week after Labor Day to the week after Christmas, with each team playing 16 games, the NFL was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association before renaming itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. The NFL agreed to merge with the American Football League in 1966, and the first Super Bowl was held at the end of that season, the merger was completed in 1970. Today, the NFL has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world and is the most popular sports league in the United States. S. The NFLs executive officer is the commissioner, who has authority in governing the league. The team with the most NFL championships is the Green Bay Packers with thirteen, the current NFL champions are the New England Patriots, who defeated the Atlanta Falcons 34–28 in Super Bowl LI. Another meeting held on September 17,1920 resulted in the renaming of the league to the American Professional Football Association, the league hired Jim Thorpe as its first president, and consisted of 14 teams. Only two of these teams, the Decatur Staleys and the Chicago Cardinals, remain, the first event occurred on September 26,1920 when the Rock Island Independents defeated the non-league St. Paul Ideals 48–0 at Douglas Park. On October 3,1920, the first full week of league play occurred, the following season resulted in the Chicago Staleys controversially winning the title over the Buffalo All-Americans. In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League, in 1932, the season ended with the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans tied for first in the league standings. This method had used since the leagues creation in 1920. The league quickly determined that a game between Chicago and Portsmouth was needed to decide the leagues champion. Playing with altered rules to accommodate the playing field, the Bears won the game 9–0. Fan interest in the de facto championship game led the NFL, beginning in 1933, the 1934 season also marked the first of 12 seasons in which African Americans were absent from the league. The de facto ban was rescinded in 1946, following public pressure, the NFL was always the foremost professional football league in the United States, it nevertheless faced a large number of rival professional leagues through the 1930s and 1940s. Rival leagues included at least three separate American Football Leagues and the All-America Football Conference, on top of regional leagues of varying caliber. Three NFL teams trace their histories to these leagues, including the Los Angeles Rams
9.
Seating capacity
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Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats hundreds of thousands of people. The International Fire Code, portions of which have adopted by many jurisdictions, is directed more towards the use of a facility than the construction. It specifies, For areas having fixed seating without dividing arms and it also requires that every public venue submit a detailed site plan to the local fire code official, including details of the means of egress, seating capacity, arrangement of the seating. Once safety considerations have been satisfied, determinations of seating capacity turn on the size of the venue. For sports venues, the decision on maximum seating capacity is determined by several factors, chief among these are the primary sports program and the size of the market area. Seating capacity of venues also plays a role in what media they are able to provide, in contracting to permit performers to use a theatre or other performing space, the seating capacity of the performance facility must be disclosed. Seating capacity may influence the kind of contract to be used, the seating capacity must also be disclosed to the copyright owner in seeking a license for the copyrighted work to be performed in that venue. Venues that may be leased for private functions such as ballrooms and auditoriums generally advertise their seating capacity, seating capacity is also an important consideration in the construction and use of sports venues such as stadiums and arenas. The seating capacity for restaurants is reported as covers, a restaurant that can seat 99 is said to have 99 covers, seating capacity differs from total capacity, which describes the total number of people who can fit in a venue or in a vehicle either sitting or standing. Use of the term public capacity indicates that a venue is allowed to more people than it can actually seat. Again, the total number of people can refer to either the physical space available or limitations set by law
10.
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer
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The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos mens soccer team is a NCAA Division I college soccer team composed of student-athletes attending the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Gauchos play their matches at Harder Stadium. Like most of the other UC Santa Barbara Gauchos athletic teams, since 2007, the Gauchos have been recognized every year by the NCAA as the mens attendance champions by average attendance – the longest such recorded streak in the NCAA record books. Additionally, the program holds the top six all-time NCAA soccer records for largest regular season attendances at on-campus venues, the team is most famous for winning the 2006 NCAA Division I Mens Soccer Championship. It was a finalist in the 2004 NCAA Division I Mens Soccer Championship, the program has produced a total of 19 All-American selections, all but one of which since 2002, and over 40 players who have gone on to play professionally or represent their senior national teams. UC Santa Barbara fielded its first mens team in 1966. The Gauchos had mixed success, with good seasons alongside bad seasons, the Big West Conference stopped sponsoring mens soccer after the 1991 season, but re-instituted it prior to the 2001 season. During this period, UCSB competed in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, the return of soccer to the Big West Conference marked the rough beginning of the Gauchos greatest success to date. UC Santa Barbara have won eight Big West regular season championships and have won the Big West tournament in 2010, the Gauchos burst on to the national scene in 2004 during their run at the 2004 NCAA Championship. The showing in this tournament established UC Santa Barbara as a force in college soccer, the crowning achievement of the mens soccer program took place in 2006, where UCSB won the NCAA Division I Championship in a 2-1 decision over UCLA. It marked the programs first championship and only the universitys second athletics championship, at one point during the season, UCSBs record stood at 7-6 with dim prospects for postseason glory. However, a 5-1 stretch to close out the season raised morale. The Gauchos made the NCAA Tournament as an unseeded team and this propelled the Gauchos into the Final Four and earned them a trip to the College Cup held at Hermann Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. UCSB needed extra time to defeat #2 seed Wake Forest 0-0 in their first match of the College Cup, the final was a matchup between Southern California teams as UCLA advanced on a 4-0 win over Virginia. The #8 ranked/#8 seeded Bruins served as the team to fall to the Gauchos by a score of 2-1 to complete UCSBs magical season. At the end of UCSBs 2-1 loss to UC Davis in overtime, during the chaos, UCSB senior Peter McGlynn ran toward the match referee, Reed Christy, and pushed him to the ground despite Vom Steegs attempts to block McGlynn. McGlynn was detained by police and later released. McGlynn later apologized with a statement on his Twitter account and pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, as of November 9,2016 Note, Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules
11.
Cal Poly football team C-46 crash
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The Cal Poly football team C-46 crash occurred on October 29,1960, at 22,02 EST near Toledo, Ohio. The aircraft, a veteran of World War II, broke in two and caught fire on impact, of the 48 on board,22 were killed, including both pilots,16 players, a student manager, and a Cal Poly football booster. Prior to takeoff the weather at the airport steadily deteriorated, at 7 pm the visibility was 3/4-mile, down to 1/16-mile at 8,37 pm, and zero at the time of the accident. The CAB issued the following Probable Cause statement in its final report, contributing factors were the overweight aircraft, weather conditions, and partial loss of power in the left engine. The pilot who made the decision to take off was flying on a license that had been revoked, following the crash, the Arctic-Pacific Company lost its certificate to charter airplanes. Among the survivors was quarterback Ted Tollner, later the coach at USC. At the time of the crash, Bowling Green State had been the easternmost opposing school ever to play football against Cal Poly, the university canceled the final three games of the 1960 season. Hall of Fame coach John Madden, a Cal Poly alumnus, has a fear of flying which is attributed to the crash. He played football for the Mustangs during the 1957 and 1958 seasons, Madden was coaching at the nearby Allan Hancock Junior College at the time of the crash and knew many passengers aboard the aircraft. As a result of the crash, Cal Poly did not play any road games outside California until 1969, Cal Poly did not play another road game east of the Rocky Mountains until 1978, a 17–0 loss to Winston-Salem State in North Carolina in the NCAA Division II playoffs. They did not play another regular season game east of the Rockies until 1989, the event raised about $200,000 from a crowd of 33,000 on November 23. Memorial plaques for the crash can be found on campus at Mott Gym, a permanent memorial plaza opened with the new Alex G. Spanos Stadium. The memorial has 18 copper pillars, one for each of the Cal Poly-affiliated individuals who died in the crash, each pillar rises to the height of the person honored and is adorned with a plaque about that individuals life. List of accidents involving sports teams 50 years ago, plane crash killed 16 Cal Poly football players, crash Experts View Plane, Death Toll 22. List of dead and injured in crash, Mustang Memorial Plaza - Dedication ceremony photos
12.
U.S. state
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A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance
