1.
Home video game console
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A home video game console or simply home console is a video game device that is primarily used for home gamers, as opposed to in arcades or some other commercial establishment. Below is a timeline of each generation with the top three home video consoles of each based on worldwide sales. For a complete list of video consoles released in each generation please see the respective article of each generation. Legend – Unit with the highest sales of its generation, – Unit with the second highest sales of its generation. – Unit with the third highest sales of its generation, – Manufacturer released a home video console during this generation but did not sell the most units. – – Manufacturer didnt release a video game console during this generation. † – Indicates the current generation consoles on the market, although the first video games appeared in the 1950s, they were played on massive computers connected to vector displays, not analog televisions. Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a video game in 1951. In the late 1960s while working for Sanders Associates he created a series of game console designs. In 1972 Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home game console which could be connected to a TV set. Magnavox replaced the switch design with separate cartridges for each game, by autumn 1975, Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled-down version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey 100. A second, higher end console, the Odyssey 200, was released with the 100 and added on-screen scoring, up to four players, almost simultaneously released with Ataris own home Pong console through Sears, these consoles jump-started the consumer market. All three of the new consoles used simpler designs than the original Odyssey with no board game pieces or extra cartridges, in the years that followed, the market saw many companies rushing similar consoles to market. Most of the consoles from this era were dedicated consoles playing the games that came with the console. These video game consoles were often just called video games, because there was reason to distinguish the two yet. While a few companies like Atari, Magnavox, and newcomer Coleco pushed the envelope, Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment System in 1976. The VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions, RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles, the RCA Studio II and the Atari 2600, respectively. Both Bally and Magnavox also brought their own programmable cartridge-based consoles to the market, however, it was not until Atari released a conversion of the golden age arcade hit Space Invaders in 1980 for the Atari 2600 that the home console industry took off
2.
Second generation of video game consoles
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The second generation of computer and video games began in 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F and Radofin Electronics 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System. It coincided with and was fuelled by the golden age of arcade video games. The early period saw the launch of several consoles as various companies decided to enter the market, the Atari 2600 was the dominant console for much of the second generation, with other consoles such as Intellivision, the Odyssey², and ColecoVision also enjoying market share. The second generation had a mixed legacy affected by the game crash of 1983. The Atari 2600 was discontinued on January 1,1992, ending the second generation, the duration between the start of the 2nd generation in 1976 and the start of the 3rd generation in 1983 was seven years. Due to the lifespan of the Atari 2600, which was available from 1977 to 1992. Some features that distinguished second generation consoles from first generation consoles include, AI simulation of computer-based opponents, allowing for single-player gaming. ROM cartridges for storing games, allowing any number of different games to be played on one console, Game playfields able to span multiple flip-screen areas. Blocky and simplistic-looking sprites, with a resolution of around 160 ×192 pixels. Basic color graphics, generally between 2-color and 16-color, lacked features of third generation consoles, such as scrolling tile-based playfields. The earliest console, the Magnavox Odyssey, uses removable cartridges that are merely jumpers housed in cartridges, that activate the games already wired into the console. This method was replaced during the move to Pong consoles, where the logic for one or more games was hard-coded into microchips using discrete logic. By the mid-1970s, cartridges returned with the move to CPU-based consoles, with games now consisting of microprocessor-based code, these games were burned onto ROM chips mounted inside plastic cartridge casings that could be plugged into slots on the console. When the cartridges were plugged in, the general-purpose microprocessors in the read the cartridge memory. Rather than being confined to a selection of games included in the box. The Fairchild VES was the worlds first CPU-based video game console and it was released by Fairchild Semiconductor in November 1976. When Atari released their VCS the next year, Fairchild quickly renamed it to the Fairchild Channel F, the RCA Studio II is a video game console made by RCA that debuted in January 1977. The graphics of Studio II games were black and white and resembled those of earlier Pong consoles, the Studio II also did not have joysticks or similar game controllers but instead used two ten button keypads that were built into the console itself
3.
ROM cartridge
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ROM cartridges can be used to load software such as video games or other application programs. The cartridge slot could also be used for additions, for example speech synthesis. Some cartridges had battery-backed static random-access memory, allowing a user to save data such as game progress or scores between uses, an advantage for the manufacturer was the relative security of the software in cartridge form, which was difficult for end users to replicate. However, cartridges were expensive to manufacture compared to making a floppy disk or CD-ROM, as disk drives became more common and software expanded beyond the practical limits of ROM size, cartridge slots disappeared from later game consoles and personal computers. Cartridges are still used today with handheld gaming consoles such as the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, due to its widespread usage for video gaming, ROM cartridges were often colloquially referred to as a game cartridge. ROM cartridges were popularized by early home computers which featured a special bus port for the insertion of cartridges containing software in ROM. Notable computers using cartridges in addition to magnetic media were the Commodore VIC-20 and 64, MSX standard, the Atari 8-bit family, the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, some arcade system boards, such as Capcoms CP System and SNKs Neo Geo, also used ROM cartridges. The modern take on game cartridges was invented by Jerry Lawson as part of the Fairchild Channel F home console in 1976, the cartridge approach gained more popularity with the Atari 2600 released the following year. From the late 1970s to mid-1990s, the majority of video game systems were cartridge-based. As compact disc technology came to be used widely for data storage, Nintendo remained the lone hold-out, using cartridges for their Nintendo 64 system, the company did not transition to optical media until 2001s GameCube. SNK still released games on the cartridge based Neo Geo until 2004, ROM cartridges can not only carry software, but additional hardware expansion as well. Examples include the Super FX coprocessor chip in some Super NES game paks, micro Machines 2 on the Genesis/Mega Drive used a custom J-Cart cartridge design by Codemasters which incorporated two additional gamepad ports. This allowed players to have up to four gamepads connected to the console without the need for an additional multi-controller adapter, the ROM cartridge slot principle continues in various mobile devices, thanks to the development of high density low-cost flash memory. For example, a GPS navigation device might allow user updates of maps by inserting a memory chip into an expansion slot. An E-book reader can store the text of several books on a flash chip. Personal computers may allow the user to boot and install a system off a USB flash drive instead of CD ROM or floppy disks. Digital cameras with flash drive slots allow users to exchange cards when full. Storing software on ROM cartridges has a number of advantages over other methods of storage like floppy disks, software run directly from ROM typically uses less RAM, leaving memory free for other processes
4.
Central processing unit
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The computer industry has used the term central processing unit at least since the early 1960s. The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, most modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning they are contained on a single integrated circuit chip. An IC that contains a CPU may also contain memory, peripheral interfaces, some computers employ a multi-core processor, which is a single chip containing two or more CPUs called cores, in that context, one can speak of such single chips as sockets. Array processors or vector processors have multiple processors that operate in parallel, there also exists the concept of virtual CPUs which are an abstraction of dynamical aggregated computational resources. Early computers such as the ENIAC had to be rewired to perform different tasks. Since the term CPU is generally defined as a device for software execution, the idea of a stored-program computer was already present in the design of J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchlys ENIAC, but was initially omitted so that it could be finished sooner. On June 30,1945, before ENIAC was made, mathematician John von Neumann distributed the paper entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and it was the outline of a stored-program computer that would eventually be completed in August 1949. EDVAC was designed to perform a number of instructions of various types. Significantly, the programs written for EDVAC were to be stored in high-speed computer memory rather than specified by the wiring of the computer. This overcame a severe limitation of ENIAC, which was the considerable time, with von Neumanns design, the program that EDVAC ran could be changed simply by changing the contents of the memory. Early CPUs were custom designs used as part of a larger, however, this method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of multi-purpose processors produced in large quantities. This standardization began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit. The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers, both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in electronic devices ranging from automobiles to cellphones, the so-called Harvard architecture of the Harvard Mark I, which was completed before EDVAC, also utilized a stored-program design using punched paper tape rather than electronic memory. Relays and vacuum tubes were used as switching elements, a useful computer requires thousands or tens of thousands of switching devices. The overall speed of a system is dependent on the speed of the switches, tube computers like EDVAC tended to average eight hours between failures, whereas relay computers like the Harvard Mark I failed very rarely. In the end, tube-based CPUs became dominant because the significant speed advantages afforded generally outweighed the reliability problems, most of these early synchronous CPUs ran at low clock rates compared to modern microelectronic designs. Clock signal frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 4 MHz were very common at this time, the design complexity of CPUs increased as various technologies facilitated building smaller and more reliable electronic devices
5.
Signetics 2650
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The Signetics 2650 was an 8-bit microprocessor introduced in mid-1975. According to Adam Osbornes book An Introduction to Microprocessors Vol 2, Some Real Products, Signetics sold development boards e. g. the PC1001 and its successor, the PC1500 Adaptable Board Computer, ranging in price from A$165 to A$400. The chip by itself sold for around A$20, several hardware construction projects and programming articles were published in magazines such as Electronics Australia and Elektor and related kits were sold by electronics stores. These factors led to its use by a number of hobbyists in many such as Australia. United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany, the chip contained seven 8-bit general purpose registers, although only four were visible at any time. It was limited to a 15-bit address space, since the bit of a 16-bit memory reference was reserved to indicate that the indirect memory addressing mode was to be used. The address space was limited by the use of another two bits of the address to indicate the indexing mode for all logical and arithmetic instructions. This divided the space into four 8 KB pages, only the current could be addressed directly. While there were nine different addressing modes, the lack of any 16-bit registers, despite this, an operating system was available, along with 8 KB and 12 KB BASIC interpreters, and many games of the Hunt the Wumpus style. Most programs were written in assembly language, two types of video game console used the Signetics 2650 or 2650A. Those were released in Germany in 1976 and 1978 respectively, at least four coin-operated video games were released in the 1970s which used the 2650 CPU – Atari QUIZ SHOW, Meadows Games 3D BOWLING, Meadows Games GYPSY JUGGLER, and Cinematronics EMBARGO. The processor was used in the Signetics Instructor 50, which was a small computer designed to teach the use. The 2650 provided the operating system functions, data transfer. Philips emphasized this use as a micro-controller with a program showing the 2650 controlling an intelligent elevator system. It included CPU, PROM, RAM, input, output and this system was meant as a more intelligent programmable logic controller. For development, they later added DEBUG, DISPLAY, INTERRUPT, although the 2650 is basically an 8-bit microprocessor,64 opcodes are actually 9-bit, and another 32 opcodes are 11-bit. Of the remaining 128 8-bit opcodes,124 are implemented, giving a total of 444 instructions, many more instructions are available as the behavior of the standard instructions can be modified by setting or clearing status bits, WC and COM. This doubled the number of rotate, add, subtract and compare instructions, the only exceptions are where the opcodes of meaningless operations are used for other purposes, the opcode for AND register zero with register zero is used for the HALT instruction
6.
Intellivision
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The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. Development of the began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor. The name Intellivision is a portmanteau of intelligent television, Games development started in 1978 and continued until 1990 when the Intellivision was discontinued. From 1980 to 1983 over 3 million Intellivision units were sold, in 2009, video game website IGN named the Intellivision the No.14 greatest video game console of all time. It remained Mattels only video game console until the release of the HyperScan in 2006, the Intellivision was developed at Mattel in Hawthorne, California along with their Mattel Electronics line of handheld electronic games. Mattel Electronics becoming a subsidiary in 1981, the Intellivision was test marketed in Fresno, California in 1979 with a total of four games available. It was released nationwide in 1980 with a tag of US$299, a pack-in game, Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. Mattel began investigating a home game system in 1977. It was to have rich graphics and long lasting gameplay to distinguish itself from its competitors, Mattel identified a newly designed chipset from National Semiconductor and negotiated better pricing for a simpler design. Their consultant, APh Technological Consulting, suggested a General Instrument chipset, the GI chipset lacked reprogrammable graphics and Mattel worked with GI to implement changes. GI published an updated chipset in their 1978 catalog, after initially choosing National in August 1977, Mattel waited for two months before ultimately going with the proposed GI chipset in the fall of 1977. A team at Mattel, headed by David Chandler began engineering the hardware, in 1978, David Rolfe of APh developed the executive control software and with a group of Caltech summer student hires, programmed the first games. Graphics were designed by artists at Mattel that included Dave James, though not the first system to challenge Warner Communications Atari, it was the first to pose a serious threat to the market leader. One of the slogans of the television advertisements stated that Intellivision was the closest thing to the real thing, one example in an advertisement compared golf games. The other consoles games had a sound and cruder graphics, while the Intellivision featured a realistic swing sound and striking of the ball. There was also an advertisement comparing the Atari 2600 to it, in its first year, Mattel sold out its initial 175,000 production run of Intellivision Master Components. In 1981, over 1 million Intellivision consoles were sold, the Intellivision Master Component was branded and distributed by various companies. Before Mattel shifted manufacturing to Hong Kong, Mattel Intellivisions were manufactured by GTE Sylvania, GTE Sylvania Intellivisions were produced along with Mattels with the brand name the only differentiation
7.
ColecoVision
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The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries second-generation home video-game console which was released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered an experience to more powerful arcade game systems compared to competitors such as the Atari 2600. Approximately 145 titles in total were published as ROM cartridges for the system between 1982 and 1984, Coleco withdrew from the video game market in 1985, and ColecoVision was discontinued that same year. River West Brands currently owns the ColecoVision brand name, by Christmas of 1982, Coleco had sold more than 500,000 units, in part on the strength of its bundled game. The ColecoVisions main competitor was the more advanced but less commercially successful Atari 5200. The ColecoVision was distributed by CBS Electronics outside of North America, sales quickly passed 1 million in early 1983, before the video game crash of 1983. By the beginning of 1984, quarterly sales of the ColecoVision had dramatically decreased, over the next 18 months, the Coleco company ramped down its video game division, ultimately withdrawing from the video game market by the end of the summer of 1985. The ColecoVision was officially discontinued by October 1985, the video game crash of 1983 has been cited as the main cause of the ColecoVisions being discontinued less than three years after its launch. In 1983 Spectravideo announced the SV-603 ColecoVision Video Game Adapter for its SV-318 computer, the company stated that the $70 product allowed users to enjoy the entire library of exciting ColecoVision video-game cartridges. In 1986, Bit Corporation produced a ColecoVision clone called the Dina, the controllers connect into plugs in a recessed area on the top of the unit. The design of the controllers is similar to that of Mattels Intellivision—the controller is rectangular and consists of a numeric keypad, in place of the circular control disc below the keypad, the Coleco controller has a short,1. 5-inch joystick. The keypad is designed to accept a thin plastic overlay that maps the keys for a particular game, each ColecoVision console shipped with two controllers. All first-party cartridges and most third-party software titles feature a 12-second pause before presenting the game select screen and this delay results from an intentional loop in the consoles BIOS to enable on-screen display of the ColecoVision brand. CPU, NEC version of Zilog Z80A @3, from its introduction, Coleco touted the ColecoVisions hardware expandability by highlighting the Expansion Module Interface on the front of the unit. These hardware expansion modules and accessories were sold separately, Expansion Module #1 makes the ColecoVision compatible with the industry-leading Atari 2600, with some exceptions. Functionally, this gave the ColecoVision the largest software library of any console of its day, the expansion module prompted legal action from Atari, but Atari was unable to stop sales of the module because the 2600 could be reproduced with off the shelf parts. Coleco also designed and sold the Gemini game system, which was a clone of the 2600, Expansion Module #2 is a driving controller that came packaged with a port of the arcade game Turbo. The gas pedal is merely a simple on/off switch, so many gamers used the second ColecoVision controller as a shift for more precise speed control
8.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
9.
Bandai
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Bandai Co. Ltd. is a Japanese toy maker and former video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of plastic model kits. It was the worlds fourth-largest producer of toys, some ex-Bandai group companies produce anime and tokusatsu programs. Its headquarters is located in Taitō, Tokyo, after its merger with game developer and amusement facility operator Namco, Bandai Company is now under the management of Bandai Namco Holdings and a member of Bandai Namco Group. After group reorganisation in 2006, Bandai heads the groups Toys, in the 1960s Bandai expanded to include export sales. Bandais racing car set, which first appeared in 1962, became a huge success, the 1970s continued to see Bandai expand, with Bandai Models being established in 1971. Although not their most profitable range, Bandais 1/48 scale AFV models dominated that segment of the kit market. Bandai America Inc. was established as local US sales/marketing operation in 1978, spacewarp, a line of build-it-yourself toy rolling ball roller coasters was introduced by Bandai in the 1980s. Before the formation of Bandai Namco Holdings, Bandai had many subsidiaries, after group reorganization in 2006, they are managed under several strategic business units of the group. Further detail, In 1971, Bandai founded its subsidiary company Popy which helped to launch such as Chogokin. It was merged into its parent company in 1983, Bandai USA is the American distribution arm of Bandai that makes toy products for the U. S. market and manufactures Power Rangers, Big Hero 6, Digimon, and Ben 10 toys. Other past products include Alienators, Evolution Continues Astro Boy Beetleborgs Ben 10 Big Hero 6 Cardcaptor Sakura Cyclonians Dick Tracy D. I. C. E, jelly Jamm Bandai Visual Co. Ltd. produces and distributes many popular anime and tokusatsu titles. These titles include Cowboy Bebop, Big O, Outlaw Star, escaflowne, and the popular Gundam, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Super Sentai series. Their subsidiaries include the Emotion Music Company Limited, in which the logo is the Moai and they now head the Visual and Music Contents SBU. Their North American division, Bandai Visual USA was absorbed into Bandai Entertainment on July 1,2008 and their headquarters in the United States were located in Cypress, California. They had a European subsidiary named Beez Entertainment who handled European licensing & distribution rights to their library, the first part of Beez Entertainments name stood for Bandai Entertainment European Zone, as Bandai Entertainment had operations in Europe. Beez Entertainment was based in France, in addition, Bandai Visual also took over Beez Entertainment as their entry into the European market, and Beez Entertainment also continued to be part of Bandai as well. However, Bandai Entertainment is no longer acquiring licenses to new anime, also, Beez Entertainment is no longer releasing new anime in Europe. Carddass is the Bandai subsidiary responsible for releasing trading card based on popular Bandai franchises
10.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
11.
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
12.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
