Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play is a fictionalisation following the broad outlines of his life; the entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line close to the classical alexandrine form, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie française and the dames précieuses glimpsed before the performance in the first scene; the play has been translated and performed many times, is responsible for introducing the word "panache" into the English language. Cyrano is in fact famed for his panache, he himself makes reference to "my panache" in the play; the two most famous English translations are those by Anthony Burgess. Hercule Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, a cadet in the French Army, is a brash, strong-willed man of many talents. In addition to being a remarkable duelist, he is a gifted, joyful poet and is a musician.
However, he has an large nose, which causes him to doubt himself. This doubt prevents him from expressing his love for his distant cousin, the beautiful and intellectual Roxane, as he believes that his ugliness would prevent him the "dream of being loved by an ugly woman." The play opens in 1640, In the theatre of the Hôtel Burgundy. Members of the audience arrive, representing a cross-section of Parisian society from pickpockets to nobility. Christian de Neuvillette, a handsome new cadet, arrives with Lignière, a drunkard whom he hopes will identify the young woman with whom he has fallen in love. Lignière recognizes her as Roxane, tells Christian about her and the Count de Guiche's scheme to marry her off to the compliant Viscount Valvert. Meanwhile, Ragueneau and Le Bret are expecting Cyrano de Bergerac, who has banished the actor Montfleury from the stage for a month. After Lignière leaves, Christian intercepts a pickpocket and, in return for his freedom, the pickpocket tells Christian of a plot against Lignière.
Christian departs to try to warn him. The play "Clorise" begins with Montfleury's entrance. Cyrano disrupts the play, forces Montfleury off stage, compensates the manager for the loss of admission fees; the crowd is going to disperse when Cyrano lashes out at a pesky busybody is confronted by Valvert and duels with him while composing a ballade, wounding him as he ends the refrain When the crowd has cleared the theater, Cyrano and Le Bret remain behind, Cyrano confesses his love for Roxane. Roxane's duenna arrives, asks where Roxane may meet Cyrano privately. Lignière is brought to Cyrano, having learned that one hundred hired thugs are waiting to ambush him on his way home. Cyrano, now emboldened, vows to take on the entire mob single-handed, he leads a procession of officers and musicians to the Porte de Nesle; the next morning, at Ragueneau's bake shop, Ragueneau supervises various apprentice cooks in their preparations. Cyrano anxious about his meeting with Roxane, he is followed by a musketeer, a paramour of Ragueneau's domineering wife Lise the regular gathering of impoverished poets who take advantage of Ragueneau's hospitality.
Cyrano composes a letter to Roxane expressing his deep and unconditional love for her, warns Lise about her indiscretion with the musketeer, when Roxane arrives he signals Ragueneau to leave them alone. Roxane and Cyrano talk as she bandages his hand. Cyrano thinks that she is talking about him at first, is ecstatic, but Roxane describes her beloved as "handsome," and tells him that she is in love with Christian de Neuvillette. Roxane fears for Christian's safety in the predominantly Gascon company of Cadets, so she asks Cyrano to befriend and protect him; this he agrees to do. After she leaves, Cyrano's captain arrives with the cadets to congratulate him on his victory from the night before, they are followed by a huge crowd, including de Guiche and his entourage, but Cyrano soon drives them away. Le Bret takes him aside and chastises him for his behavior; the Cadets press him to tell the story of the fight. When Cyrano recounts the tale, Christian displays his own form of courage by interjecting several times with references to Cyrano's nose.
Cyrano is angry. Cyrano explodes, the shop is evacuated, Cyrano reveals his identity as Roxane's cousin. Christian confesses his love for Roxane but his inability to woo because of his lack of intellect and wit; when Cyrano tells Christian that Roxane expects a letter from him, Christian is despondent, having no eloquence in such matters. Cyrano offers his services, including his own unsigned letter to Roxane; the Cadets and others return to find the two men embracing, are flabbergasted. The musketeer from before, thinking it was safe to do so, teases Cyrano about his huge nose and receives a slap in the face, there was much rejoicing. Outside Roxane's house Ragueneau is conversing with Roxane's duenna; when Cyrano arrives, Roxane comes down and they talk about Christian: Roxane says that Christian's letters have been breathtaking—he is more intellectual than Cyrano, she declares. She says that she loves Christian; when de Guiche arrives, Cyrano hides inside Roxane's house. De Guiche tells Roxane.
He has been made a colonel of an army regiment that is
24 (TV series)
24 is an American action drama television series produced for the Fox network, created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, starring Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer. Each season, comprising 24 episodes, covers 24 hours in Bauer's life using the real time method of narration. Premiering on November 6, 2001, the show spanned 192 episodes over eight seasons. In addition, a television film, 24: Redemption, was broadcast between seasons six and seven, on November 23, 2008. 24 returned with a ninth season titled 24: Live Another Day, which aired from May 5 to July 14, 2014. 24: Legacy, a spin-off series featuring new characters, premiered on February 5, 2017. After the cancellation of Legacy in June 2017, Fox announced its plan to develop a new incarnation of the franchise; the series begins with Bauer working for the Los Angeles–based Counter Terrorist Unit, in which he is a proficient agent with an "ends justify the means" approach, regardless of the perceived morality of some of his actions.
Throughout the series most of the main plot elements unfold like a political thriller. A typical plot has Bauer racing against the clock as he attempts to thwart multiple terrorist plots, including presidential assassination attempts, weapons of mass destruction detonations, cyber attacks, as well as conspiracies that deal with government and corporate corruption. 24 won numerous awards over its eight seasons, including Best Drama Series at the 2004 Golden Globe Awards and Outstanding Drama Series at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards. At the conclusion of its eighth season, 24 became the longest-running U. S. espionage/counterterrorism-themed television drama surpassing both Mission: Impossible and The Avengers. 24 is a serial drama that stars Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, focusing on the efforts of the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit to protect America from terrorism plots. The episodes take place over the course of one hour, in real time. To emphasize the real-world flow of events, a clock is prominently displayed on-screen during the show, there is a regular use of split screens, a technique used to depict multiple scenes occurring at the same time.
Each episode follows Bauer, officials in the U. S. government, the conspirators behind the events of the day simultaneously. 24 is known for employing plot twists which may arise as antagonists adapt, objectives evolve or larger-scale operations unfold. Stories involve interpersonal drama, delving into the private lives of the characters; as part of a recurring theme, characters are confronted with ethical dilemmas. Examples of this are a bombing in Season 2, which can only be prevented by blowing Bauer's cover, an ultimatum in Season 3, in which a terrorist agrees not to carry out an attack if a high-ranking CTU official is killed. Season 4 is notable for a scene in which two men — one of whom possesses crucial information — are dying in a room with only one surgeon. Season 1 begins at midnight on the day of the California presidential primary. Jack Bauer's protocol is to protect Senator David Palmer from an assassination plot and rescue his own family from those responsible, who seek retribution for Jack and Palmer's involvement with a covert American mission in the Balkans.
Season 2, set 18 months begins at 8:00 a.m. Jack must stop a nuclear bomb from detonating in Los Angeles assist President David Palmer in proving, responsible for the threat and avoid war between the U. S. and three Middle Eastern countries. Season 3, set three years begins at 1:00 p.m. Jack must infiltrate a Mexican drug cartel to seize a deadly virus being marketed underground. President Palmer must deal with a potential scandal. Season 4, set 18 months begins at 7:00 a.m. Jack must save the lives of his new boss, Secretary of Defense James Heller, Heller's daughter Audrey Raines when they are kidnapped by terrorists. However, Habib Marwan uses this as a disguise to launch further attacks against America, Jack is forced to use unorthodox methods to stop him, which results in long-term consequences for both Jack and the United States. Season 5, set 18 months after, begins at 7:00 a.m. Jack is believed to be dead by everyone except a few of his closest friends, he is forced to resurface when some of those friends are murdered and he is framed by terrorists with connections to the American government.
The acquisition of nerve gas by the terrorists poses a new threat, Jack discovers an insidious conspiracy while trying to stop those responsible. Season 6, set 20 months begins at 6:00 a.m. Jack is released after being detained in a Chinese prison following the events of Season 5. Terrorists who hold a vendetta against Jack plot to set off suitcase nuclear devices in America. Jack is forced to choose between those he loves and national security when the Chinese set their sights on sensitive circuitry that could trigger a war between the U. S. and Russia. Redemption, set three-and-a-half years begins at 3:00 p.m. Jack finds. Militants are being provided assistance from officials within the United States, where Allison Taylor is being sworn into office as President. Due to the 2007–08 Writers' Strike, season seven was delayed one year. To bridge the one-and-a-half-year gap between seasons, Redemption was produced; this television film aired on November 23, 2008. Season 7, set 65 days after the end of Redemption, begins at 8:00 a.m.
Jack is assisted by the FBI and covert operatives when the firewall for America's federal computer infrastructure is breached by the same people responsible for a con
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is a 1993 Canadian biographical-anthology film about the pianist Glenn Gould, played by Colm Feore. It was directed with a screenplay by Girard and Don McKellar; the film is presented as a series of 31 short films rather than as one narrative. Segments include documentaries, consisting of interviews with individuals who knew the real Gould, reenactments of episodes in Gould's life. "Gould Meets McLaren" employs animated spheres from Norman McLaren's filmography. The film won four Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture. With memories revolving around the family's cottage near Lake Simcoe, Glenn Gould recalls how in his childhood, he had ostensibly made the decision to become a concert pianist at age five. In fact, he believes his mother had chosen that career for him, he recalls being able to read music before he could read books, learned the music of Johann Sebastian Bach from his mother. Gould imagines interviewing himself, in which he confronts himself about why he chose to quit giving concerts at the age of 32, preferring to communicate to his audience through media instead.
Gould reminds himself. In crafting radio documentaries, Gould works on a piece called The Idea of North, which touches on the effects the environment has on the solitude and isolation of the people of Northern Canada. In a media interview, Gould reveals that The Idea of North is one of only five of his documentaries about isolation, that he intends to make a comedy next because he is tired of serious expression. Interviewers push him to explain how he could achieve his level of musical perfection without interest in being overly technical in his piano playing, they ask. Others question if Gould's supposed obsession in technology is a smokescreen to keep his distance from real people; as the markets plummet, Gould picks up word from the bodyguard of the visiting Sheik Yamani to invest in an obscure company called Sotex Resources, set to benefit from an exploration contract. Gould becomes the only client to profit in the wake of financial meltdown. However, Margaret Pacsu, a friend, notices Gould's bathroom is stocked with various pills, including Valium and Librax.
Gould laughs off the idea that he is taking all of the pills and Pacsu does not notice any affects on his personality. As his birthday approaches, Gould becomes concerned that no one will attend his funeral, despite being aware of strong record sales in Central Europe and Japan. Gould dies at age 50 of a stroke, his cousin, Jessie Greig, says Gould was wrong and his funeral was attended. He had noted Voyager I and Voyager II, space probes launched for possible contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, contains Bach's music as played by Gould. Rhombus Media was established in 1979 with the goal to make a film about pianist Glenn Gould, still alive at the time. Producer Niv Fichman explained, "He was our greatest hero. So we thought we would have to make a few short films before we approached Gould to make one about him". After Gould died in 1982, director François Girard mentioned the idea of making a biopic of the pianist in 1990, reviving Fichman's plans. Wishing to have an English Canadian screenwriter and Girard proposed the idea to Don McKellar, who had a musical education.
McKellar was opposed to the idea of adapting Gould's life into a film, calling it "an undramatic life". However, Girard's concept of 32 "short films" intrigued him. McKellar claimed to write the humorous aspects of the screenplay, while Girard was responsible for the trivia. Girard opted to model the screenplay after Bach's Goldberg Variations. Girard found writing challenging, saying, "As Gould was such a complex character, the biggest problem was to find a way to look at his work and deal with his visions; the film is built of each one trying to capture an aspect of Gould. There is no way of putting Gould in one box; the film gives the viewer 32 impressions of him. I didn't want to reduce him to one dimension." The fact that the concept allowed for 32 segments led to the combination of documentary, fictional and "abstract" scenes, with Girard saying "I allowed myself to play the game to its limits". The budget was $1.8 million. Actor Colm Feore watched available video and listened to sound recordings of Gould in order to develop his performance.
He read through 6,000 of Gould's letters. Girard took the first shots in Hamburg in August 1992, while Gould's genuine Steinway Grand Piano was moved to a church in Toronto for principal photography. Most filming took place in Montreal. Feore and the filmmakers shot scenes in Lake Saint Pierre in December 1992, for the scenes set in Northern Canada; the animation in the "Gould Meets McLaren" segment is clipped from Norman McLaren's film Spheres, published in 1969. Violinist Yehudi Menuhin was among those interviewed for the film; the soundtrack consists entirely of piano recordings by Gould. It includes pieces famously linked with him, such as Bach: The Goldberg Variations, the Well-Tempered Clavier, it features the prelude to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in the "Lake Simcoe" segment. Sony Classical released a soundtrack album on CD in 1994; this was part of a strategy to obtain video rights for certain films, with the CD release timed to match the U. S. cinematic release in April. Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould debuted at the Venice Film Festival in September 1993, where it received positive reviews.
It played at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 1993. In 1994, it was one of 26 films
Film
A film called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, or photoplay, is a series of still images that, when shown on a screen, create the illusion of moving images. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed in rapid succession; the process of filmmaking is both an industry. A film is created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, other visual effects; the word "cinema", short for cinematography, is used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, to the art of filmmaking itself. The contemporary definition of cinema is the art of simulating experiences to communicate ideas, perceptions, beauty or atmosphere by the means of recorded or programmed moving images along with other sensory stimulations. Films were recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process and shown through a movie projector onto a large screen.
Contemporary films are now fully digital through the entire process of production and exhibition, while films recorded in a photochemical form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, they reflect those cultures. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens; the visual basis of film gives it a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions through the use of dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into other languages; the individual images that make up a film are called frames. In the projection of traditional celluloid films, a rotating shutter causes intervals of darkness as each frame, in turn, is moved into position to be projected, but the viewer does not notice the interruptions because of an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after its source disappears.
The perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called the phi phenomenon. The name "film" originates from the fact that photographic film has been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion-picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture and flick; the most common term in the United States is movie. Common terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the movies, cinema. In early years, the word sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film: scripts, costumes, direction, audiences and scores. Much terminology used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images and sounds could not be recorded for replaying as with film; the magic lantern created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, achieved by various types of mechanical slides.
Two glass slides, one with the stationary part of the picture and the other with the part, to move, would be placed one on top of the other and projected together the moving slide would be hand-operated, either directly or by means of a lever or other mechanism. Chromotrope slides, which produced eye-dazzling displays of continuously cycling abstract geometrical patterns and colors, were operated by means of a small crank and pulley wheel that rotated a glass disc. In the mid-19th century, inventions such as Joseph Plateau's phenakistoscope and the zoetrope demonstrated that a designed sequence of drawings, showing phases of the changing appearance of objects in motion, would appear to show the objects moving if they were displayed one after the other at a sufficiently rapid rate; these devices relied on the phenomenon of persistence of vision to make the display appear continuous though the observer's view was blocked as each drawing rotated into the location where its predecessor had just been glimpsed.
Each sequence was limited to a small number of drawings twelve, so it could only show endlessly repeating cyclical motions. By the late 1880s, the last major device of this type, the praxinoscope, had been elaborated into a form that employed a long coiled band containing hundreds of images painted on glass and used the elements of a magic lantern to project them onto a screen; the use of sequences of photographs in such devices was limited to a few experiments with subjects photographed in a series of poses because the available emulsions were not sensitive enough to allow the short exposures needed to photograph subjects that were moving. The sensitivity was improved and in the late 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge created the first animated image sequences photographed in real-time. A row of cameras was used, each, in turn, capturing one image on a photographic glass plate, so the total number of images in each sequence was limited by the number of cameras, about two dozen at most. Muybridge used his system to analyze the movements of a wi
English Canadians
English Canadians or Anglo-Canadians, refers to either Canadians of English ethnic origin and heritage or to English-speaking or Anglophone, Canadians of any ethnic origin. Canada is an bilingual state, with English and French official language communities. Immigrant cultural groups ostensibly integrate into one or both of these communities, but retaining elements of their original cultures; the term English-speaking Canadian is sometimes used interchangeably with English Canadian. Although many English-speaking Canadians have strong historical roots traceable to England or other parts of the British Isles, the population as a whole belongs to a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, they or their ancestors came from various European, Caribbean, Latin American, Pacific Island cultures, as well as French Canada and North American Aboriginal groups. As such, although the office of the Governor General is said to alternate between "French" and "English" persons, two recent Governors General show that this refers to language and not culture or ethnicity.
In addition to the terms "English Canadian" and "Canadian", the terms "Anglophone Canadian" and "Anglo-Canadian" are used. The following table shows the English-speaking population of Canada's territories; the data are from Statistics Canada. Figures are given for the number of single responses "English" to the mother tongue question, as well as a total including multiple responses one of, English. Notably, 46% of English-speaking Canadians live in Ontario, 30% in the two western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta; the most monolingual province is Newfoundland and Labrador at 98.5%. English-speakers are in the minority only in Nunavut. In the cases of Quebec and New Brunswick, the vast majority of the non-Anglophone population speaks French. English Canadian history starts with the attempts to establish English settlements in Newfoundland in the sixteenth century; the first English settlement in present-day Canada was at St. Johns Newfoundland, in 1583. Newfoundland's population was influenced by Irish and English immigration, much of it as a result of the migratory fishery in the decades prior to the Irish Potato famine.
Although the location of the earliest English settlement in what would become Canada, Newfoundland itself would be the last province to enter Confederation in 1949. The area that forms the present day province of Nova Scotia was contested by the British and French in the eighteenth century. French settlements at Port Royal and what is now Prince Edward Island were seized by the British. After the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded the French colony of Acadia to Great Britain, efforts to colonize the province were limited to small settlements in Canso and Annapolis Royal. In 1749 Colonel Edward Cornwallis was given command of an expedition for the settlement of Chebucto by some three thousand persons, many of whom were Cockney. Cornwallis' settlement, would become the provincial capital, the primary commercial centre for the Maritime provinces, a strategic British military and naval outpost and an important east coast cultural centre. To offset the Catholic presence of Acadians, foreign Protestants were given land and founded Lunenburg.
Nova Scotia itself saw considerable immigration from Scotland to communities such as Pictou in the northern part of the province and to Cape Breton Island, but this began only with the arrival of the Hector in 1773. The history of English Canadians is bound to the history of English settlement of North America, New England, because of the resettlement of many Loyalists following the American Revolution in areas that would form part of Canada. Many of the fifty thousand Loyalists who were resettled to the north of the United States after 1783 came from families, settled for several generations in North America and were from prominent families in Boston, New York and other east coast towns. Although of British ancestry, these settlers had intermarried with Huguenot and Dutch colonists and were accompanied by Loyalists of African descent. Dispossessed of their property at the end of the Revolutionary War, the Loyalists arrived as refugees to settle along the shores of southern Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy and the Saint John River and in Quebec to the east and southwest of Montreal.
The colony of New Brunswick was created from western part of Nova Scotia at the instigation of these new English-speaking settlers. The Loyalist settlements in southwestern Quebec formed the nucleus of what would become the province of Upper Canada and, after 1867, Ontario. Upper Canada was a primary destination for English and Scots-Irish settlers to Canada in the nineteenth century, was on the front lines in the War of 1812 between the British Empire and the United States; the province received immigrants from non English-speaking sources such as Germans, many of whom settled around Kitchener. Ontario would become the most populous province in the Dominion of Canada at the time of Confederation, together with Montreal, formed the country's industrial heartland and emerged as an important cultural and media centre for English Canada. Toronto is today the largest city in Canada, as a result of changing immigration patterns since the 1960s, is one of the most multi-cultural
Massachusetts
Massachusetts the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, New York to the west; the state is named after the Massachusett tribe, which once inhabited the east side of the area, is one of the original thirteen states. The capital of Massachusetts is Boston, the most populous city in New England. Over 80% of Massachusetts's population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history and industry. Dependent on agriculture and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, Massachusetts's economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a global leader in biotechnology, higher education and maritime trade. Plymouth was the site of the second colony in New England after Popham Colony in 1607 in what is now Maine.
Plymouth was founded in 1620 by passengers of the Mayflower. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, including interchangeable parts. In 1786, Shays' Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, originated from the pulpit of Northampton preacher Jonathan Edwards. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution; the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a powerful commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist and transcendentalist movements.
In the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U. S. state to recognize same-sex marriage as a result of the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams and Kennedy families. Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, with the largest financial endowment of any university, Harvard Law School has educated a contemporaneous majority of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet", in reference to the high concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups and quality of innovation which have emerged in the vicinity of the square since 2010. Both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most regarded academic institutions in the world.
Massachusetts' public-school students place among the top tier in the world in academic performance, the state has been ranked as one of the top states in the United States for citizens to live in, as well as one of the most expensive. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett derived from a Wôpanâak word muswach8sut, segmented as mus "big" + wach8 "mountain" + -s "diminutive" + -ut "locative", it has been translated as "near the great hill", "by the blue hills", "at the little big hill", or "at the range of hills", referring to the Blue Hills, or in particular the Great Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton. Alternatively, Massachusett has been represented as Moswetuset—from the name of the Moswetuset Hummock in Quincy, where Plymouth Colony commander Myles Standish, hired English military officer, Squanto, part of the now disappeared Patuxet band of the Wampanoag peoples, met Chief Chickatawbut in 1621; the official name of the state is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts".
While this designation is part of the state's official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has powers within the United States as other states, it may have been chosen by John Adams for the second draft of the Massachusetts Constitution because unlike the word "state", "commonwealth" at the time had the connotation of a republic, in contrast to the monarchy the former American colonies were fighting against. Massachusetts was inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, these tribes were dependent on hunting and fishing for most of their food. Villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. In the early 1600s, after contact had been made with Europeans, large numbers of the indigenous peoples in the northeast of what is now the United States were killed by virgin soil epidemics such as smallpox, measles and leptospirosis.
Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed ap
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous 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 and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
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