1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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Economy of the United States
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The United States GDP was estimated to be $17.914 trillion as of Q22015. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. The United States has an economy and has maintained a stable overall GDP growth rate, a moderate unemployment rate. Its seven largest trading partners are Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, Germany, South Korea, the US has abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. It has the worlds ninth-highest per capita GDP and tenth-highest per capita GDP as of 2013, Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD nations, and in 2010 had the fourth highest median household income, down from second highest in 2007. It has been the worlds largest national economy since at least the 1890s, the U. S. is the worlds third largest producer of oil and natural gas. It is one of the largest trading nations in the world as well as the second largest manufacturer. The US not only has the largest internal market for goods, US total trade amounted to $4. 93T in 2012. Of the worlds 500 largest companies,128 are headquartered in the US, the United States has one of the worlds largest and most influential financial markets. The New York Stock Exchange is by far the worlds largest stock exchange by market capitalization, foreign investments made in the US total almost $2.4 trillion, while American investments in foreign countries total over $3.3 trillion. The economy of the U. S. leads in international ranking on venture capital and Global Research, consumer spending comprises 71% of the US economy in 2013. The United States has the largest consumer market in the world, the labor market has attracted immigrants from all over the world and its net migration rate is among the highest in the world. The U. S. is one of the economies in studies such as the Ease of Doing Business Index, the Global Competitiveness Report. The US economy went through a downturn following the financial crisis of 2007–08. The economy, however, began to recover in the half of 2009. In December 2014, public debt was more than 100% of GDP. Domestic financial assets totaled $131 trillion and domestic financial liabilities totaled $106 trillion, the economic history of the United States began with American settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries. The American colonies went from marginally successful colonial economies to a small, independent farming economy, in 180 years, the US grew to a huge, integrated, industrialized economy that made up around one fifth of the world economy
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International Institute for Management Development
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IMD is a business school located in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2012,2013,2014,2015 and 2016, it was ranked first in open programs worldwide by the Financial Times, the FT also places IMD in the top 3 combined ranking and top 5 in custom programs worldwide. The new organization, the International Institute for Management Development, settled in Lausanne, IMD business school solely provides executive education, it is determinedly not part of a university, and there are no academic departments, just one integrated multidisciplinary faculty. The professors do not have permanent academic tenure but work under one-year contracts, the faculty consists of 60 full-time members, made up of 23 different nationalities. The current President is Dominique Turpin, who follows John R. Wells, the latter ran the school from 1993 till 2008 and has been widely credited with having established IMD as one of the worlds leading business schools. IMD has a focus on training and developing general management. IMD selects experienced candidates for both the Master of Business Administration and the Executive MBA and its other focus is to have a broad international group of participants attending open programs to ensure that no nationality dominates. Every year, some 8,000 executives, representing over 98 nationalities attend one of the programs, the schools MBA program is a one-year full-time program. The program runs from January through December without any break, each class includes 90 participants from various countries. Students will benefit from contact with executives on site given IMD has been recognised as the best business school for open program in executive education from 2012 to 2016. Moreover, Students will also enjoy trips to further expand their knowledge and activate their network, one discovery expedition, a Europe trip. Applicants who are deemed successful in the first, written stage of the process are invited to the second stage. The Assessment Day is an event held either in IMD’s campus in Lausanne, Switzerland. It involves an interview, a short presentation, a business case discussion. The final admissions decision is communicated within 2 weeks of the Assessment Day, the curriculum of the EMBA is different from the MBA because it targets experienced managers with at least 10 years of experience who seek to strengthen their careers without leaving their jobs. The average class size is around 55 participants of more than 20 nationalities, the program has three components, the foundations for business leadership, the advanced management concepts and the mastery stage. All together the program takes one year. It has a focus on leadership skills, integrated business themes
4.
World Economic Forum
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The World Economic Forum is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva. The Forum is best known for its meeting at the end of January in Davos. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international leaders, economists. Often this location alone is used to identify meetings, participation, and participants with such phrases as, a Davos panel, beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector specific initiatives. The forum was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva and he then founded the WEF as a nonprofit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January. Political leaders soon began to use the meeting as a neutral platform. The Davos Declaration was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, in 1992, South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the annual meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reached an agreement on Gaza. In late 2015, the invitation was extended to include a North Korean delegation for the 2016 forum, in view of positive signs coming out of the country, North Korea has not been attending the WEF since 1998. In 2017, the World Economic Forum in Davos attracted considerable attention when for the first time and he sharply rebuked the current populist movements that would introduce tariffs and hinder global commerce, warning that such protectionism could foster isolation and reduced economic opportunity. Headquartered in Cologny, the forum also has offices in New York, Beijing, on October 10,2016, the Forum announced the opening of its new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. The World Economic Forum strives to be impartial and is not tied to any political, partisan, the foundation is committed to improving the State of the World. Until 2012, it had observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the foundations highest governance body is the foundation board. During its annual meeting, more than 2,500 participants from slightly fewer than 100 countries gather in Davos, approximately 1,500 are business leaders, drawn from its members,1,000 of the worlds top companies. The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies and these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region. Membership is stratified by the level of engagement with forum activities, with the level of membership fees increasing as participation in meetings, projects, and initiatives rises. As of 2011, an annual membership costs $52,000 for a member, $263,000 for Industry Partner. An admission fee costs $19,000 per person, in 2014, WEF raised annual fees by 20 percent, making the cost for Strategic Partner from SFr500,000 to SFr600,000
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Economist Intelligence Unit
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The EIU provides country, industry, and management analysis worldwide and incorporates the former Business International Corporation, a UK company acquired by its parent company in 1986. The EIU has several offices across the globe including two offices in China and one in Hong Kong, the Economist Intelligence Unit also produces regular reports on liveability and cost of living of the worlds major cities that receive wide coverage in international media. The Economist Intelligence Units Quality-of-Life Index is another noted report and its current Managing Director is Robin Bew, formerly the companys Editorial Director and Chief Economist. Headquartered in London, Bazian was founded by Vivek Muthu and Anna Donald in 1999, clearstate was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Singapore. In July 2015, the Economist Intelligence Unit acquired Canback & Company, renamed EIU Canback, the firm was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Boston. It was created to support a report conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Access China Service, CHAMPS, the report coined the acronym CHAMPS. In January 2011, the Unit released the Government Broadband Index that assesses countries on the basis of government planning, with ambitious targets for both the speed and coverage of next-generation broadband networks, the developed countries of Southeast Asia scored highest. According to the index, Greece is the country measured, due to its relatively low coverage target. Greece also suffers due to the size of its public-funding commitment as a percentage of overall government budget revenues. The goal of the study was to identify the most creative models used by businesses to hire. A full list of The EIUs special reports can be downloaded on their website, in November 2015 the Economist Intelligence Unit launched Market Explorer in Collaboration with EIU Canback. It is a tool which was designed to scan markets in various countries and cities across the globe
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Where to be born Index
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The Economist Intelligence Unit’s where-to-be-born index attempts to measure which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead. It is based on a method that links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys to the determinants of quality of life across countries along with a forward-looking element. The index was calculated for 2013 and includes data from 80 countries and territories, the survey used ten quality of life factors along with forecasts of future GDP per capita to determine a nations score. The life satisfaction scores for 2006 for 130 countries are related in a regression to various factors. As many as 11 indicators are statistically significant, together these indicators explain some 85% of the inter-country variation in life satisfaction scores. The values of the life satisfaction scores that are predicted by the indicators represent a quality of life index. The coefficients in the estimated equation weight automatically the importance of the various factors, the estimated equation for 2006 can be utilized to calculate index values for year in the past and future, allowing for comparison over time as well across countries
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Global Enabling Trade Report
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The Global Enabling Trade Report was first published in 2008 by the World Economic Forum. The 2008 report covers 118 major and emerging economies, at the core of the report is the Enabling Trade Index which ranks the countries using data from different sources. The Enabling Trade Index measures the factors, policies and services that facilitate the trade in goods across borders, archived from the original on June 9,2010. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list The Global Enabling Trade Report 2010
8.
Education in the United States
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Education in the United States is provided by public, private, and home schools. Funding comes from the state, local, and federal government, private schools are generally free to determine their own curriculum and staffing policies, with voluntary accreditation available through independent regional accreditation authorities. About 87% of school-age children attend schools, about 10% attend private schools. Education is compulsory over an age range starting between five and eight and ending somewhere between ages sixteen and eighteen, depending on the state and this requirement can be satisfied in public schools, state-certified private schools, or an approved home school program. In most schools, education is divided into three levels, elementary school, middle or junior school, and high school. Children are usually divided by age groups into grades, ranging from kindergarten and first grade for the youngest children, there are also a large number and wide variety of publicly and privately administered institutions of higher education throughout the country. Post-secondary education, divided into college, as the first tertiary degree, the United States spends more per student on education than any other country. In 2014, the Pearson/Economist Intelligence Unit rated US education as 14th best in the world, just behind Russia. In 2015 the Programme for International Student Assessment rated U. S. high school students #40 globally in Math and #24 in Science and Reading. ”King, Jr. acknowledged the results in conceding U. S. students were well behind their peers. According to a report published by the U. S. News & World Report, of the top ten colleges and universities in the world, government-supported and free public schools for all began to be established after the American Revolution. Between 1750 and 1870 parochial schools appeared as ad hoc efforts by parishes, historically, many parochial elementary schools were developed which were open to all children in the parish, mainly Catholics, but also Lutherans, Calvinists and Orthodox Jews. Nonsectarian Common schools designed by Horace Mann were opened, which taught the three Rs and also history and geography, States passed laws to make schooling compulsory between 1852 and 1917. They also used federal funding designated by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts of 1862 and 1890 to set up land grant colleges specializing in agriculture, by 1870, every state had free elementary schools, albeit only in urban centers. His movement spread to many other Southern states to small colleges for Colored or Negro students entitled A. & M. or A. & T. some of which later developed into state universities. By 1910,72 percent of children attended school, private schools spread during this time, as well as colleges and — in the rural centers — land grant colleges also. Between 1910 and 1940 the high school movement resulted in increasing public high school enrollment. By 1930,100 percent of children attended school, during World War II, enrollment in high schools and colleges plunged as many high school and college students dropped out to take war jobs. The 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v, in 1965, the far-reaching Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed as a part of President Lyndon B
9.
OECD
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries, founded in 1960 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index and are regarded as developed countries, in 1948, the OECD originated as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan. This would be achieved by allocating American financial aid and implementing programs for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The OECDs headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris, the OECD is funded by contributions from member states at varying rates. And had a budget of EUR363 million in 2015. It started its operations on 16 April 1948, and originated from the work done by the Committee of European Economic Co-operation in 1947 in preparation for the Marshall Plan, since 1949, it was headquartered in the Château de la Muette in Paris, France. After the Marshall Plan ended, the OEEC focused on economic issues, in 1958, a European Nuclear Energy Agency was set up under the OEEC. By the end of the 1950s, with the job of rebuilding Europe effectively done, some leading countries felt that the OEEC had outlived its purpose and this reconstituted organisation would bring the US and Canada, who were already OEEC observers, on board as full members. It would also set to work away on bringing in Japan. Following the 1957 Rome Treaties to launch the European Economic Community, the Convention was signed in December 1960 and the OECD officially superseded the OEEC in September 1961. It consisted of the European founder countries of the OEEC plus the United States and Canada, the official founding members are, During the next 12 years Japan, Finland, Australia, and New Zealand also joined the organisation. Yugoslavia had observer status in the organisation starting with the establishment of the OECD until its dissolution as a country, the OECD created agencies such as the OECD Development Centre, International Energy Agency, and Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering. Unlike the organizations of the United Nations system, OECD uses the spelling organisation with an s in its name rather than organization, in 1989, after the Revolutions of 1989, the OECD started to assist countries in Central Europe to prepare market economy reforms. This programme also included an option for these countries. As a result of this, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, in the 1990s, a number of European countries, now members of the European Union, expressed their willingness to join the organisation. In 1995, Cyprus applied for membership, but, according to the Cypriot government, in 1996, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania signed a Joint Declaration expressing willingness to become full members of the OECD. Slovenia also applied for membership that same year, in 2005, Malta applied to join the organisation. The EU is lobbying for admission of all EU member states, Romania reaffirmed in 2012 its intention to become a member of the organisation through the letter addressed by the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta to OECD Secretary-General José Ángel Gurría
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Programme for International Student Assessment
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It was first performed in 2000 and then repeated every three years. Its aim is to provide comparable data with a view to enabling countries to improve their policies and outcomes. It measures problem solving and cognition in daily life, the 2012 version of the test involved 34 OECD countries and 31 partner countries, with a total of 510,000 participating students. The 2015 version of the test was published on 6 December 2016, PISA, and similar international standardised assessments of educational attainment are increasingly used in the process of education policymaking at both national and international levels. Until the 1990s, few European countries used national tests, in the 1990s, ten countries / regions introduced standardised assessment, and since the early 2000s, ten more followed suit. By 2009, only five education systems had no national student assessments, data from international standardised assessments can be useful in research on causal factors within or across education systems. They allow typologies to be developed that can be used for statistical analyses of education performance indicators. They have generated new knowledge about education, PISA findings have challenged deeply embedded educational practices, emerging research suggests that international standardised assessments are impacting upon national assessment policy and practice. More important than its influence on countries policy of student assessment, is the range of ways in which PISA is influencing countries education policy choices, against this, it should be noted that impact on national education systems varies markedly. In Hungary, by comparison, which shared similar conditions to Germany, National policy actors refer to high-performing PISA countries to “help legitimise and justify their intended reform agenda within contested national policy debates”. PISA data can be are “used to fuel long-standing debates around pre-existing conflicts or rivalries between different policy options, such as in the French Community of Belgium”. Rey notes that often the results of PISA assessments are ignored as policymakers selectively refer to data in order to legitimise policies introduced for other reasons. In Finland, the countrys PISA results were used by Ministers to promote new policies for ‘gifted’ students. Much of PISAs methodology follows the example of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the reading component of PISA is inspired by the IEAs Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. PISA aims at testing literacy in three fields, reading, mathematics, science on a 1000-point scale. The PISA mathematics literacy test asks students to apply their knowledge to solve problems set in real-world contexts. To solve the problems students must activate a number of mathematical competencies as well as a range of mathematical content knowledge. TIMSS, on the hand, measures more traditional classroom content such as an understanding of fractions and decimals
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Globalization
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Globalization or globalisation is the action or procedure of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. Advances in transportation and in telecommunications infrastructure have been factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic. Large-scale globalization began in the 1820s, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, the connectivity of the worlds economies and cultures grew very quickly. The term globalization is recent, only establishing its current meaning in the 1970s, further, environmental challenges such as global warming, cross-boundary water and air pollution, and overfishing of the ocean are linked with globalization. Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business and work organization, economics, socio-cultural resources, academic literature commonly subdivides globalization into three major areas, economic globalization, cultural globalization, and political globalization. The term globalization is derived from the word globalize, which refers to the emergence of a network of economic systems. One of the earliest known usages of the term as a noun was in a 1930 publication entitled Towards New Education, a related term, corporate giants, was coined by Charles Taze Russell in 1897 to refer to the largely national trusts and other large enterprises of the time. By the 1960s, both began to be used as synonyms by economists and other social scientists. Economist Theodore Levitt is widely credited with coining the term in an article entitled Globalization of Markets, However, the term globalization was in use well before this and had been used by other scholars as early as 1981. Levitt can be credited with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream audience in the later half of the 1980s. Due to the complexity of the concept, research projects, articles, sociologists Martin Albrow and Elizabeth King define globalization as all those processes by which the people of the world are incorporated into a single world society. Globalization can be located on a continuum with the local, national and regional, without reference to such expansive spatial connections, there can be no clear or coherent formulation of this term. A satisfactory definition of globalization must capture each of these elements, extensity, intensity, velocity and it pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world. The ideological dimension, according to Steger, is filled with a range of norms, claims, beliefs and they have also argued that four different forms of globalization can be distinguished that complement and cut across the solely empirical dimensions. According to James, the oldest dominant form of globalization is embodied globalization, a second form is agency-extended globalization, the circulation of agents of different institutions, organizations, and polities, including imperial agents. Object-extended globalization, a form, is the movement of commodities. He calls the transmission of ideas, images, knowledge, and information across world-space disembodied globalization and he asserted that the pace of globalization was quickening and that its impact on business organization and practice would continue to grow. Economist Takis Fotopoulos defined economic globalization as the opening and deregulation of commodity, capital and he used political globalization to refer to the emergence of a transnational elite and a phasing out of the nation-state
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A.T. Kearney
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Kearney is an American global management consulting firm that focuses on strategic and operational CEO-agenda issues facing businesses, governments and institutions around the globe. Kearney maintains offices in 40 countries, the origins of the firm begin with the founding of McKinsey in 1926 in Chicago by James McKinsey under the name James O. McKinsey & Company. James McKinsey hired Andrew Thomas Kearney in 1929 as the firms first partner, when McKinsey died in 1937, Kearney was the managing partner of the Chicago office. As suggested by the New York-based partners, the Chicago office split from the rest of company in 1939, in 1947, it was renamed A. T. The firm opened its first international office in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1964 and its first office in Asia was opened in 1972, in Tokyo, Japan. Kearney was acquired by EDS, a consulting firm. It once again became an independent company in 2005, Kearney operates 60 offices in 40 countries. The Global Business Policy Council was founded in 1992 by Paul Laudicina as part of A. T, membership is invitation-only and the symposium is closed-door. Members reportedly include academic, corporate, and government thought leaders, Kearney has consistently ranked among the top management consulting firms globally. The firm has been listed in Consulting magazines Best Firms to Work For list seven times in eight years, the firm is a perennial on the Vault Guides ranking of the most prestigious firms to work for. Working Mother magazine also ranks A. T, Kearney in its Best Companies list. In 2012, the review site Glassdoor ranked A. T. Kearney as the 4th most difficult company to interview with, kearneys recruiting process involves multiple rounds of individual case, written case and experience-based interviews. Kearney eBreviate/A. T. Kearney Press Release Volkswagen eBreviate Fast Facts 2012 Perpetual License agreement Volkswagen/eBreviate
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Global Peace Index
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The Global Peace Index is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations and regions peacefulness. The list was launched in May 2007 and updates have been made on a basis since then. It is claimed to be the first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness, in 2014 it ranked 162 countries, up from 121 in 2007. The index gauges global peace using three broad themes, the level of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic and international conflict, factors are both internal such as levels of violence and crime within the country and external such as military expenditure and wars. It has been criticised by Riane Eisler for not including indicators specifically relating to violence against women and children, the updated index is released each year at events in London, Washington, DC, and at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. The expert panel for the 2014 GPI consisted of, In assessing peacefulness and it also seeks to evaluate the level of harmony or discord within a nation, ten indicators broadly assess what might be described as a safety and security in society. Countries peacefulness is measured on a range of indicators,22 in all. A table of the indicators is below, the 0 to 1 scores that resulted were then converted to the 1 to 5 scale. Individual indicators were then weighted according to the panels judgment of their importance. The scores were then tabulated into two weighted sub-indices, internal peace, weighted at 60% of a final score, and external peace. ‘Negative Peace’ which is defined as the absence of violence, or fear of violence is used as the definition of peace to create the Global Peace Index. An additional aim of the GPI database is to facilitate deeper study of the concept of peace, or those attitudes, institutions. The GPI also examines relationships between peace and reliable international measures, including democracy and transparency, education and material well-being. As such, it seeks to understand the importance of a range of potential determinants, or drivers. Statistical analysis was applied to more specific drivers of peace. Specifically, the team looked for indicators that were included and excluded from the index that had high levels of correlation with the overall score. Notably absent from the 2007 study were Belarus, Iceland, many African nations, Mongolia, North Korea and they were not included because reliable data for the 24 indicators was not available. Most of these countries were included in subsequent editions of the Global Peace Index, steve Killelea, the Australian philanthropist who conceived the idea of the Index, argues that the Index is a wake-up call for leaders around the globe
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Transparency International
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Transparency International e. V. is an international non-governmental organization which is based in Berlin, Germany, and was founded in 1993. Its nonprofit purpose is to take action to combat corruption and prevent criminal activities arising from corruption and it publishes for example the Global Corruption Barometer and the Corruption Perceptions Index. Transparency International has the status of a German registered voluntary association. Its members are besides a few more than 100 national chapters which engage in fighting corruption in their home countries. Transparency International states, Transparency International is the civil society organization leading the fight against corruption. It brings people together in a worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world. TIs mission is to change towards a world free of corruption. The organization defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain which eventually hurts everyone who depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority, Transparency International does not undertake investigations on single cases of corruption or expose individual cases. It develops tools for fighting corruption and works with other civil society organizations, companies, since 1995, Transparency International has issued an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, it also publishes a Global Corruption Report, a Global Corruption Barometer and a Bribe Payers Index. In 2013 Transparency International published the Government Defence Anti-corruption Index with which corruption in the sector of 82 countries was measured. Some governments expressed criticism towards the methodology of the report, mark Pyman defended the report in an interview and stressed the importance of transparency in the military sector. The plan is to publish the index every two years, the Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. It is a composite index – a combination of polls – drawing on corruption-related data collected by a variety of reputable institutions, the CPI reflects the views of observers from around the world. The Corruption Perceptions Index has received criticism over the years, the main one stems from the difficulty in measuring corruption, which by definition happens behind the scenes. The Corruption Perceptions Index therefore needs to rely on third-party survey which have criticized as potentially unreliable. Data can vary depending on the public perception of a country, the completeness of the surveys. The second issue is that data cannot be compared from year to year because Transparency International uses different methodologies and samples every year and this makes it difficult to evaluate the result of new policies. The Corruption Perceptions Index authors replied to these criticisms by reminding that the Corruption Perceptions Index is meant to measure perception and they argue that perceptions matter in their own right, since
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Corruption Perceptions Index
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The CPI generally defines corruption as the misuse of public power for private benefit. The CPI currently ranks 168 countries on a scale from 100 to 0, Transparency International commissioned Johann Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau to produce the Corruption Perceptions Index. The 2012 CPI draws on 13 different surveys and assessments from 12 different institutions, countries must be assessed by at least three sources to appear in the CPI. The 13 surveys/assessments are either business people opinion surveys or performance assessments from a group of analysts, early CPIs used public opinion surveys. The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption, (Note that a lower index on this scale reflects greater corruption, so that countries with higher RGDPs generally had less corruption. The researchers found a correlation between a higher CPI and higher economic growth, as well as an increase in GDP growth of 1. 7% for every unit increase in a countrys CPI score. Also shown was a power-law dependence linking higher CPI score to higher rates of investment in a country. Because corruption is willfully hidden, it is impossible to directly, instead. Seligson states that corruption is a very “difficult phenomenon to measure, ” there have been attempts to solve this problem. The Index has been criticized on the basis of its methodology, political scientist Dan Hough pointed out three flaws in the Index, Corruption is too complex to be captured by a single score. The nature of corruption in rural Kansas will, for instance, by measuring perceptions of corruption, as opposed to corruption itself, the Index may simply be reinforcing stereotypes and cliches. The Index only measures public-sector corruption, leaving out private actors and this for instance means the Libor scandal or the VW emissions scandal are not counted. Media outlets frequently use the raw numbers as a yardstick for government performance, the local Transparency International chapter in Bangladesh disowned the index results after a change in methodology caused the countrys scores to increase, media reported it as an improvement. In a 2013 article in Foreign Policy, Alex Cobham suggested that CPI should be dropped for the good of Transparency International, Cobham writes, the index corrupts perceptions to the extent that its hard to see a justification for its continuing publication. In the United States, many lawyers advise international businesses to consult the CPI when attempting to measure the risk of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations in different nations, Transparency International has warned that a country with a clean CPI score may still be linked to corruption internationally. For example, while Sweden had the 3rd best CPI score in 2015, one of its state-owned companies, Corruption Perceptions Index 2010, Long methodological brief. Corruption Perceptions Index 2013 Interactive world map of the Corruption Perception Index, 2000-2008 A Users Guide to Measuring Corruption critiques the CPI, Global Integrity Index List of Global Development Indexes and Rankings
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Reporters Without Borders
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Reporters Without Borders, or Reporters Sans Frontières, is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization that promotes and defends freedom of information and freedom of the press. The organization, with an office in Paris, France, has consultant status at the United Nations. Reporters Without Borders was founded in 1985 by Robert Ménard, Rémy Loury, Jacques Molénat and Émilien Jubineau, in Montpellier and its head office is in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. RWB also maintains offices in Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Madrid, Rome, Stockholm, Tunis, Vienna, at first, the association worked to promote alternative journalism, but there were disagreements between the founders. Finally, only Ménard stayed and he changed the direction towards promoting freedom of the press. Ménard was RWBs first Secretary General, jean-François Julliard succeeded Ménard in 2008. Christophe Deloire succeeded Julliard in July 2012 when he became Director General, Reporters Without Borders primary means of direct action are appeals to government authorities through letters or petitions, as well as frequent press releases. Through its world-wide network of roughly 150 correspondents, RWB gathers information, if necessary, it will send a team of its own to assess working conditions for journalists in a specific country. It releases annual reports on countries as well as the Press Freedom Index, RWB also provides assistance for journalists and media who are either in danger or are having difficulty subsisting. 2013, received the Freedom of Speech Award from the International Association of Press Clubs,2012, received the Club Internacional de Prensa Award, in Madrid. 2009, shared the Roland Berger Human Dignity Award with Iranian human rights lawyer,2009, received the Médaille Charlemagne for European Media. 2008, received the Kahlil Gibran Award for Institutional Excellence from the Arab American Institute Foundation,2007, received the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award from Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and the Dawit Isaak Prize from Swedish Publicists Association. 2006, received an International Emmy Award from the International Academy of Television Arts,2005, shared the European Parliaments Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought with Nigerian human rights lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim and Cubas Ladies in White movement. 1997, received the Journalism and Democracy Prize from the Parliament Assembly of the Organization for Security,1992, received the Lorenzo Natali Prize from the European Commission for defending human rights and democracy. Reporters Without Borders issues press releases, fact finding reports, and it publishes periodic mission reports on developments in individual countries or regions or on a specific topic. Each December it publishes an overview of events related to freedom of information. It maintains a web site accessible in six languages, RWB compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organizations assessment of their press freedom records. Small countries, such as Andorra, are excluded from this report, the survey asks questions about direct attacks on journalists and the media as well as other indirect sources of pressure against the free press
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Press Freedom Index
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It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists, news organizations, and netizens enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom. Reporters Without Borders is careful to note that the only deals with press freedom. The report is based partly on a questionnaire that asks questions about pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, the questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media and the level of independence of the public media. It also reflects violations of the flow of information on the Internet. A smaller score corresponds to freedom of the press. Based on the data collected, a score and a position or rank, some countries are excluded from the report because of a lack of reliable, confirmed information. Because the questions and calculations upon which the scores are based have changed over the years, to follow a country’s evolution from year to year compare its rank in the index rather than its score. Each report reflects the situation during a specific period, the year of the report is the year the report was released and reflects events in the prior year. So, for example, the 2009 report was published in October 2009, no report was released in 2011. The 2011–2012 report, labeled 2012 in the table below, was published on 20 January 2012, the 2013 World Press Freedom Index was published on 30 January 2013 and reflects events between 1 December 2011 and 30 November 2012. Data for each year are presented as a countrys giving its position relative to other countries over its score, a smaller score corresponds to greater freedom of the press. In 2012 the smallest scores can be negative, note that although the map above uses five colors the table here is using seven, and so some countries will be colored differently
18.
Democracy Index
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The index was first produced in 2006, with updates for 2008,2010 and the following years since then. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories measuring pluralism, civil liberties, in addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes countries as one of four regime types, full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes. As described in the report, the index is a weighted average based on the answers of 60 questions. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries, in the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps. The questions are distributed in the five categories, electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, each answer is translated to a mark, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer alternative questions,0.5. With the exceptions mentioned below, the sums are added within each category, multiplied by ten, there are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures. Is not considered, but automatically marked zero, the four category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the democracy index for a given country. Finally, the index, rounded to one decimal, decides the regime type classification of the country. The report discusses other indices of democracy, as defined e. g. by Freedom House, the report is widely cited in the international press as well as in peer reviewed academic journals. Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and basic freedoms are not only respected. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning, flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honored but may have issues. Hybrid regimes are nations where consequential irregularities exist in elections regularly preventing them from being fair, authoritarian regimes are nations where political pluralism has vanished or is extremely limited. North Korea scored the lowest with 1.08, remaining at the bottom in 167th place, there was no significant improvement or regression in democracy between 2011 and 2012. In 2012 the index score stayed the same for 73 out of 167 countries, improved for 54 countries, libya experienced the biggest increase of any country in its score in 2012. Average regional scores in 2012 were very similar to scores in 2011. An exception is the Middle East and North Africa where the average increased by more than a tenth of a point, from 3.62 to 3.73. The Democracy Index score was lower in 2011 than in 2010 in 48 countries out of the 167 that are covered and it was higher in 41 ranked countries, and it stayed the same in 78. In nine countries there was a change in type between 2010 and 2011, in four of these there was regression
19.
The Heritage Foundation
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The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D. C. The foundation took a role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Heritage has since continued to have a significant influence in U. S. public policy making, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump as U. S. President, Heritage played a major role in shaping his transition team. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner, with $200,000 from Coors, the Analysis and Research Association was created in 1970. New supporters and board members joined, including petroleum executive Edward Noble, eventually, the organization split into a public interest law center and a separate public policy foundation, the latter of which was incorporated as The Heritage Foundation on February 16,1973. Later, under president Frank J. Walton, the Heritage Foundation began using direct mail fundraising, the report was well received by the White House, and several of its authors went on to take positions in the Reagan administration. Reagan liked the ideas so much that he gave a copy to each member of his cabinet to overview, approximately 60% of the 2,000 proposals were implemented or initiated by the end of Reagans first year in office. Ronald Reagan later on said that the Heritage Foundation played a vital force in the successes during his presidency, Heritage also advocated the development of new ballistic missile defense systems for the United States. Reagan adopted this as his top priority in 1983, calling it the Strategic Defense Initiative. In 1986, Time called Heritage the foremost of the new breed of advocacy tanks, during the Reagan and Bush administrations, The Heritage Foundation served as the Presidents brain trust on foreign policy. The Heritage Foundation remained a voice on domestic and foreign policy issues during President George H. W. Bushs administration. In domestic policy, the Bush administration agreed with six of the ten budget reforms contained in Mandate for Leadership III, Heritage also became involved in the culture wars of the 1990s with the publication of The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators by William Bennett. The Index documented how crime, illegitimacy, divorce, teenage suicide, drug use, Heritage continued to grow throughout the 1990s and its journal, Policy Review, hit an all-time-high circulation of 23,000. Heritage was an opponent of the Clinton health care plan of 1993, President Clintons welfare reforms were analogous with Heritages recommendations and were adopted in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. In 1995, Heritage published the first Index of Economic Freedom, co-authored by policy analyst Bryan T. Johnson, in 1997, the Index became a joint project between the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. In 1994, Heritage advised Newt Gingrich and other conservatives on the development of the Contract with America, the Contract was a pact of principles that directly challenged both the political status-quo in Washington and many of the ideas at the heart of the Clinton administration. In December 2012, an announcement was made that Senator Jim DeMint would resign from the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation, pundits have predicted his tenure may mark a sharper edge for the Foundation. Richwine argued that Hispanics and blacks are intellectually inferior to whites and have trouble assimilating because of a genetic predisposition to lower IQ
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The Wall Street Journal
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The Wall Street Journal is an American business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal, along with its Asian and European editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, the newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The Wall Street Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, the Journal had a circulation of about 2.4 million copies as of March 2013, compared with USA Todays 1.7 million. The newspaper has won 39 Pulitzer Prizes through 2015 and derives its name from Wall Street in the heart of the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8,1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, the Journal also publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine WSJ. They were later aggregated in a daily summary called the Customers Afternoon Letter. In 1896, The Dow Jones Industrial Average was officially launched and it was the first of several indices of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1899, the Journals Review & Outlook column, which still today, appeared for the first time. Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902, circulation was then around 7,000, Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism. In 1921, Barrons, Americas premier financial weekly, was founded, Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that greatly affected the Great Depression in the United States. Barrons descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007, the Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, under Kilgore, in 1947, that the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize, for William Henry Grimess editorials. In 1970, Dow Jones bought the Ottaway newspaper chain, which at the time comprised nine dailies, later, the name was changed to Dow Jones Local Media Group. In 2007 News Corp. acquired Dow Jones, a luxury lifestyle magazine, was launched in 2008. A complement to the print newspaper, The Wall Street Journal Online, was launched in 1996, in 2003, Dow Jones began to integrate reporting of the Journals print and online subscribers together in Audit Bureau of Circulations statements. In 2007, it was believed to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web. Since then, online subscribership has fallen, due in part to rising subscription costs, in May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition. By June 2013, the monthly cost for a subscription to the edition was $22.99, or $275.88 annually
21.
Fraser Institute
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The Fraser Institute is a Canadian public policy think tank and registered charity. It has been described as conservative and libertarian. The Institute is headquartered in Vancouver, with offices located in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. The Fraser Institute was founded in 1974 by Michael Walker, an economist from the University of Western Ontario and it obtained charitable status in Canada on October 22,1974, and in the United States in 1978. Its stated mission is to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets, the Institute is named for the Fraser River. Sir Antony Fisher, previously instrumental in setting up the UKs Institute of Economic Affairs, was appointed acting director in 1975, in its first full year of operation,1975, the Institute reported revenues of $421,389. In 1988, revenues exceed $1 million, and in 2003, forbes has referred to the think tank as libertarian. The New York Times has described the Institute as libertarian and conservative, the Calgary Herald called it conservative, Langley Times classified it as right-of-center libertarian. As a registered charity with the Canada Revenue Agency, the Institute files annual registered charity information returns, in 2010, the Institute reported having $4.5 million CAD in assets and $10.8 million in annual revenue. The Institute depends on contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations and it does not accept government grants or payments for research, however individual donors may claim tax credits for donations and corporate donors may claim tax deductions. It also received US$120,000 from ExxonMobil in the 2003 to 2004 fiscal period, the Institute has also published regional and sub-national reports ranking the economic freedom of North America, Latin America, the Arab World, and the Francophonie. These reports are distributed worldwide through the Economic Freedom Network, a network of 80 think-tanks. The index presents a broad measure of freedom, understood as the absence of coercive constraint. The Human Freedom Index was created in 2015, covering 152 countries for years 2008,2010,2011 and 2012, in January 2016 data for 2013 was added, covering 157 countries. Global Petroleum Survey, An annual survey of petroleum executives regarding barriers to investment in oil-, Canadian Provincial Investment Climate, A series of reports measuring the extent to which Canadian provinces embrace public policies that contribute to, and sustain, positive investment climates. The Fraser Institute issued a number of articles and statements opposing Canadian gun control laws, the website www. compareschoolrankings. org allows anyone to compare up to five schools at once, based on a variety of performance indicators. In 2011, Tax Freedom Day was June 6, the Institute also offers a personal Tax Freedom Day calculator. It is however important to note that averaging the tax burden of high, in March 2010, the Institute released Did Government Stimulus Fuel Economic Growth in Canada
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Economic Freedom of the World
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One of the earliest measures of economic freedom was developed by Freedom House, which has done extensive work on the measurement of political and cultural freedom. This measure incorporated a range of indicators including freedom to establish a business, eventually this resulted in a report on worldwide economic freedom, Economic Freedom of the World. Later the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal created another similar index, correspondingly, as government expenditures increase and regulations expand, a country’s rating will decline. Some examples, tax rates, degree of independence, inflation rates, costs of importing. Each of the 5 areas above is given equal weight in the final score, hundreds of peer-reviewed articles have used the index and it has been used in economic research, political science, and environmental research. The share of income in percent going to the poorest 10% is the same for more and less economically free countries. The poorest 10 percent of the population have an income of just $728 in the least free countries compared with over $7,000 in the most free countries. The life expectancy of people living in the most free nations is 20 years longer than for people in the least free countries, higher economic freedom, as measured by both the Heritage and the Fraser indices, correlates strongly with higher self-reported happiness and is significant in preventing wars. Economic freedom is around 54 times more effective than democracy in diminishing violent conflict, regarding environmental health, studies have found no or a positive effect. More important may be the Kuznets curve, most environmental health indicators, such as water and air pollution show an inverted U-shape. Meaning in the beginning of development, little weight is given to environmental concerns. After a threshold, when physical needs are met and a middle class is established, interest in a clean environment rises. Economic Freedom of the World index has been widely used than any other measure of economic freedom. In 2016 the report was cited in 412 independent research journals, in 2017, Free Malaysia Today and National Review articles quoted the report. The claimed correlation between economic freedom and growth has been analysed by a number of studies. De Haan and Siermann find that the relationship is not robust, while Heckelman and they examine the components of the index individually and find that many—including a low top marginal tax rate—are negatively, rather than positively correlated with economic growth. A frequent criticism is that China, and other developing nations, have high growth rates, developing nations can have higher growth rates than developed nations, as they have cheap labor and can import investment, technology and organizational skills from rich countries. Some independent research does not support all of the ideals of laissez-faire capitalism, many north European nation, such as Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, have extensive welfare states, which are strongly opposed by advocates of laissez-faire
23.
World Justice Project
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The World Justice Project is an independent, multidisciplinary organization working to advance the rule of law around the world. It was founded by William H. Neukom in 2006 as an initiative of the American Bar Association. The World Justice Project became an independent 501 non-profit organization in 2009 and its offices are located in Washington, D. C. and Seattle, Washington, USA. The World Justice Project defines the rule of law system as one in which the following four principles are upheld, The government and its officials. The laws are clear, publicized, stable and fair, and protect rights, including the security of persons. The process by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced is accessible, efficient, Justice is delivered by competent, ethical, and independent representatives and neutrals who are of sufficient number, have adequate resources, and reflect the makeup of the communities they serve. The World Justice Project supports research that examines the contributions of the rule of law to aspects of economic, political and these factors are further disaggregated into forty-four indicators. Together, they provide a picture of rule of law compliance. The index is published annually. To date, over 97,000 people and 2,500 experts have been interviewed in 99 countries, the World Justice Projects most recent index offers a detailed and comprehensive picture of the extent to which 113 countries and jurisdictions around the world adhere to the rule of law. The list below shows the top 30 countries/territories and the rankings are available for download on the WJP website. In its analysis, countries are grouped with those that are geographically and economically similar. According to the analysis, Scandinavia is home to the most successful rule of law countries. While the United States scores well on limiting civil conflict, protecting the right to petition the government and freedom of speech, the WJP’s Engagement initiatives strive to make rule of law advancement as fundamental to the thinking and work of other professionals as it is to lawyers and judges. The World Justice Challenge is a competition designed to incubate practical. Since 2007, the WJP has held three World Justice Forums, the inaugural World Justice Forum was held in Vienna, Austria, on July 2–5,2008. The World Justice Forum II took place on November 11–14,2009, also in Vienna, the World Justice Forum III was held on June 20–23,2011, in Barcelona, Spain. The World Justice Forum IV took place on July 8–11,2013, in The Hague and it produced a detailed report on the rule of law situation in Tunisia based on data from its Rule of Law Index
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The Economist
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The Economist is an English-language weekly magazine-format newspaper owned by the Economist Group and edited at offices in London. Continuous publication began under its founder, James Wilson, in September 1843, in 2015 its average weekly circulation was a little over 1.5 million, about half of which were sold in the United States. The publication belongs to the Economist Group and it is 50% owned by the English branch of the Rothschild family and by the Agnelli family through its holding company Exor. The remaining 50% is held by investors including the editors. The Rothschilds and the Agnellis are represented on the board of directors, a board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. Although The Economist has an emphasis and scope, about two-thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in the London borough of Westminster. For the year to March 2016 the Economist Group declared operating profit of £61m, previous major shareholders include Pearson PLC. The Economist takes a stance of classical and economic liberalism which is supportive of free trade, globalisation, free immigration. The publication has described itself as a product of the Caledonian liberalism of Adam Smith and it targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers. The publications CEO described this recent global change, which was first noticed in the 1990s and accelerated in the beginning of the 21st century, on the contents page of each issue, The Economists mission statement is written in italics. The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, articles relating to some practical, commercial, agricultural, or foreign topic of passing interest, such as foreign treaties. An article on the principles of political economy, applied to practical experience, covering the laws related to prices, wages, rent, exchange, revenue. Parliamentary reports, with focus on commerce, agriculture and free trade. Reports and accounts of popular movements advocating free trade, general news from the Court of St. Jamess, the Metropolis, the Provinces, Scotland, and Ireland. Law reports, confined chiefly to areas important to commerce, manufacturing, books, confined chiefly, but not so exclusively, to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and including all treatises on political economy, finance, or taxation. A commercial gazette, with prices and statistics of the week, correspondence and inquiries from the news magazines readers. It has long respected as one of the most competent. Its logo was designed in 1959 by Reynolds Stone, in January 2012 The Economist launched a new weekly section devoted exclusively to China, the first new country section since the introduction of a section about the United States in 1942
25.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
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History of the United States
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The date of the start of the history of the United States is a subject of debate among historians. In recent decades American schools and universities typically have shifted back in time to more on the colonial period. Indigenous people lived in what is now the United States for thousands of years before European colonists began to arrive, mostly from England, the Spanish built small settlements in Florida and the Southwest, and the French along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast. By the 1770s, thirteen British colonies contained two and a million people along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian Mountains. After the end of the French and Indian Wars in the 1760s, Tax resistance, especially the Boston Tea Party, led to punitive laws by Parliament designed to end self-government in Massachusetts. American Patriots adhered to an ideology called republicanism that emphasized civic duty, virtue. Armed conflict began in 1775 as Patriots drove the royal officials out of every colony and assembled in mass meetings, in 1776, the Second Continental Congress declared that there was a new, independent nation, the United States of America, not just a collection of disparate colonies. With large-scale military and financial support from France and the leadership of General George Washington. The peace treaty of 1783 gave the new nation the land east of the Mississippi River, the central government established by the Articles of Confederation proved ineffectual at providing stability, as it had no authority to collect taxes and had no executive officer. Congress called a convention to meet secretly in Philadelphia in 1787 and it wrote a new Constitution, which was adopted in 1789. In 1791, a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee inalienable rights, with Washington as the first president and Alexander Hamilton his chief political and financial adviser, a strong central government was created. When Thomas Jefferson became president he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, a second and final war with Britain was fought in 1812. Encouraged by the notion of Manifest Destiny, federal territory expanded all the way to the Pacific, the U. S. always was large in terms of area, but its population was small, only 4 million in 1790. Population growth was rapid, reaching 7.2 million in 1810,32 million in 1860,76 million in 1900,132 million in 1940, Economic growth in terms of overall GDP was even faster. However, compared to European powers, the military strength was relatively limited in peacetime before 1940. The expansion was driven by a quest for land for yeoman farmers. The expansion of slavery was increasingly controversial and fueled political and constitutional battles, the 1860 presidential election of Republican Abraham Lincoln was on a platform of ending the expansion of slavery and putting it on a path to extinction. Seven cotton-based deep South slave states seceded and later founded the Confederacy months before Lincolns inauguration, No nation ever recognized the Confederacy, but it opened the war by attacking Fort Sumter in 1861
27.
Timeline of United States history
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This is a timeline of United States history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political and economic events in the United States and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of the United States, some dates before September 14,1752, when the British government adopted the Gregorian calendar, may be given in the Old Style
28.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools
29.
Colonial history of the United States
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The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European settlements from the start of colonization until their incorporation into the United States. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, small early attempts often disappeared, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Everywhere, the rate was very high among the first arrivals. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established several decades. European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups, few aristocrats settled permanently, but a number of adventurers, soldiers, farmers, and tradesmen arrived. They built colonies with distinctive social, religious, political, non-British colonies were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated, unlike in Nova Scotia, where the British expelled the French Acadian inhabitants. There were no civil wars among the 13 colonies. The colonies developed legalized systems of slavery, based largely in the Atlantic slave trade from Africa or by way of the Caribbean, Wars were recurrent between the French and the British—the French and Indian Wars especially—and involved French support for Native American attacks on the British frontiers. By 1760, France was defeated and the British seized its colonies, on the eastern seaboard of what became the United States, the four distinct British regions were, New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay Colonies, and the Lower South. Some historians add a fifth region of the Frontier which was never separately organized, see timeline of Colonial America for list of historical events. Colonizers came from European kingdoms that had highly developed military, naval, governmental and these efforts were managed respectively by the Casa de Contratación and the Casa da Índia. England, France, and the Netherlands had also started colonies in both the West Indies and North America and they had the ability to build ocean-worthy ships but did not have as strong a history of colonization in foreign lands as did Portugal and Spain. However, English entrepreneurs gave their colonies a foundation of merchant-based investment that seemed to need much less government support, initially, matters concerning the colonies were dealt with primarily by the Privy Council and its committees. The Commission of Trade was set up in 1625 as the first special body convened to advise on colonial questions, mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies from the 1660s. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold, the government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy which protected the British colonies, thus, the British Navy captured New Amsterdam in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country, the prospect of religious persecution by authorities of the crown and the Church of England prompted a significant number of colonization efforts. People fleeing persecution by King Charles I were responsible for settling most of New England, anonymous Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to map the future eastern seaboard of the U. S. from New York to Florida, as documented in the Cantino planisphere of 1502
30.
Thirteen Colonies
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The Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the east coast of North America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries that declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States. The Thirteen Colonies had very similar political, constitutional, and legal systems and they were part of Britains possessions in the New World, which also included colonies in present-day Canada and the Caribbean, as well as East and West Florida. However, the Thirteen Colonies had a degree of self-government and active local elections. In the 1750s, the colonies began collaborating with each other instead of dealing directly with Britain, Colonial decisions were subject to approval by the governor and the home government. There were also substantial populations of African slaves in some of the colonies, especially Virginia, the Carolinas, the names of the colonies were chosen by the founders and proprietors, subject to royal approval, and given in the founding charters. Nine of the thirteen chose to include in their names the term Province of, later residents tended to drop the ambiguous terminology, as in the map shown in the article Province of New Jersey, which is labeled simply East Jersey and West Jersey. In July 1776, they formed a new nation called the United States of America, the new nation achieved that goal by winning the American Revolutionary War with the aid of France, the Netherlands, and Spain. The American flag features thirteen horizontal stripes which represent these original thirteen colonies, besides these thirteen colonies, Britain had another dozen in the New World. Those in the British West Indies, Newfoundland, the Province of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Bermuda, and East and West Florida remained loyal to the crown throughout the war. The British crown had recently acquired those lands, and many of the issues facing the Thirteen Colonies did not apply to them, especially in the case of Quebec. Contemporary documents usually list the thirteen colonies of British North America in geographical order, the consolidation collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, and the nine former colonies re-established their separate identities in 1689. Massachusetts Bay Colony Settled in 1630 by Puritans from England, the colonial charter was revoked in 1684, and a new charter was issued in 1691 establishing an enlarged Province of Massachusetts Bay. Province of Maine Settled in 1622, the Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed the Maine territory in the 1650s, then limited to present-day southernmost Maine. Parts of Maine east of the Kennebec River were also part of New York in the half of the 17th century. These areas were made part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the charter of 1691. Plymouth Colony Settled in 1620 by the Pilgrims, plymouth was merged into the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the charter of 1691. Saybrook Colony Founded in 1635 and merged with Connecticut Colony in 1644, New Haven Colony Settled in late 1637. New Netherland Extensive region centered about New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan Island
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Colonial American military history
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Colonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775. Rangers in North America served in the 17th and 18th-century wars between colonists and Native American tribes, the British regulars were not accustomed to frontier warfare and so Ranger companies were developed. Rangers were full-time soldiers employed by governments to patrol between fixed frontier fortifications in reconnaissance, providing early warning of raids. In offensive operations, they were scouts and guides, locating villages, the father of American ranging is Colonel Benjamin Church. He was the captain of the first Ranger force in America, Church was commissioned by Plymouth Colony Governor Josiah Winslow to form the first ranger company for King Philips War. He later employed the company to raid Acadia during King Williams War, Benjamin Church designed his force primarily to emulate Native American patterns of war. Toward this end, he endeavored to learn from Native Americans how to fight like Native Americans, Americans became rangers exclusively under the tutelage of the Indian allies. Under Church served the father and grandfather of two famous rangers of the century, John Lovewell and John Gorham, respectively. Rogers Rangers was established in 1751 by Major Robert Rogers, who organized nine Ranger companies in the American colonies and these early American light infantry units organized during the French and Indian War were called Rangers and are often considered to be the spiritual birthplace of the modern Army Rangers. The beginning of the United States military lies in local governments which created militias that enrolled nearly all white men. The British Army and Royal Navy handled international wars, the militia was not employed as a fighting force in major operations outside the local jurisdiction. Instead, the colony asked for volunteers, many of whom were also militia members, the local Indian threat ended by 1725 in most places, after which the militia system was little used except for local ceremonial roles. The militia system was revived at the end of the era, as the American Revolution approached, weapons were accumulated. The militia played a major fighting role in the Revolution, especially in expelling the British from Boston in 1776, however most of the fighting was handled by the Continental Army, comprising regular soldiers. Father Rales War happened in Maine and Nova Scotia, there also occurred slave uprisings, such as the Stono Rebellion in 1739. Finally, there was Father Le Loutres War, which also involved Acadians, in the lead-up to the French, kiefts War was a conflict between Dutch settlers and Indians in the colony of New Netherland from 1643 to 1645. The fighting involved raids and counter-raids and it was bloody in proportion to the population, more than 1,600 natives were killed at a time when the European population of New Amsterdam was only 250. The British fought the Spanish in the War of Jenkins Ear, after 1742 the war merged into the larger War of the Austrian Succession involving most of the powers of Europe
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American Revolution
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The British responded by imposing punitive laws on Massachusetts in 1774 known as the Coercive Acts, following which Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts. Tensions escalated to the outbreak of fighting between Patriot militia and British regulars at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the conflict then developed into a global war, during which the Patriots fought the British and Loyalists in what became known as the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress determined King George IIIs rule to be tyrannical and infringing the rights as Englishmen. The Patriot leadership professed the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism to reject monarchy and aristocracy, Congress rejected British proposals requiring allegiance to the monarchy and abandonment of independence. The British were forced out of Boston in 1776, but then captured and they blockaded the ports and captured other cities for brief periods, but failed to defeat Washingtons forces. After a failed Patriot invasion of Canada, a British army was captured at the Battle of Saratoga in late 1777, a combined American–French force captured a second British army at Yorktown in 1781, effectively ending the war in the United States. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the conflict, confirming the new nations complete separation from the British Empire. The United States took possession of all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, with the British retaining control of Canada. Among the significant results of the revolution was the creation of a new Constitution of the United States. Historians typically begin their histories of the American Revolution with the British victory in the French and Indian War in 1763, the lands west of Quebec and west of a line running along the crest of the Allegheny mountains became Indian territory, temporarily barred to settlement. For the prior history, see Thirteen Colonies, in 1764, Parliament passed the Currency Act to restrain the use of paper money which British merchants saw as a means to evade debt payments. Parliament also passed the Sugar Act, imposing customs duties on a number of articles, none did and Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765 which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets—even decks of playing cards—were required to have the stamps, the colonists did not object that the taxes were high, but because they had no representation in the Parliament. Benjamin Franklin testified in Parliament in 1766 that Americans already contributed heavily to the defense of the Empire, stationing a standing army in Great Britain during peacetime was politically unacceptable. London had to deal with 1,500 politically well-connected British officers who became redundant, in 1765, the Sons of Liberty formed. They used public demonstrations, boycott, violence, and threats of violence to ensure that the British tax laws were unenforceable, in Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice admiralty court and looted the home of chief justice Thomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765, moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a Declaration of Rights and Grievances stating that taxes passed without representation violated their rights as Englishmen. Colonists emphasized their determination by boycotting imports of British merchandise, the Parliament at Westminster saw itself as the supreme lawmaking authority throughout all British possessions and thus entitled to levy any tax without colonial approval
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American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
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American frontier
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Frontier refers to a contrasting region at the edge of a European-American line of settlement. American historians cover multiple frontiers but the folklore is focused primarily on the 19th century west of the Mississippi River. As defined by Hine and Faragher, frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states. They explain, It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, thus, Turners Frontier Thesis proclaimed the westward frontier as the defining process of American history. As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took firm hold in the imagination of Americans, America is exceptional in choosing its iconic self-image. David Murdoch has said, No other nation has taken a time and place from its past, the frontier line was the outer line of European-American settlement. It moved steadily westward from the 1630s to the 1880s, Turner favored the Census Bureau definition of the frontier line as a settlement density of two people per square mile. The West was the settled area near that boundary. Thus, parts of the Midwest and American South, though no longer considered western, have a frontier heritage along with the western states. In the 21st century, however, the term American West is most often used for the area west of the Mississippi River, in the colonial era, before 1776, the west was of high priority for settlers and politicians. The American frontier began when Jamestown, Virginia was settled by the English in 1607, English, French, Spanish and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and mid-west region they settled down. French settlement was limited to a few small villages such as Kaskaskia. They created a rural settlement in upstate New York. Areas in the north that were in the stage by 1700 generally had poor transportation facilities. The wealthy speculator, if one was involved, usually remained at home, the class of landless poor was small. Few artisans settled on the frontier except for those who practiced a trade to supplement their primary occupation of farming, there might be a storekeeper, a minister, and perhaps a doctor, and there were a number of landless laborers. However frontier areas of 1700 that had good river connections were transformed into plantation agriculture
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Federalist Era
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The Federalist Era in American history ran from roughly 1788-1800, a time when the Federalist Party was dominant in American politics, as measured by its control of the United States Congress. This period saw the adoption of the United States Constitution, the expansion of the federal government, in addition, the era saw the growth of a strong nationalistic government under the control of the Federalist Party. The Federalists were succeeded in the 1800 election of Democratic-Republican Party leader, Thomas Jefferson, the party then also gradually lost seats for the next 10 or so congresses when the party faded into obscurity in the early 1820s. The United States Constitution was written in 1787 and ratified by the states in 1788, the winning supporters of ratification of the Constitution were called Federalists, the opponents were called Anti-Federalists. The immediate problem faced by the Federalists was not simply one of acceptance of the Constitution, the first elections to the new United States Congress returned heavy Federalist majorities. The first Anti-Federalist movement opposed the draft Constitution in 1788, primarily because it lacked a Bill of Rights, the Anti-Federalists objected to the new powerful central government, the loss of prestige for the states, and saw the Constitution as a potential threat to personal liberties. During the ratification process the Anti-Federalists presented a significant opposition in all, the most dynamic force in the Presidency of George Washington was the secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Hamiltons programs were approved by Congress over the opposition of the old Anti-Federalists, in order to build a national network in support of his programs, Hamilton created a coalition of supporters—often prominent businessmen and financiers—in every state and many cities. Hamiltons network of supporters grew into the Federalist Party, which included most, a major emphasis of Hamiltons policies, and indeed the general outlook for the Federalist Party, was that the federal government was to preside over the national economy. Federalists during the period had been unified around the Constitution. The support around these policies eventually established the first official party in the United States as the Federalist Party. The Party reached its apex with the election of the strongly Federalist President John Adams. However the defeat of Adams in the election of 1800 and the death of Hamilton led to the decline of the Federalist Party from which it did not recover, while there were still Federalists after 1800, the party never again enjoyed the power and influence it had held earlier. One of the Federalists Eras greatest accomplishments was that republican government survived, Republicans, or the Democratic-Republican Party, was founded in 1792 by Jefferson and James Madison. The party was created in order to oppose the policies of Hamilton, foreign policy issues were central, the party opposed the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain and supported good relations with France before 1801. In great contrast to the Federalists the Republican supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution. The party promoted states rights and the primacy of the yeoman farmer over bankers, industrialists, merchants, the party supported states rights as a measure against the tyrannical nature of a large centralized government that they feared the Federal government could have easily become. Chief among the conflict was that any form of understanding between the United States and Great Britain would pose a threat to the Franco-American relations, the treaty averted war and increased trade, a positive outcome for both sides
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War of 1812
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Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the wars end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved, the view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr. Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies, the war was fought in three theatres. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U. S. –Canadian frontier, Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, early victories over poorly-led U. S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U. S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britains Native American allies, both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. This brought an Era of Good Feelings in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism, the war was also a major turning point in the development of the U. S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U. S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spains Mobile District, the government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812. This section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States, as Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also vindication of American identity. Americans at the time and historians since often called it the United States Second War of Independence, in 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via a series of Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, with which Britain was at war. The United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law, the American merchant marine had come close to doubling between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton, the British public and press were resentful of the growing mercantile and commercial competition. The United States view was that Britains restrictions violated its right to trade with others, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man. The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become U. S. citizens and this meant that in addition to recovering naval deserters, it considered any United States citizens who were born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the reluctance of the United States to issue formal naturalization papers and it was estimated by the Admiralty that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors on United States ships in 1805
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United States territorial acquisitions
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This is a United States territorial acquisitions and conquests list, beginning with American independence. Note that this list primarily concerns land the United States acquired from other nation-states, Territorial acquisitions derived from the displacement of Native Americans are not listed here. The 1783 Treaty of Paris with Great Britain defined the borders of the United States. It generally stretched from the Eastern Seaboard to the Mississippi River in the west, there were ambiguities in the treaty regarding the exact border with Canada to the north that led to disputes that were resolved by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty in 1842. Beginning in the late 18th century, the new nation organized areas west of the Original thirteen states into several United States territories, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, was negotiated with Napoleon during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, the territory was acquired from France for $15 million. A small portion of land was ceded to Britain in 1818 in exchange for the Red River Basin. More of this land was ceded to Spain in 1819 with the Florida Purchase, West Florida was declared to be a U. S. possession in 1810 by President James Madison after the territory had declared its independence from Spain. Madison ordered the U. S. Army to take control, six weeks later, the army entered and occupied the capital, St. Francisville, putting an end to the republic after 74 days of independence. Spain did not relinquish its claim to sovereignty until ratification of the Adams-Onís Treaty, general Andrew Jackson personally accepted the delivery of West Florida from its Spanish governor on July 17,1821. The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 with Spain resulted in Spains cession of East Florida, Article III of the treaty, when properly surveyed, resulted in the acquisition of a small part of central Colorado. Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 with Britain split the territory in Maine and New Brunswick and finalized the border with Canada. In 1850 Britain ceded to the U. S. less than one acre of underwater rock in Lake Erie near Buffalo for a lighthouse, Congress approved the annexation of Texas on February 28,1845. On December 29,1845, Texas became the 28th state, Mexico acknowledged the loss of territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. The San Juan Islands were claimed and jointly occupied by the U. S. arbitration led to the sole U. S. possession of the San Juan Islands since 1872. The United States paid $15 million and agreed to pay claims made by American citizens against Mexico which amounted to more than $3 million. In the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the United States purchased a strip of land along the Mexico–United States border for $10 million, now in New Mexico and this territory was intended for a southern transcontinental railroad. Alaska Purchase from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million on March 30,1867, the land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11,1912, and the 49th state of the U. S. on January 3,1959. The Kingdom of Hawaii was closely linked by missionary work and trade to the U. S. by the 1880s, in 1893 business leaders overthrew the Queen of Hawaii and sought annexation
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Territorial evolution of the United States
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The United States of America was created on July 4,1776, with the declaration of independence of thirteen British colonies. Since then, it has expanded across North America and the seas, growing from the thirteen states to fifty states. To see snapshots of torhe layout of the country at any given moment, Unorganized territory is not a name, it simply means that Congress has not passed an organic act for the territory or it does not otherwise have a name. In most situations, the purpose of unorganized territory was to act as land for Native American settlement, indeed, the last mainland unorganized territory was colloquially referred to as Indian Territory. All land ceded to the government without an official name is labeled as Unorganized territory. Wartime and post-war occupations by the United States of foreign territory are not noted unless they involved formal annexation. For example, the United States military occupied several countries in Central America and the Caribbean for many years during the Banana Wars, but, as there was no annexation, this is not noted. Wartime occupations of American territory are noted only when a replacement of the local government was involved. For example, during World War II, the Philippines had a separate government administering it, Islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act had varying amounts of control and claims from other countries. Though the United States and United Kingdom may have claimed the islands on paper, many were uninhabited and generally ignored once the guano miners left. The names given for guano islands are generally the names, as the islands had many names based on multiple sightings and claims. Descriptions of borders are of the versions described in official documents. The maps are of the changes to the United States in central North America, as defined by the United States, if an area is ambiguous or challenged but not actively pursued, it is noted in the table of changes but not shown in the main map. Due to the complexity, maps of the changes to the United States in the Pacific Ocean. Dates are given in local time and this only matters for some changes in the mid-Pacific. For example, Guam surrendered on the morning of December 10,1941, key to map colors Click on any map to view a larger version in Wikimedia Commons. Click on that Commons map to further enlarge map details, the Banco Convention of 1905 between the United States and Mexico allowed, in the event of sudden changes in the course of the Rio Grande, for the border to be altered to follow the new course. The sudden changes often created bancos, land left behind when curves in the river are cut off by erosion of the channel or are intentionally cut to re-align it
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American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
