1.
Steam turbine
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A steam turbine is a device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884, in 1551, Taqi al-Din in Ottoman Egypt described a steam turbine with the practical application of rotating a spit. Steam turbines were described by the Italian Giovanni Branca and John Wilkins in England. The devices described by Taqi al-Din and Wilkins are today known as steam jacks, in 1672 an impulse steam turbine driven car was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest. A more modern version of car was produced some time in the late 18th century by an unknown German mechanic. The modern steam turbine was invented in 1884 by Sir Charles Parsons, the invention of Parsons steam turbine made cheap and plentiful electricity possible and revolutionized marine transport and naval warfare. Parsons design was a reaction type and his patent was licensed and the turbine scaled-up shortly after by an American, George Westinghouse. The Parsons turbine also turned out to be easy to scale up. Parsons had the satisfaction of seeing his invention adopted for all major world power stations, a number of other variations of turbines have been developed that work effectively with steam. The de Laval turbine accelerated the steam to full speed before running it against a turbine blade, De Lavals impulse turbine is simpler, less expensive and does not need to be pressure-proof. It can operate with any pressure of steam, but is less efficient. He taught at the École des mines de Saint-Étienne for a decade until 1897, one of the founders of the modern theory of steam and gas turbines was Aurel Stodola, a Slovak physicist and engineer and professor at the Swiss Polytechnical Institute in Zurich. His work Die Dampfturbinen und ihre Aussichten als Wärmekraftmaschinen was published in Berlin in 1903, a further book Dampf und Gas-Turbinen was published in 1922. It was used in John Brown-engined merchant ships and warships, including liners, the present-day manufacturing industry for steam turbines is dominated by Chinese power equipment makers. Other manufacturers with minor market share include Bhel, Siemens, Alstom, GE, Doosan Škoda Power, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan projects that manufacturing of steam turbines will become more consolidated by 2020 as Chinese power manufacturers win increasing business outside of China. There are several classifications for modern steam turbines, Turbine blades are of two basic types, blades and nozzles. Blades move entirely due to the impact of steam on them and this results in a steam velocity drop and essentially no pressure drop as steam moves through the blades. A turbine composed of alternating with fixed nozzles is called an impulse turbine, Curtis turbine, Rateau turbine
2.
5"/38 caliber gun
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The Mark 12 5/38 caliber gun was a US naval gun. The gun was installed into Single Purpose and Dual Purpose mounts used primarily by the US Navy, the 38 caliber barrel was a mid-length compromise between the previous United States standard 5/51 low-angle gun and 5/25 anti-aircraft gun. The increased barrel length provided greatly improved performance in both anti-aircraft and anti-surface roles compared to the 5/25 gun, however, except for the barrel length and the use of semi-fixed ammunition, the 5/38 gun was derived from the 5/25 gun. Both weapons had power ramming, which enabled rapid fire at high angles against aircraft, the 5/38 entered service on USS Farragut, commissioned in 1934. The base ring mount, which improved the rate of fire, entered service on USS Gridley. Even this advanced system required nearly 100 rounds of ammunition expenditure per aircraft kill, however, the planes were normally killed by shell fragments and not direct hits, barrage fire was used, with many guns firing in the air at the same time. Base ring mounts with integral hoists had a rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute per barrel, however. On pedestal and other mounts lacking integral hoists,12 to 15 rounds per minute was the rate of fire, useful life expectancy was 4600 effective full charges per barrel. The 5/38 cal gun was mounted on a large number of US Navy ships in the World War II era. It was backfitted to many of the World War I-era battleships during their wartime refits and it has left active US Navy service, but it is still on mothballed ships of the United States Navy reserve fleets. It is also used by a number of nations who bought or were given US Navy surplus ships, each mount carries one or two Mk 12 5/38cal Gun Assemblies. The gun assembly shown is used in single mounts, and it is the gun in twin mounts. It is loaded from the left side, the left gun in twin mounts is the mirror image of the right gun, and it is loaded from the right side. The Mk12 gun assembly weighs 3,990 lb, the major Mk12 Gun Assembly characteristics are,158 Semi-automatic During recoil, some of the recoil energy is stored in the counter-recoil system. That stored energy is used during counter-recoil to prepare the gun for the next round, the firing pin is cocked, the breech is opened, the spent powder case is ejected, and the bore is air cleaned. Hand loaded A Projectile-Man and a Powder-Man are stationed at each gun assembly and their job is to move the round, consisting of a projectile and a powder case, from the hoists to the rammer tray, and then start the ram cycle. The hydraulically driven Rammer Spade, called the Power Spade in that picture, is at the back of the Rammer Tray, if the multiple names of the Spade is confusing, look at this footnote. Vertical sliding-wedge breech block The breech block closes the chamber behind the powder case and it also holds the firing pin assembly
3.
3"/50 caliber gun
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For Army 3-inch gun see 3-inch M1918 gun The 3″/50 caliber gun in United States naval gun terminology indicates the gun fired a projectile 3 inches in diameter, and the barrel was 50 calibers long. Different guns of this caliber were used by the U. S. Navy and U. S. Coast Guard from 1890 through the 1990s on a variety of combatant and transport ship classes. The US Navys first 3″/50 caliber gun was a model with a projectile velocity of 2,100 feet per second. Low-angle mountings for this gun had a range of 7000 yards at the elevation of 15 degrees. The gun entered service around 1900 with the Bainbridge-class destroyers, and was fitted to Connecticut-class battleships. By World War II these guns were only on a few Coast Guard cutters. These guns fired the same 2,700 feet per second used by the following dual-purpose Marks. These were built-up guns with a tube, partial-length jacket, hoop, dual-purpose 3″/50 caliber guns first entered service in 1915 as a refit to USS Texas, and were subsequently mounted on many types of ships as the need for anti-aircraft protection was recognized. They also replaced the original low-angle 4/50 caliber guns on flush-deck Wickes and these dual-purpose guns were quick-firing, meaning that they used fixed ammunition, with powder case and projectile permanently attached, and handled as a single unit weighing 34 pounds. Maximum range was 14,600 yards at 45 degrees elevation, useful life expectancy was 4300 effective full charges per barrel. The 3/50 caliber gun Marks 17 and 18 was first used as a deck gun on R-class submarines launched in 1918-1919. At the time it was an improvement on the earlier 3/23 caliber gun, after using larger guns on many other submarines, the 3/50 caliber gun Mark 21 was specified as the standard deck gun on the Porpoise- through Gato-class submarines launched in 1935-1942. The small gun was chosen to remove the temptation to engage enemy vessels on the surface. The gun was mounted aft of the conning tower to reduce submerged drag. Wartime experience showed that larger guns were needed and this need was initially met by transferring 4/50 caliber guns from S-class submarines as they were shifted from combat to training roles from late 1942. Later, the 5/25 caliber gun, initially removed from battleships sunk or damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor and later manufactured in a submarine version, post-war experimentation with an extended range variant was abandoned as shipboard surface-to-air missiles were developed. The United States Navy considered contemporary 5/38 caliber guns and 5″/54 caliber guns more effective against surface targets, the 3″/50 caliber gun was a semiautomatic anti-aircraft weapon with a power driven automatic loader. These monobloc 3″ guns were fitted to both single and twin mountings, the single was to be exchanged for a twin 40 mm antiaircraft gun mount and the twin for a quadruple 40 mm mount
4.
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
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The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German 20 mm Becker design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models employed by both Allied and Axis forces during World War II, and many still in use today. During World War I, the German Reinhold Becker developed a 20 mm caliber cannon and this used a 20x70 RB cartridge and had a cyclic rate of fire of 300 rpm. It was used on a scale as an aircraft gun on Luftstreitkräfte warplanes. Because the Treaty of Versailles banned further production of weapons in Germany. SEMAG continued development of the weapon, and in 1924 had produced the SEMAG L, the Oerlikon firm, named after the Zürich suburb where it was based, then acquired all rights to the weapon, plus the manufacturing equipment and the employees of SEMAG. In 1927 the Oerlikon S was added to the product line. This fired a larger cartridge to achieve a muzzle velocity of 830 m/s, at the cost of increased weight. The purpose of development was to improve the performance of the gun as an anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapon. An improved version known as the 1S followed in 1930, three sizes of gun with their different ammunition and barrel length, but very similar mechanisms, continued to be developed in parallel. In 1930 Oerlikon reconsidered the application of its gun in aircraft and introduced the AF and AL, designed to be used in flexible mounts, the 15-round box magazine used by earlier versions of the gun was replaced by drum magazine holding 15 or 30 rounds. In 1935 it made an important step by introducing a series of guns designed to be mounted in or on the wings of fighter aircraft, designated with FF for Flügelfest meaning wing-mounted, these weapons were again available in the three sizes, with designations FF, FFL and FFS. The FF fired a larger cartridge than the AF, 20x72RB. The FF weighed 24 kg and achieved a velocity of 550 to 600 m/s with a rate of fire of 520 rpm. The FFL of 30 kg fired a projectile at a velocity of 675 m/s with a rate of fire of 500 rpm. And the FFS, which weighed 39 kg, delivered a high velocity of 830 m/s at a rate of fire of 470 rpm. Apart from changes to the design of the guns for wing-mounting and remote control, for the FF series drum sizes of 45,60,75 and 100 rounds were available, but most users chose the 60-round drum. The 1930s were a period of global re-armament, and a number of foreign firms took licenses for the Oerlikon family of aircraft cannon
5.
Victory ship
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The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines. A total of 531 Victory ships were built, one of the first acts of the United States War Shipping Administration upon its formation in February 1942 was to commission the design of what came to be known as the Victory class. The design was an enhancement of the Liberty ship, which had successfully produced in extraordinary numbers. Victory ships were larger than Liberty ships,14 feet longer at 455 feet,6 feet wider at 62 ft. Displacement was up just under 1,000 tons, to 15,200, with a raised forecastle and a more sophisticated hull shape to help achieve the higher speed, they had a quite different appearance from Liberty ships. To make them vulnerable to U-boat attacks, Victory ships made 15 to 17 knots,4 to 6 knots faster than the Libertys. The extra speed was achieved through more modern, efficient engines, most used steam turbines, which had been in short supply earlier in the war and reserved for warships. All were oil-fired, but for a handful of Canadian vessels completed with both coal bunkers and oil tanks, another improvement was electrically powered auxiliary equipment, rather than steam-driven machinery. To prevent the hull fractures that a few Liberty ships developed and these were manned by United States Navy Armed Guard personnel. The VC2-S-AP5 Haskell-class attack transports were armed with the 5-inch stern gun, one quad 40 mm Bofors cannon, four dual 40 mm Bofors cannon, the Haskells were operated and crewed exclusively by U. S. Navy personnel. The Victory ship was noted for good proportion of cubic between holds for a ship of its day. A Victory ships cargo hold one, two and five hatches are a single rigged with a capacity of 70,400,76,700, and 69,500 bale cubic feet respectively. Victory ships hold three and four hatches are double rigged with a capacity of 136,100 and 100,300 bale cubic feet respectively. Victory ship have built in mast, booms and derrick cranes, the first vessel was SS United Victory launched at Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation on 12 January 1944 and completed on 28 February 1944, making her maiden voyage a month later. American vessels frequently had a name incorporating the word Victory, the British and Canadians used Fort and Park respectively. Although initial deliveries were slow—only 15 had been delivered by May 1944—by the end of the war 531 had been constructed, because the Atlantic battle had been won by the time that the first of the Victory ships appeared none were sunk by U-boats. Three were sunk by Japanese kamikaze attack in April of 1945, many Victory ships were converted to troopship to bring US soldiers home at the end of World War II as part of Operation Magic Carpet. A total of 97 Victory ships were converted to carry up to 1,600 soldiers
6.
Liberty ship
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The Liberty ship was a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, the design was adapted by the United States for its simple, mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the now iconic Liberty ship came to symbolize U. S. wartime industrial output. The class was developed to meet British orders for transports to replace those torpedoed by German U-boats, the vessels were purchased both for the U. S. fleet and lend-lease deliveries of war materiel to Britain and the Soviet Union. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design and their production mirrored on a much larger scale the manufacture of the Hog Islander and similar standardized ship types during World War I. Only three Liberty Ships are preserved, two as operational museum ships. S, the number was doubled in 1939 and again in 1940 to 200 ships a year. Ship types included two tankers and three types of merchant vessel, all to be powered by steam turbines, limited industrial capacity, especially for reduction gears, meant that relatively few of these ships were built. In 1940 the British government ordered 60 Ocean-class freighters from American yards to replace war losses and these were simple but fairly large with a single 2,500 horsepower compound steam engine of obsolete but reliable design. Britain specified coal-fired plants, because it then had extensive coal mines, the order specified an 18-inch increase in draft to boost displacement by 800 long tons to 10,100 long tons. The accommodation, bridge, and main engine were located amidships, the first Ocean-class ship, SS Ocean Vanguard, was launched on 16 August 1941. The design was modified by the United States Maritime Commission, in part to increase conformity to American construction practices, but more importantly to make it even quicker and cheaper to build. The US version was designated EC2-S-C1, EC for Emergency Cargo,2 for a ship between 400 and 450 feet long, S for steam engines, and C1 for design C1. The new design replaced much riveting, which accounted for one-third of the costs, with welding. It was adopted as a Merchant Marine Act design, and production awarded to a conglomerate of West Coast engineering and construction companies headed by Henry J. Kaiser known as the Six Companies. Liberty ships were designed to carry 10,000 long tons of cargo, usually one type per ship, but, during wartime, generally carried loads far exceeding this. On 27 March 1941, the number of ships was increased to 200 by the Defense Aid Supplemental Appropriations Act and increased again in April to 306. By 1941, the turbine was the preferred marine steam engine because of its greater efficiency compared to earlier reciprocating compound steam engines. Eighteen different companies built the engine. It had the advantage of ruggedness and simplicity
7.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
8.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
9.
Suisun Bay
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Suisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary in northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, forming the entrance to the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, Suisun Marsh, the tidal marsh land to the north, is the largest marsh in California. Grizzly Bay forms an extension of Suisun Bay. The bay is directly north of Contra Costa County, the bay was named in 1811, after the Suisunes, a Native American tribe of the area. The word originates with the Patwin, on the west, Suisun Bay is drained by the Carquinez Strait, which connects to San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of San Francisco Bay. In addition to the bridges at the Carquinez Strait, it is spanned in its center by the Benicia-Martinez Bridge. It is the anchorage of the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, a collection of U. S. Navy and merchant reserve ships, the Glomar Explorer was anchored here after recovering a sunken Soviet submarine in the mid-1970s. Many ships were removed and sold for scrap in the 1990s, in 2010, plans were announced to remove the mothball fleet in stages, with final removal by 2017. The Central Pacific Railroad built a ferry that operated between Benicia and Port Costa, California from 1879 to 1930. The ferry boats Solano and Contra Costa were removed from service when the nearby Martinez railroad bridge was completed in 1930, from 1913 until 1954 the Sacramento Northern Railway, an electrified interurban line, crossed Suisun Bay with the Ramon, a distillate-powered train ferry. Kinder Morgan pleaded guilty to operating a corroded pipeline and paid three dollars in penalties and restitution. Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet Kinder Morgan Information Regarding Pipeline Release Suisun Bays ghost fleet may finally R. I. P
10.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
United States
