1.
United States Army
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President
2.
Arlington Hall
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Arlington Hall was a former girls school and the headquarters of the United States Armys Signal Intelligence Service cryptography effort during World War II. The site presently houses the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, and it is located on Arlington Boulevard between S. Glebe Road and S. George Mason Drive in Arlington, Virginia. The school suffered financial problems in the 1930s, and eventually became an institution in 1940. On June 10,1942, the U. S. Army took possession of the facility under the War Powers Act for use by its Signals Intelligence Service. During the War, Arlington Hall was in many similar to Bletchley Park in England. Arlington Hall concentrated its efforts on the Japanese systems while Bletchley Park concentrated on European combatants, after World War II, the Russian Section at Arlington Hall expanded. Chew had considerable success at defining the structure of the coded Russian texts. Gardner and his colleagues began analytically reconstructing the KGB codebooks, late in 1946, Gardner broke the codebooks spell table for encoding English letters. With the solution of this table, SIS could read significant portions of messages that included English names and phrases. Gardner soon found himself reading a 1944 message listing prominent atomic scientists, efforts to decipher Soviet codes continued under the classified and caveated Venona project. Another problem soon arose—that of determining how and to whom to disseminate the extraordinary information Gardner was developing, sISs reporting procedures did not seem appropriate because the decrypted messages could not even be paraphrased for Arlington Halls regular intelligence customers without divulging their source. In late August or early September 1947, the FBI was informed that the Army Security Agency had begun to break into Soviet espionage messages, by 1945, the Soviets had penetrated Arlington Hall with the placement of Bill Weisband who worked there for several years. The Governments knowledge of his treason apparently was not revealed until its publication in a 1990 book co-authored by a high-level KGB defector, Arlington Hall came under the aegis of the National Security Agency after this agency was created in 1952. When the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command was commissioned at Arlington Hall on January 1,1977, INSCOM remained at Arlington Hall until the summer of 1989, when INSCOM relocated to Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Beginning in January 1963, Arlington Hall served as the facility of the newly created Defense Intelligence Agency. In 1984, DIA departed Arlington Hall for their new headquarters on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, in 1989, the Department of Defense transferred the eastern portion of Arlington Hall to the Department of State. C. The National Foreign Affairs Training Center was renamed as the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in a ceremony held on May 29,2002, in January 2008, construction workers discovered an unexploded Civil War-era Parrott rifle shell underneath Arlington Hall. The shell had a length of one foot and a diameter of five inches, US Army explosive ordnance disposal technicians from Fort Belvoir were brought in to dispose of the munition
3.
Potomac River
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The Potomac River /pəˈtoʊmək/ is located along the mid-Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States and flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river is approximately 405 miles long, with an area of about 14,700 square miles. In terms of area, this makes the Potomac River the fourth largest river along the Atlantic coast of the United States, over 5 million people live within the Potomac watershed. The river forms part of the borders between Maryland and Washington, D. C. on the left descending bank and West Virginia and Virginia on the right descending bank. The majority of the lower Potomac River is part of the State of Maryland, exceptions include a small tidal portion within the District of Columbia, and the border with Virginia being delineated from point to point. Except for a portion of its headwaters in West Virginia. The South Branch Potomac River lies completely within the state of West Virginia except for its headwaters, the Potomac River runs 405 miles from the Fairfax Stone in West Virginia on the Allegheny Plateau to Point Lookout, Maryland, and drains 14,679 square miles. The length of the river from the junction of its North and South Branches to Point Lookout is 302 miles, the average flow is 10,800 ft³/s. The largest flow recorded on the Potomac at Washington, D. C. was in March 1936 when it reached 425,000 ft³/s. The lowest flow recorded at the same location was 600 ft³/s in September,1966. The source of the North Branch is at the Fairfax Stone located at the junction of Grant, Tucker, the source of the South Branch is located near Hightown in northern Highland County, Virginia. The rivers two branches converge just east of Green Spring in Hampshire County, West Virginia, to form the Potomac. Once the Potomac drops from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain at Little Falls, tides further influence the river as it passes through Washington, D. C. salinity in the Potomac River Estuary increases thereafter with distance downstream. The estuary also widens, reaching 11 statute miles wide at its mouth, Potomac is a European spelling of Patowmeck, the Algonquian name of a Native American village, perhaps meaning something brought. Native Americans had different names for different parts of the river, calling the river above Great Falls Cohongarooton, meaning honking geese and Patawomke below the fall, meaning river of swans. The spelling of the name has many forms over the years from Patawomeke to Patawomeck, Patowmack. The rivers name was decided upon as Potomac by the Board on Geographic Names in 1931. The river itself is at least two years old, likely extending back ten to twenty million years before present when the Atlantic Ocean lowered and exposed coastal sediments along the fall line
4.
Signal Corps (United States Army)
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The United States Army Signal Corps develops, tests, provides, and manages communications and information systems support for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of United States Army Major Albert J. Myer, support for the command and control of combined arms forces. Signal support includes Network Operations and management of the electromagnetic spectrum, while serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856, Albert James Myer proposed that the Army use his visual communications system, called aerial telegraphy. When the Army adopted his system on 21 June 1860, the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first, Major Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the early 1860s Navajo expedition. For nearly three years, Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel, although he envisioned a separate, myers vision came true on 3 March 1863, when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war. Some 2,900 officers and enlisted men served, although not at any single time, even in the Civil War, the wigwag system, restricted to line-of-sight communications, was waning in the face of the electric telegraph. Initially, Myer used his office downtown in Washington, D. C. to house the Signal Corps School, when it was found to need additional space, he sought out other locations. First came Fort Greble, one of the Defenses of Washington during the Civil War, the size and location were outstanding. The school remained there for over 20 years and ultimately was renamed Fort Myer, Signal Corps detachments participated in campaigns fighting Native Americans in the west, such as the Powder River Expedition of 1865. The electric telegraph, in addition to signaling, became a Signal Corps responsibility in 1867. Within 12 years, the Corps had constructed, and was maintaining and operating, in 1870, the Signal Corps established a congressionally mandated national weather service. Within a decade, with the assistance of Lieutenant Adolphus Greely, Myer died in 1880, having attained the rank of brigadier general and the title of Chief Signal Officer. The weather bureau became part of the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1891, the Signal Corps role in the Spanish–American War of 1898 and the subsequent Philippine Insurrection was on a grander scale than it had been in the Civil War. In 1908, on Fort Myer, Virginia, the Wright brothers made test flights of the Armys first airplane built to Signal Corps specifications, reflecting the need for an official pilot rating, War Department Bulletin No. 2, released on 24 February 1911, established a Military Aviator rating, Army aviation remained within the Signal Corps until 1918, when it became the Army Air Service. The Signal Corps lost no time in meeting the challenges of World War I, Chief Signal Officer George Owen Squier worked closely with private industry to perfect radio tubes while creating a major signal laboratory at Camp Alfred Vail. Early radiotelephones developed by the Signal Corps were introduced into the European theater in 1918, while the new American voice radios were superior to the radiotelegraph sets, telephone and telegraph remained the major technology of World War I. A pioneer in radar, Colonel William Blair, director of the Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth, even before the United States entered World War II, mass production of two radar sets, the SCR-268 and the SCR-270, had begun
5.
National Security Agency
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NSA is concurrently charged with protection of U. S. government communications and information systems against penetration and network warfare. Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in a number of countries across the globe. SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering, additionally, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service. Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, NSA surveillance has been a matter of political controversy on several occasions, such as its spying on anti-Vietnam-war leaders or economic espionage. In 2013, the extent of some of the NSAs secret surveillance programs was revealed to the public by Edward Snowden, internationally, research has pointed to the NSAs ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries through boomerang routing. The origins of the National Security Agency can be traced back to April 28,1917, a code and cipher decryption unit was established as the Cable and Telegraph Section which was also known as the Cipher Bureau. It was headquartered in Washington, D. C. and was part of the war effort under the executive branch without direct Congressional authorization, during the course of the war it was relocated in the armys organizational chart several times. On July 5,1917, Herbert O. Yardley was assigned to head the unit, at that point, the unit consisted of Yardley and two civilian clerks. It absorbed the navys cryptoanalysis functions in July 1918, World War I ended on November 11,1918, and MI-8 moved to New York City on May 20,1919, where it continued intelligence activities as the Code Compilation Company under the direction of Yardley. MI-8 also operated the so-called Black Chamber, the Black Chamber was located on East 37th Street in Manhattan. Its purpose was to crack the codes of foreign governments. Other Black Chambers were also found in Europe, during World War II, the Signal Security Agency was created to intercept and decipher the communications of the Axis powers. When the war ended, the SSA was reorganized as the Army Security Agency, on May 20,1949, all cryptologic activities were centralized under a national organization called the Armed Forces Security Agency. This organization was established within the U. S. Department of Defense under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The AFSA was tasked to direct Department of Defense communications and electronic intelligence activities, in December 1951, President Harry S. Truman ordered a panel to investigate how AFSA had failed to achieve its goals. The results of the led to improvements and its redesignation as the National Security Agency. The agency was established by Truman in a memorandum of October 24,1952. Since President Trumans memo was a document, the existence of the NSA was not known to the public at that time
6.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
7.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
8.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
9.
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
10.
Manhattan Project
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The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom, from 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs, the Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District, Manhattan gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, the Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion. Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce material, with less than 10% for development. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, two types of atomic bombs were developed concurrently during the war, a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. Chemically identical to the most common isotope, uranium-238, and with almost the same mass, three methods were employed for uranium enrichment, electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. Most of this work was performed at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, in parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. The plutonium was then separated from the uranium. The Fat Man implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design, the project was also charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear weapon project. Through Operation Alsos, Manhattan Project personnel served in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they gathered nuclear materials and documents, despite the Manhattan Projects tight security, Soviet atomic spies still penetrated the program. The first nuclear device ever detonated was a bomb at the Trinity test, conducted at New Mexicos Alamogordo Bombing. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used a later in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947, there were fears that a German atomic bomb project would develop one first, especially among scientists who were refugees from Nazi Germany and other fascist countries. In August 1939, Hungarian-born physicists Leó Szilárd and Eugene Wigner drafted the Einstein–Szilárd letter and it urged the United States to take steps to acquire stockpiles of uranium ore and accelerate the research of Enrico Fermi and others into nuclear chain reactions. They had it signed by Albert Einstein and delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roosevelt called on Lyman Briggs of the National Bureau of Standards to head the Advisory Committee on Uranium to investigate the issues raised by the letter. Briggs held a meeting on 21 October 1939, which was attended by Szilárd, Wigner, the committee reported back to Roosevelt in November that uranium would provide a possible source of bombs with a destructiveness vastly greater than anything now known. The Advisory Committee on Uranium became the National Defense Research Committee Committee on Uranium when that organization was formed on 27 June 1940, Briggs proposed that the spend $167,000 on research into uranium, particularly the uranium-235 isotope, and the recently discovered plutonium
