Cochise County Cowboys
The Cochise County Cowboys were a loosely associated group of outlaw cowboys in Pima and Cochise County, Arizona Territory in the late 19th century. The term cowboy had only begun to come into wider usage during the 1870s, in the place and time, Cowboy was synonymous with rustler. Cattle thieves rode across the border into Mexico and stole cattle from Mexican ranches, which they drove back across the border and sold in the United States; some modern writers consider them to be one of the first and earliest forms of organized crime syndicates in American history. The Mexican government lowered tariffs and added forts along the border, cross-border rustling and smuggling became less attractive; the Cowboys began to steal cattle and horses from neighboring American ranches, reselling them to unscrupulous butchers. They held up stagecoaches, stole the strongboxes, strong-armed passengers for their valuables. In some instances, they killed passengers. Tombstone, was one of the last frontier towns in the American Old West.
Outlaws from all parts of the Western territories felt the pressures of encroaching civilization and the increased presence of lawmen and the courts, backed by growing populations of farmers and citizens desiring law and order. The town had boomed in less than 18 months from about 100 miners living in tents and shacks to more than 7,000 people by December 1, 1879, when Virgil and Morgan Earp arrived in Tombstone. Virgil Earp had been appointed Deputy U. S. Marshal for eastern Pima County in Prescott and directed to relocate to Tombstone to concentrate on suppressing the Cowboys' illegal activities, he arrived with Morgan. He appointed Morgan as an undersheriff, Wyatt looked for business opportunities; when those didn't work out, Wyatt Earp started riding shotgun for Wells, Fargo & Co. guarding their silver bullion shipments. He was appointed as an assistant Pima County sheriff for a period, Virgil Earp was hired as Tombstone's city marshal in the middle of 1881; the word cowboy did not begin to come into wider usage until the 1870s.
The men who drove cattle for a living were called cowhands, drovers, or stockmen. While cowhands were still respected in West Texas, in Cochise County the outlaws' crimes and their notoriety grew such that during the 1880s it was an insult to call a legitimate cattleman a "Cowboy." Tombstone resident George Parsons wrote in his diary, "A cowboy is a rustler at times, a rustler is a synonym for desperado—bandit and horse thief." The San Francisco Examiner wrote in an editorial, "Cowboys the most reckless class of outlaws in that wild country... infinitely worse than the ordinary robber." Legal cowmen were landowners and called herders or ranchers. The term cow-boy, once applied to all those in the cattle business indiscriminately, while still including some honest persons, has been narrowed down to be chiefly a term of reproach for a class of stealers of cattle, over the Mexican frontier, elsewhere, who are a terror in their day and generation. There were said to be strongholds in the San Simon Valley where the bandits concealed stolen cattle until they were rebranded and sent to market, where no officer of the law dared to venture.
They looked upon rustling cattle from Mexico only as a more dashing form of smuggling, though it was marked by frequent bloody conflicts on both sides. On September 16, 1881, thirty days before the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral, The Tombstone Epitaph wrote about the "Cow-boy Nuisance" in Arizona: It has come to pass in this county that life and personal property are unsafe. There is not a teamster to-day, not in fear and dread of the cow-boys, or so-styled "rustlers" depriving him of his hard earnings... How must such men feel to be robbed by a hand of thieves and cutthroats, who take pride in announcing to the public that they are "rustlers!" Where is the teamsters protection? Can you find any officers who will follow and recover your property? If you can, I would like to see him... These chaps seem to have no difficulty in evading the law, while others, not inclined to work, daily join the band and they are increasing fast in numbers. Our town is filled with spies watching every move of the officers and imparting their information to their comrades...
Men who come to examine different mines outside of town, when they learn how the cow-boys stand fellows up, do not wish to run such risks. The notoriety and power of the Cowboys spread from coast to coast. Well-known members of the group included Ike and Phineas Clanton and Tom McLaury, Curly Bill Brocius, Billy Claiborne, Johnny Ringo, Frank Stilwell, Pony Diehl, Pete Spence, Harry Head. Virgil Earp thought that some of the Cowboys had met at Charleston and taken "an oath over blood drawn from the arm of Ringo, the leader, that they would kill us." Three Cowboys were killed by lawmen in the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral on October 26, 1881. Others were accused of trying to kill Virgil Earp and of assassinating Morgan Earp. Wyatt Earp's posse killed four more Cowboys when they ran down those identified as taking part in the attacks on his brothers. Virgil Earp told the Arizona Daily Star on May 30, 1882, that: They know that Arizona is about the only place left for them to operate in as an organization.
With a complete breaking up of their company threatened in event of losing their hold where they are now, they resist official interference with the greatest desperation. He estimated that the Cowboys numbered nearly 200, that during his time in Cochise Territory about 50 had been killed. A modern estimate pu
Little Colorado River
The Little Colorado River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U. S. state of Arizona, providing the principal drainage from the Painted Desert region. Together with its major tributary, the Puerco River, it drains an area of about 26,500 square miles in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Although it stretches 340 miles, only the headwaters and the lowermost reaches flow year-round. Between St. Johns and Cameron, most of the river is a wide, braided wash, only containing water after heavy snowmelt or flash flooding; the lower 57.2 miles is known as the Little Colorado River Gorge and forms one of the largest arms of the Grand Canyon, at over 3,000 feet deep where it joins the Colorado near Desert View in Grand Canyon National Park. The river rises in Apache County; the West Fork starts in a valley on the north flank of Mount Baldy at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet, while the East Fork starts nearby. The forks meet in a canyon near the town of Greer, it flows into River Reservoir leaves the canyon near Eagar.
The river turns north, meandering through Richville Valley, before emptying into Lyman Lake, impounded by an irrigation dam built in 1912. From there the river continues north, past the town of St. Johns. Shortly afterwards, the river transforms from a perennial stream to an ephemeral wash as it travels northwestwards through Hunt Valley, where it receives the Zuni River receiving Silver Creek and the Puerco River—its main tributaries—near the town of Holbrook as it flows into the Painted Desert; the Little Colorado passes Joseph City and crosses the Southern Transcon route of the BNSF Railway, now winding north into Coconino County. The river enters the Navajo Nation, drops over the 185-foot Grand Falls of the Little Colorado shortly after. Below Grand Falls, the river flows through a rugged canyon for about 15 miles. Emerging into the desert again, the Little Colorado skirts the eastern edge of Wupatki National Monument and passes the town of Cameron, where it is bridged by U. S. Highway 89.
From Cameron, the Little Colorado River carves an steep and narrow gorge into the Colorado Plateau achieving a maximum depth of about 3,200 feet. The depth of the canyon is such that groundwater is forced to the surface, forming numerous springs that restore a perennial river flow, it joins the Colorado deep inside miles from any major settlement. The confluence marks the end of the Marble Canyon segment of the Grand Canyon and the beginning of Upper Granite Gorge; the Little Colorado River is one of the two major tributaries of the Colorado River in Arizona, the other being the Gila River. Runoff peaks twice a year, first in the early spring from snow melt and highland rain; the annual runoff is variable with the possibility of no flow occurring due to a weak snow pack or lack of summer rain. Conversely, years such as 1949, 1973, 1979, 1983 and 1993 have seen massive volumes of spring snowmelt while large monsoon runoff has occurred in 1955, 1964, 1984 and 2006. Monthly average flows in the springtime average several hundred cfs and can reach 2,000 to 3,000 cubic feet per second.
Only the upper reaches of the river above St. Johns, the lowermost stretch below Cameron, flow year round. According to a streamflow gauge near Cameron, before the river enters the Grand Canyon, the river's average annual flow was 367.2 cubic feet per second from 1948 to present. The highest annual average was 1,127 cubic feet per second in 1973, the lowest was 14.1 cubic feet per second in 2000. The river's peak flows can be far higher than its average flow, because of quick desert runoff from cloudbursts. At the same gauge, peak flows were recorded from 1923 to 2008, with spotty data from 1924 to 1947; the highest recorded peak was 120,000 cubic feet per second on September 20, 1923, while the lowest was 1,590 cubic feet per second in 1974. Human activity in the Little Colorado River watershed dates back to the early Holocene epoch, in the last glacial period. Nomadic hunter-gatherers inhabited the water-rich and diverse upper basin of the Little Colorado for 8,000 years before the Navajo and Hopi tribes populated the area.
Many of these people practiced small-scale irrigation in riverside villages, located in sheltered canyons and cliffs that provided defense. Early Spanish explorers exploring the Grand Canyon area were most the first Europeans to see the Little Colorado River, they called it the Little Colorado. Other than fur trappers and mountain men, one of the first organized expeditions into the area of the Little Colorado River was led by Amiel Weeks Whipple in 1853–54 during one of the expeditions to map out a route for a transcontinental railroad. Called The Great Railroad Expeditions, or Pacific Railroad Surveys, Whipple's expedition consisted of several teams going along the 35th parallel from Albuquerque to the Pacific, following the Santa Fe Trail route; the Little Colorado River known as the Flax River, the first Rio Chiquito, is depicted and labelled as such on a map compiled by Lt. Joseph C. Ives and published in the official volumes of those expeditions. Ives would again return to the area in 1858 after navigating a steamboat named the Explorer up the Colorado from south of Yuma northwards to Black Canyon, at which point his party went
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most identify, indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic or Latino origin. The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be and, "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country." OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference." The race categories include both national-origin groups. Race and ethnicity are considered separate and distinct identities, with Hispanic or Latino origin asked as a separate question. Thus, in addition to their race or races, all respondents are categorized by membership in one of two ethnic categories, which are "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino".
However, the practice of separating "race" and "ethnicity" as different categories has been criticized both by the American Anthropological Association and members of US Commission on Civil Rights. In 1997, OMB issued a Federal Register notice regarding revisions to the standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity. OMB developed race and ethnic standards in order to provide "consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the Federal Government; the development of the data standards stem in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws." Among the changes, OMB issued the instruction to "mark one or more races" after noting evidence of increasing numbers of interracial children and wanting to capture the diversity in a measurable way and having received requests by people who wanted to be able to acknowledge their or their children's full ancestry rather than identifying with only one group. Prior to this decision, the Census and other government data collections asked people to report only one race.
The OMB states, "many federal programs are put into effect based on the race data obtained from the decennial census. Race data are critical for the basic research behind many policy decisions. States require these data to meet legislative redistricting requirements; the data are needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act by local jurisdictions". "Data on ethnic groups are important for putting into effect a number of federal statutes. Data on Ethnic Groups are needed by local governments to run programs and meet legislative requirements." The 1790 United States Census was the first census in the history of the United States. The population of the United States was recorded as 3,929,214 as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and applicable laws."The law required that every household be visited, that completed census schedules be posted in'two of the most public places within, there to remain for the inspection of all concerned...' and that'the aggregate amount of each description of persons' for every district be transmitted to the president."
This law along with U. S. marshals were responsible for governing the census. One third of the original census data has been lost or destroyed since documentation; the data was lost in 1790–1830 time period and included data from: Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia. Census data included the name of the head of the family and categorized inhabitants as follows: free white males at least 16 years of age, free white males under 16 years of age, free white females, all other free persons, slaves. Thomas Jefferson the Secretary of State, directed marshals to collect data from all thirteen states, from the Southwest Territory; the census was not conducted in Vermont until 1791, after that state's admission to the Union as the 14th state on March 4 of that year. There was some doubt surrounding the numbers, President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson maintained the population was undercounted; the potential reasons Washington and Jefferson may have thought this could be refusal to participate, poor public transportation and roads, spread out population, restraints of current technology.
No microdata from the 1790 population census is available, but aggregate data for small areas and their compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. In 1800 and 1810, the age question regarding free white males was more detailed; the 1820
1910 United States Census
The Thirteenth United States Census, conducted by the Census Bureau on April 15, 1910, determined the resident population of the United States to be 92,228,496, an increase of 21.0 percent over the 76,212,168 persons enumerated during the 1900 Census. The 1910 Census switched from a portrait page orientation to a landscape orientation; the 1910 census collected the following information: Full documentation for the 1910 census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The column titles in the census form are as follows: LOCATION. Street, road, etc. House number. 1. Number of dwelling house in order of visitation. 2. Number of family in order of visitation. 3. NAME of each person whose place of abode on April 15, 1910, was in this family. Enter surname first the given name and middle initial, if any. Include every person living on April 15, 1910. Omit children born since April 15, 1910. RELATION. 4. Relationship of this person to the head of the family.
PERSONAL DESCRIPTION. 5. Sex. 6. Color or race. 7. Age at last birthday. 8. Whether single, widowed, or divorced. 9. Number of years of present marriage. 10. Mother of how many children: Number born. 11. Mother of how many children: Number now living. NATIVITY. Place of birth of each person and parents of each person enumerated. If born in the United States, give the state or territory. If of foreign birth, give the country. 12. Place of birth of this Person. 13. Place of birth of Father of this person. 14. Place of birth of Mother of this person. CITIZENSHIP. 15. Year of immigration to the United States. 16. Whether naturalized or alien. 17. Whether able to speak English. OCCUPATION. 18. Trade or profession of, or particular kind of work done by this person, as spinner, laborer, etc. 19. General nature of industry, business, or establishment in which this person works, as cotton mill, dry goods store, etc. 20. Whether as employer, employee, or work on own account. If an employee— 21. Whether out of work on April 15, 1910.
22. Number of weeks out of work during year 1909. EDUCATION. 23. Whether able to read. 24. Whether able to write. 25. Attended school any time since September 1, 1909. OWNERSHIP OF HOME. 26. Owned or rented. 27. Owned free or mortgaged. 28. Farm or house. 29. Number of farm schedule. 30. Whether a survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy. 31. Whether blind. 32. Whether deaf and dumb. Special Notation In 1912 and 1959, New Mexico, Arizona and Hawaii would become the 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th states admitted to the Union; the 1910 population count for each of these areas was 327,301, 204,354, 64,356 and 191,909 respectively. On this basis, the ranking list above would be modified as follows: First 42 ranked states - positions unchanged New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii, Wyoming and Alaska; the original census enumeration sheets were microfilmed by the Census Bureau in the 1940s. The microfilmed census is available in rolls from the National Records Administration. Several organizations host images of the microfilmed census online, along which digital indices.
Microdata from the 1910 census are available through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Aggregate data for small areas, together with electronic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. 1911 U. S Census Report Contains 1910 Census results Historic US Census data census.gov/population/www/censusdata/PopulationofStatesandCountiesoftheUnitedStates1790-1990.pdf
Per capita income
Per capita income or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita income is national income divided by population size. Per capita income is used to measure an area's average income and compare the wealth of different populations. Per capita income is used to measure a country's standard of living, it is expressed in terms of a used international currency such as the euro or United States dollar, is useful because it is known, is calculable from available gross domestic product and population estimates, produces a useful statistic for comparison of wealth between sovereign territories. This helps to ascertain a country's development status, it is one of the three measures for calculating the Human Development Index of a country. In the United States, it is defined by the U. S. Census Bureau as the following: "Per capita income is the mean money income received in the past 12 months computed for every man and child in a geographic area."
Critics claim that per capita income has several weaknesses in measuring prosperity: Comparisons of per capita income over time need to consider inflation. Without adjusting for inflation, figures tend to overstate the effects of economic growth. International comparisons can be distorted by cost of living differences not reflected in exchange rates. Where the objective is to compare living standards between countries, adjusting for differences in purchasing power parity will more reflect what people are able to buy with their money, it does not reflect income distribution. If a country's income distribution is skewed, a small wealthy class can increase per capita income while the majority of the population has no change in income. In this respect, median income is more useful when measuring of prosperity than per capita income, as it is less influenced by outliers. Non-monetary activity, such as barter or services provided within the family, is not counted; the importance of these services varies among economies.
Per capita income does not consider whether income is invested in factors to improve the area's development, such as health, education, or infrastructure. List of countries by average wage List of countries by GDP per capita—GDP at market or government official exchange rates per inhabitant List of countries by GDP per capita—GDP calculated at purchasing power parity exchange per inhabitant List of countries by GNI per capita List of countries by GNI per capita List of countries by income equality Total personal income
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
The Gunfight at the O. K. Corral was a 30-second shootout between lawmen and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It is regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West; the gunfight was the result of a long-simmering feud, with Cowboys Billy Claiborne and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury on one side and town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policeman Morgan Earp, Special Policeman Wyatt Earp, temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side. Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were killed. Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, Wes Fuller ran from the fight. Virgil and Doc Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt Earp was unharmed. Wyatt is erroneously regarded as the central figure in the shootout, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone city marshal and deputy U. S. marshal that day and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable and soldier in combat.
The shootout has come to represent a period of the American Old West when the frontier was an open range for outlaws unopposed by law enforcement officers who were spread thin over vast territories. It was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the well-received biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal two years after Earp's death; the book was the basis for the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford, the 1957 film Gunfight at the O. K. Corral, after which the shootout became known by that name. Since the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, has become an archetype for much of the popular imagery associated with the Old West. Despite its name, the gunfight did not take place within or next to the O. K. Corral, which fronted Allen Street and had a rear entrance lined with horse stalls on Fremont Street; the shootout took place in a narrow lot on the side of C. S. Fly's Photographic Studio on Fremont Street, six doors west of the O.
K. Corral's rear entrance; some members of the two opposing parties were only about 6 feet apart. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds. Ike Clanton subsequently filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday. After a 30-day preliminary hearing and a brief stint in jail, the lawmen were shown to have acted within the law; the gunfight was not the end of the conflict. On December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was maimed in a murder attempt by the Cowboys. On March 18, 1882, a Cowboy fired from a dark alley through the glass door of a Campbell & Hatch's saloon and billiard parlor, killing Morgan Earp; the suspects in both incidents furnished alibis were not indicted. Wyatt Earp, newly appointed as Deputy U. S. Marshal in Cochise County took matters into his own hands in a personal vendetta, he was pursued by county sheriff Johnny Behan, who had received a warrant from Tucson for Wyatt's shooting of Frank Stilwell. Tombstone, near the Mexican border, was founded in March 1879. After silver was discovered in the area, Tombstone grew into a frontier mining boomtown.
At its founding, it had a population of just 100, only two years in late 1881, the population was more than 7,000, making it the largest boomtown in the Southwest. Silver mining and its attendant wealth attracted many professionals and merchants, who brought their wives and families. With them came churches and ministers, they became the town's elite. By 1881 there were fancy restaurants, a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, an opera house, two banks, three newspapers, an ice cream parlor, along with 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, numerous brothels, all situated among a number of dirty, hardscrabble mines. Horse rustlers and bandits from the countryside came to town, shootings were frequent. In the 1880s, illegal smuggling and theft of cattle and tobacco across the Mexico–United States border, about 30 miles from Tombstone, were common; the Mexican government assessed heavy export taxes on these items, smugglers earned a handsome profit by stealing them in Mexico and selling them across the border.
James and Wyatt Earp arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879, when the small town was composed of tents as living quarters, a few saloons and other buildings, the mines. Virgil had been hired as Deputy U. S. Marshal for eastern Pima County, with his offices in Tombstone, only days before his arrival. In June 1881 he was appointed as Tombstone's town marshal. Though not universally liked by the townspeople, the Earps tended to protect the interests of the town's business owners and residents. In contrast, Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan was sympathetic to the interests of the rural ranchers and members of the loosely organized outlaw group called the Cochise County Cowboys, or the Cowboys. Many of the supporting facts about the events leading up to the gunfight and details of the gunfight itself are uncertain. Newspapers of the day were not above taking sides, news reporting editorialized on issues to reflect the publisher's interests. John Clum, publisher of The Tombstone Epitaph, had helped organize a "Committee of Safety" in Tombstone in late September 1881.
He was elected as the city's fi
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
