Grille (car)
In automotive engineering, a grille covers an opening in the body of a vehicle to allow air to enter. Most vehicles feature a grille at the front of the vehicle to protect the engine. Merriam-Webster describes grilles as "a grating forming a screen. Other common grille locations include below the front bumper, in front of the wheels, in the cowl for cabin ventilation, or on the rear deck lid; the front fascia of a motor vehicle has an important role in attracting buyers. The principal function of the grille is to admit cooling air to the car's radiator. However, the look of the vehicle "matters a great deal more than whether the design features serve any function." As one of the main visual components on the front of vehicles, "an inspired grille design makes a car attractive and shapes its identity by tying it to the carmaker's history and reputation."Currently, big grilles are cosmetic. The grille is a distinctive styling element, many marques use it as their primary brand identifier. For example, Jeep has trademarked its seven-bar grille style.
Rolls-Royce is known for arranging its grille bars by hand to ensure that they appear vertical. Other makers known for their grille styling include Bugatti's horse-collar, BMW's split kidney, Rover's chrome "teeth", Mitsubishi's forward swept, fighter aircraft-style grilles for their cars 2008 Lancer and Lancer Evo X, Dodge's cross bar, Alfa Romeo's six-bar shield, Volvo's slash bar, Nissan's trapezoid shaped chrome surround, Mazda's rotary engine shape, Audi's new, so-called single-frame grille, Pontiac's split horizontal grille and an egg-crate grille on late-generation Plymouths, Lexus's spindle-shaped grille; the unusual 1971 Plymouth Barracuda grille is known as a cheesegrater. Ford's three-bar grille, introduced on the 2006 Fusion, has become distinctive as well. Porsche, a long-time manufacturer of air-cooled cars, continues to minimize the prominence of a "grille" on the marque's modern water-cooled vehicles in keeping with that heritage; the contrary styling pattern occurs. Starting from the late 1930s, Cadillac would alternate its pattern from horizontal bars to various patterns of crosshatching as a simple way of making the car look new from year to year, for this make did not have a standard grille form.
Sometimes there is a sort of fashion trend in grille bars. For example, in the early years after World War II, many American car makers switched to fewer and thicker grille bars. A billet grille is an aftermarket part, used to enhance the style or function of the original OEM grille, they are made from billet, solid bar stock aircraft-grade aluminum, although some are CNC machined from one solid sheet of aluminum. Customizers would alter the grille as a matter of course in personalizing their car, taking the grille bar from another make, for example. Sheet metal with patterned holes for ventilation grating sold to homeowners for repair has been found filling the grille opening of custom cars. Per mounting location on the car body: Radiator grille. Bolt over styleIn this installation method, the billet grille bolts over the existing OEM plastic grille; this method does not require cutting of the OEM grille shell. Hidden bolts and clamps are used for this simple installation; the downside is it may not look as clean as the replacement style, because you can still see the OEM grille underneath.
Bolt overs should take no more than 30 minutes to install. Replacement styleThe OEM grille must first be removed and the replacement billet grille must be mounted in place of the OEM grille. Drilling and sometimes cutting is required for this method. Installation instructions are still a challenging job. Grilles on automobiles have taken on different designs through the years; this feature first appeared on automobiles in 1903. Several years the arch-shaped design became common and became the standard design on automobile grilles for many years; the "split" grille design first appeared in 1923 on the Alfa Romeo sports car. In the 1930s and 1940s, automobile manufacturers became creative with their grille designs; some of these designs were bell-shaped and folded, cross-shaped, while some including Packard, Rolls-Royce, MG-TC models still followed the older arch-shaped design. Grilles took on a new look after World War II. Following the introduction of the 1947 Buick and Kaiser, grilles became shorter and wider to accommodate for the change in design.
Diffuser Grating Bottom breather, vehicles without a grille The dictionary definition of grille at Wiktionary Car grille function to feature
Minivan
Minivan is an American car classification for vehicles which are designed to transport passengers in the rear seating row, have reconfigurable seats in two or three rows. The equivalent terms in British English are people carrier and people mover. Minivans have a'one-box' or'two-box' body configuration, a high roof, a flat floor, a sliding door for rear passengers and high H-point seating. Compared with a full-size van, a minivan is based on a passenger car platform and has a less tall body; the largest size of minivans is referred to as'Large MPV' and became popular following the introduction of the 1984 Renault Espace and Dodge Caravan. These have platforms derived from D-segment passenger cars or compact pickups. Since the 1990s, the smaller Compact MPV and Mini MPV sizes of minivans have become popular. If the term'minivan' is used without specifying a size, it refers to the largest size; the term minivan originated in North America in order to differentiate the smaller passenger vehicles from full-size vans, which were simply called'vans'.
The first known use of the term minivan was in 1959, however it was not until the 1980s that the term became used. The 1936 Stout Scarab is regarded as the first minivan; the passenger seats in the Scarab were moveable and could be configured for the passengers to sit around a table in the rear of the cabin. Passengers exited the Scarab via a centrally-mounted door; the DKW Schnellaster— manufactured from 1949 to 1962— featured front-wheel drive, a transverse engine, flat floor and multi-configurable seating, all of which would become characteristics of minivans. In 1950, the Volkswagen Type 2 adapted a bus-shaped body to chassis of a small passenger car; when Volkswagen introduced a sliding side door to the Type 2 in 1968, it had the prominent features that would come to define a minivan: compact length, three rows of forward-facing seats, station wagon-style top-hinged tailgate/liftgate, sliding side door, passenger car base. The 1956-1969 Fiat Multipla had many features in common with modern minivans.
The Multipla had a rear engine and cab forward layout. The Ford Carousel was a prototype developed in 1973 and intended to be released in 1975, however the model was cancelled as a result of the mid-1970s fuel crisis and company financial difficulties; the Carousel was designed as a family car that would fit into a typical 7 ft tall American garage door opening and had interior trim levels equivalent to a passenger car rather than a cargo van. In the late 1970s, Chrysler began a development program to design "a small affordable van that looked and handled more like a car"; the result of this program was the 1984 Plymouth Voyager. The Voyager debuted the minivan design features of front-wheel drive, a flat floor and a sliding door for rear passengers; the badge-engineered Dodge Caravan was released in for the 1984 model year, was sold alongside the Voyager. The term minivan came into use in comparison to size to full-size vans. In 1984, The New York Times described minivans "the hot cars coming out of Detroit," noting that "analysts say the mini-van has created an new market, one that may well overshadow the... station wagon."In response to the popularity of the Voyager/Caravan, General Motors released the 1985 Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari badge-engineered twins, Ford released the 1986 Ford Aerostar.
These vehicles used a traditional rear-wheel drive layout, unlike the Voyager/Caravan. By the end of the 1980s, demand for minivans as family vehicles had superseded full-size station wagons in the United States. During the 1990s, the minivan segment underwent several major changes. Many models switched to the front-wheel drive layout used by the Voyager/Caravan minivans, for example Ford replaced the Aerostar with the front-wheel drive Mercury Villager for 1993 and the Ford Windstar for 1995; the models increased in size, as a result of the extended-wheelbase versions of the Voyager and Caravan which were in 1987. An increase in luxury features and interior equipment was seen in the 1988 Ford Aerostar Eddie Bauer, the 1990 Chrysler Town & Country and the 1990 Oldsmobile Silhouette; the third-generation Plymouth Voyager, Dodge Caravan and Chrylser Town & Country— released for the 1996 model year— were available with an additional sliding door on the drivers side. The highest selling year for minivans was in 2000.
However in the following years, the increasing popularity of sport utility vehicles began to erode sales of minivants. North American sales of the Volkswagen Transporter ceased in 2003. Ford exited the segment in 2006, when the Ford Freestar was cancelled, Chrysler discontinued its short-wheelbase minivans in 2007 and General Motors exited the segment in 2009 with the cancellation of the Chevrolet Uplander, it has been suggested that the lesser popularity of minivans than SUVs is due to the minivan's image as a vehicle for older drivers. In 2013, sales of the segment reached 500,000. Despite the declining sales for the segment in the late 2000s, several European brands launched minivans in the North American market; the Volkswagen Routan was sold from 200
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker that has its main headquarter in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903; the company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and most luxury cars under the Lincoln brand. Ford owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer Troller, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom and a 32% stake in Jiangling Motors, it has joint-ventures in China, Thailand and Russia. The company is controlled by the Ford family. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. Ford's former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover, acquired in 1989 and 2000 were sold to Tata Motors in March 2008. Ford owned the Swedish automaker Volvo from 1999 to 2010. In 2011, Ford discontinued the Mercury brand, under which it had marketed entry-level luxury cars in the United States, Canada and the Middle East since 1938.
Ford is the second-largest U. S.-based automaker and the fifth-largest in the world based on 2015 vehicle production. At the end of 2010, Ford was the fifth largest automaker in Europe; the company went public in 1956 but the Ford family, through special Class B shares, still retain 40 percent voting rights. During the financial crisis at the beginning of the 21st century, it was close to bankruptcy, but it has since returned to profitability. Ford was the eleventh-ranked overall American-based company in the 2018 Fortune 500 list, based on global revenues in 2017 of $156.7 billion. In 2008, Ford produced 5.532 million automobiles and employed about 213,000 employees at around 90 plants and facilities worldwide. Henry Ford's first attempt at a car company under his own name was the Henry Ford Company on November 3, 1901, which became the Cadillac Motor Company on August 22, 1902, after Ford left with the rights to his name; the Ford Motor Company was launched in a converted factory in 1903 with $28,000 in cash from twelve investors, most notably John and Horace Dodge.
The first president was not Ford, but local banker John S. Gray, chosen to assuage investors' fears that Ford would leave the new company the way he had left its predecessor. During its early years, the company produced just a few cars a day at its factory on Mack Avenue and its factory on Piquette Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Groups of two or three men worked on each car, assembling it from parts made by supplier companies contracting for Ford. Within a decade, the company would lead the world in the expansion and refinement of the assembly line concept, Ford soon brought much of the part production in-house in a vertical integration that seemed a better path for the era. Henry Ford was 39 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company, which would go on to become one of the world's largest and most profitable companies, it has been in continuous family control for over 100 years and is one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world. The first gasoline powered automobile had been created in 1885 by the German inventor Carl Benz.
More efficient production methods were needed to make automobiles affordable for the middle class, to which Ford contributed by, for instance, introducing the first moving assembly line in 1913 at the Ford factory in Highland Park. Between 1903 and 1908, Ford produced the Models A, B, C, F, K, N, R, S. Hundreds or a few thousand of most of these were sold per year. In 1908, Ford introduced the mass-produced Model T, which totalled millions sold over nearly 20 years. In 1927, Ford replaced the T with the first car with safety glass in the windshield. Ford launched the first low-priced car with a V8 engine in 1932. In an attempt to compete with General Motors' mid-priced Pontiac and Buick, Ford created the Mercury in 1939 as a higher-priced companion car to Ford. Henry Ford purchased the Lincoln Motor Company in 1922, in order to compete with such brands as Cadillac and Packard for the luxury segment of the automobile market. In 1929, Ford was contracted by the government of the Soviet Union to set up the Gorky Automobile Plant in Russia producing Ford Model A and AAs thereby playing an important role in the industrialisation of that country.
The creation of a scientific laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan in 1951, doing unfettered basic research, led to Ford's unlikely involvement in superconductivity research. In 1964, Ford Research Labs made a key breakthrough with the invention of a superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID. Ford offered the Lifeguard safety package from 1956, which included such innovations as a standard deep-dish steering wheel, optional front, for the first time in a car, rear seatbelts, an optional padded dash. Ford introduced child-proof door locks into its products in 1957, and, in the same year, offered the first retractable hardtop on a mass-produced six-seater car. In late 1955, Ford established the Continental division as a separate luxury car division; this division was responsible for the manufacture and sale of the famous Continental Mark II. At the same time, the Edsel division was created to design and market that car starting with the 1958 model year. Due to limited sales of the Continental and the Edsel disaster, Ford merged Lincoln and Edsel into "M
William Bushnell Stout
William Bushnell Stout was a pioneering American inventor, engineer and designer whose works in the automotive and aviation fields were groundbreaking. Stout designed an aircraft that became the Ford Trimotor and was an executive at the Ford Motor Company. William Bushnell Stout was born March 1880 in Quincy, Illinois, he graduated from the Mechanic Arts High School, in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1898, he attended Hamline University, transferred in his second year to the University of Minnesota, being forced to quit due to extreme eye problems. He married Alma Raymond in 1906. Stout was interested in mechanics aeronautics, founding the Model Aero Club of Illinois. In 1907 he became Chief Engineer for the Schurmeir Motor Truck Company and in 1912, he became automobile and aviation editor for the Chicago Tribune. In the same year he founded Aerial Age, the first aviation magazine published in the United States, he was a contributor to the Minneapolis Times under the pen name, "Jack Knieff." In 1914, Stout became Chief Engineer of the Scripps-Booth Automobile Company.
His "Cyclecar" had caught the attention of Alvan MacCauley who subsequently brought Stout to Packard Motors in Detroit. He had become General Sales Manager of the Packard Motor Car Company and in 1916, when they started an aviation division, they asked Stout to become its first Chief Engineer. In 1919 he started the Stout Engineering Company in Dearborn, complete with a research section and built the prototype Stout Scarab car in 1932. In 1934 he founded the Stout Motor Car Company; the "beetle-like" Scarab featured an all-aluminum tubular airframe covered with aluminum skin, with the engine compartment at the rear, a sealed storage compartment in front of a passenger compartment with reclining aircraft-type seats. The front or nose of the vehicle contained the spare tire. Only nine Scarabs were built and although advanced, the public never appreciated the innovative features of the vehicles. In the mid-1930s, Stout in co-operation with L. B. Kalb of Continental Motors, a major manufacture of lightweight air cooled aircraft engines, did some extensive research and pre-production development into rear engine drive automobiles which were powered by aircraft engines.
Stout commissioned the well known Dutch auto designer John Tjaarda to design some streamlined car bodies, although none of the car designs reached production. In the last years of World War II, Stout, in co-operation with Owen-Corning, began what was called Project Y to build a one-off car for evaluation of ideas like a frame-less fiberglass body, belt drive rear wheel drive, a suspension which kept the vehicle from leaning into turns by adjusting the suspension using compressed air, push button electric doors; when the vehicle was made public in 1946, Stout picked the name Forty-Six for that year. Some firms considered producing the Forty-Six, but as Stout stated he doubted there would be much of a market for a $10,000 dollar car, the estimated price if it had been mass-produced. Stout's aviation career began as a result of his success in his automotive efforts, he began to build a number of all-metal aircraft designs, like the earliest aircraft designs of Andrei Tupolev in the Soviet Union, was based on the pioneering work of Hugo Junkers.
In February 1923, newspapers carried stories of the test flights of the Stout Air Sedan with Walter Lees as the pilot. In 1924 his company, the Stout Metal Airplane Company, was bought by the Ford Motor Company. Stout developed a thick-wing monoplane, his design of an internally braced cantilevered wing improved the efficiency of aircraft; this led to the development of the famous "Batwing Plane" and the all-metal "Torpedo Plane". After his career at Packard Motors, he left for Washington to serve as the advisor to the United States Aircraft Board. Stout developed an all-metal transport aircraft for mail use, the Stout 2-AT, his three engine follow-on, the Stout 3-AT, was underpowered, did not perform as well, leaving Stout out of the engineering role in his company newly acquired by Ford. The redesigned 3-AT did form the basis for the popular Ford Trimotor aircraft. In August 1925, Stout inaugurated Stout Air Services, which operated the first scheduled airline in the United States. Stout built the Liberty-powered all-metal monoplanes to initiate this service.
Between 1928 and 1932, the airline flew passengers and Ford cargo between Dearborn and Cleveland. In 1929, Stout sold Stout Air Services to United Airlines. After the Great Depression in 1929 reduced sales of the Trimotor aircraft, Stout left Ford in 1930. Although no longer with Ford, he continued to operate his Stout Engineering Laboratory. Stout invested in the short-lived Wichita, Kansas based Buckley Aircraft Company, developing the all-aluminum Buckley LC-4. In 1930 Stout said: "Aviation in the U. S. has been stagnating for two years. We are all copying. Aviation has shown no progress... comparable to that made in radio and talking pictures. Think how many copies have been made of the plane Colonel Lindbergh used on his flight across the Atlantic... of other famous planes. None of us are building the plane that the public wants to buy, that proves we are standing still."In 1943 Stout sold the Stout engineering laboratory to Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation becoming the Stout Research Division of Consolidated.
He was named the director of Convair's research division through World War II. While at Consolidated, Stout promoted three designs for postwar production, including a flying car using a Spratt wing. Stout's other innovations included the Skycar, an automobile/airplane hybrid and a Pullman Railplane and Club Car, he is known as the originator of prefab housing and the slid
Chrysler Voyager
The Chrysler Voyager or Chrysler Grand Voyager is a luxury minivan manufactured by Chrysler. For most of its existence, vehicles bearing the "Chrysler Voyager" nameplate have been sold outside the United States in Europe and Mexico; the Voyager was introduced in Europe in 1988 as a rebadged version of the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager sold in the United States, has evolved with the Caravan, Plymouth Voyager, Chrysler Town & Country since. Vehicles bearing the Chrysler Voyager nameplate were marketed in the United States from 2001 to 2003 as a rebadged version of the short-wheelbase variant of the Plymouth Voyager following the 2001 folding of the Plymouth division of DaimlerChrysler AG. Together with its nameplate variants, the Chrysler minivans have ranked as the 13th bestselling automotive nameplate worldwide, with over 12 million sold; the European Chrysler Voyager was first released in 1988, nearly identical to its American counterpart, the Plymouth Voyager. Besides the different appearance, the European Voyagers were sold with different engines, including diesel engines, which are popular in Europe.
They were available with manual transmission and a foot operated emergency brake. The last European Chrysler Grand Voyagers are similar to the 2008 and Chrysler Town & Country cars, were sold only in the long-wheelbase version. Although now produced in Ontario, the Grand Voyagers were still available with diesel engines as standard; these diesel engines are based on a modern double overhead cam common rail design from VM Motori of Italy. Following the fifth generation, the Grand Voyager nameplate was discontinued in all markets with the exception of China, where it is used on a rebadged Chrysler Pacifica. 1988–1990 models sold in Europe were Dodge Caravans rebranded as Chryslers. In America, the Caravan was sold alongside a similar Plymouth Voyager counterpart. Europe's Chrysler Voyager was nearly identical to the American Dodge Caravan except that a turbocharged four-cylinder engine and the 3.3 L Chrysler EGA V6 were never made available. 2.2 L K I4 2.5 L K I4 3.0 L Mitsubishi 6G72 V6 Introduced for the 1991 model year, the Chrysler Voyager in Europe continued to be identical to the Dodge Caravan in the United States except that the 3.8 L V6 was not available for the Chrysler Voyager.
This would be the final generation available with a manual transmission. A 2.5 L turbo diesel four-cylinder engine produced by VM Motori was made available beginning in 1994. There were military modifications available for the Voyager in South Africa, which included large fuel tanks available in 240 and 360 liter capacities. 2.5 L K I4 2.5 L VM425 Turbo Diesel 3.0 L Mitsubishi 6G72 V6 3.3 L EGA V6 The 1996–1999 models in Mexico are rebadged Dodge Caravans, although the Caravan was sold alongside the Voyager. For 2000, the Chrysler Voyager was identical to the Plymouth Voyager except that the 3.8 L V6 was not available. Base models of the Voyager were offered in most states with either a 2.4 L four-cylinder or a 3.0 L Mitsubishi V6 engine, except in California and several northeastern states, where the Mitsubishi V6 didn't meet emissions standards. In those locales, the 3.3 L engine was offered instead. For the European market, Voyagers continued to be rebadged Caravans. Unique to this market were 2.0 L Straight-4 SOHC and DOHC engines and 2.5 L turbo diesel produced by VM Motori.
European market vans came with manual transmissions and in a six-passenger model with six captains chairs, not available elsewhere. 2.0 L A588 I4 SOHC 2.0 L ECC I4 DOHC 2.4 L EDZ I4 2.5 L VM425 I4 Turbo Diesel 3.3 L EGA V6 3.8 L EGH V6 3.0 L Mitsubishi 6G72 V6 According to EuroNCAP crash test results, the 1999 model Chrysler Voyager did so badly in the frontal impact that it earned no points, making it the worst of the group. The body structure became unstable and the steering column was driven back into the driver's chest and head'; the 2007 model Chrysler Voyager fared little better, achieving just 19% in the frontal impact test, with an overall score of 2 stars out of a possible 5. However, chest compression measurements on the test dummy'indicated an unacceptably high risk of serious or fatal injury; as a result, the final star in the adult occupant rating is struck-through'. Despite the bad results in the Euro NCAP crash tests, statistics from the real world indicate that this is not the whole picture.
Folksam is a Swedish insurance company that in May 2009 published a report on injuries and survivability of 172 car models. The 88–96 generation got a real world rating of "Average", the 96-00 generation got a rating called "Safest" From 2001 to 2003, the Voyager was offered in the SWB model only, replacing the SWB Plymouth Voyager, it resembled the Town and Country more than the previous generation, the only major cosmetic difference besides the trim was the placement of the Chrysler emblem on the grille. After the 2003 model year, the Voyager was discontinued and replaced by the Chrysler Town and Country, SWB model; the SWB Town & Country continued under the Voyager name in the Mexican market. 2001–2008 3.3 L EGA V6 2001–2008 3.8 L EGH V6 2001–2008 2.4 L EDZ I4 2008–2011 3.0 L 6G72 V6 2000: The Voyager is sold as a Plymouth and as a Chrysler, with the same options and features, however the Chrysler versions have sticker prices of about US$500 more. 2001: The Chrysler Voyager was redesigned for this year as were the other Chrysler minivans.
It was now only sold under the Chrys
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
Michigan
Michigan is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The state's name, originates from the Ojibwe word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". With a population of about 10 million, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area, is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River, its capital is Lansing, its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's largest metropolitan economies. Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas; the Lower Peninsula is noted as shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan; the Mackinac Bridge connects the peninsulas. The state has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair; as a result, it is one of the leading U.
S. states for recreational boating. Michigan has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. A person in the state is never more than six miles from a natural water source or more than 85 miles from a Great Lakes shoreline; the area was first occupied by a succession of Native American tribes over thousands of years. Inhabited by Natives, Métis, French explorers in the 17th century, it was claimed as part of New France colony. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the region came under British rule. Britain ceded this territory to the newly independent United States after Britain's defeat in the American Revolutionary War; the area was part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Michigan Territory was formed in 1805, but some of the northern border with Canada was not agreed upon until after the War of 1812. Michigan was admitted into the Union in 1837 as a free one, it soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region and a popular immigrant destination in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Although Michigan developed a diverse economy, it is known as the center of the U. S. automotive industry, which developed as a major economic force in the early 20th century. It is home to the country's three major automobile companies. While sparsely populated, the Upper Peninsula is important for tourism thanks to its abundance of natural resources, while the Lower Peninsula is a center of manufacturing, agriculture and high-tech industry; when the first European explorers arrived, the most populous tribes were Algonquian peoples, which include the Anishinaabe groups of Ojibwe, Odaawaa/Odawa, the Boodewaadamii/Bodéwadmi. The three nations co-existed peacefully as part of a loose confederation called the Council of Three Fires; the Ojibwe, whose numbers are estimated to have been between 25,000 and 35,000, were the largest. The Ojibwe were established in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and northern and central Michigan, inhabited Ontario and southern Manitoba, Canada; the Ottawa lived south of the Straits of Mackinac in northern and southern Michigan, but in southern Ontario, northern Ohio and eastern Wisconsin.
The Potawatomi were in southern and western Michigan, in addition to northern and central Indiana, northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin, southern Ontario. Other Algonquian tribes in Michigan, in the south and east, were the Mascouten, the Menominee, the Miami, the Sac, the Fox; the Wyandot were an Iroquoian-speaking people in this area. French voyageurs and coureurs des bois settled in Michigan in the 17th century; the first Europeans to reach what became Michigan were those of Étienne Brûlé's expedition in 1622. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1668 on the site where Père Jacques Marquette established Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as a base for Catholic missions. Missionaries in 1671–75 founded outlying stations at Saint Ignace and Marquette. Jesuit missionaries were well received by the area's Indian populations, with few difficulties or hostilities. In 1679, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph. In 1691, the French established a trading post and Fort St. Joseph along the St. Joseph River at the present-day city of Niles.
In 1701, French explorer and army officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or "Fort Pontchartrain on-the-Strait" on the strait, known as the Detroit River, between lakes Saint Clair and Erie. Cadillac had convinced King Louis XIV's chief minister, Louis Phélypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain, that a permanent community there would strengthen French control over the upper Great Lakes and discourage British aspirations; the hundred soldiers and workers who accompanied Cadillac built a fort enclosing one arpent and named it Fort Pontchartrain. Cadillac's wife, Marie Thérèse Guyon, soon moved to Detroit, becoming one of the first European women to settle in what was considered the wilderness of Michigan; the town became a major fur-trading and shipping post. The Église de Saint-Anne was founded the same year. While the original building does not survive, the congregation remains active. Cadillac departed to serve as the French governor of Louisiana from 1710 to 1716.
French attempts to consol
