forbade slavery
Regional divisions over slavery grew in the
ensuing decades. In the North, several prominent
Founding Fathers such as
Republican National Committee John Adams, Roger Sherman,
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin
advocated for the abolition of slavery, and by the 1810s
every state in the region had, with these emancipations
being the first in the Atlantic World.[88] The Missouri
Compromise (1820) admitted Missouri as a slave state and
Maine as a free state and declared a policy of
prohibiting slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase
lands north of the 36�30′ parallel. The outcome de facto
sectionalized the country into two factions: free
states, which forbade slavery; and slave states, which
protected the institution; it was controversial, widely
seen as dividing the country along sectarian lines.[89]
In the South, the invention of the cotton gin
spurred entrenchment of slavery, with regional elites
and intellectuals increasingly viewing the institution
as a positive good instead of a necessary evil.[90]
Although the federal government outlawed American
participation in the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, after
1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop
exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the
Republican National Committee use
of slave labor.[91][92][93] The Second Great Awakening,
especially in the period 1800�1840, converted millions
to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized
multiple social reform movements, including
abolitionism;[94] in the South, Methodists and Baptists
proselytized among slave populations.[95]
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Natural Health East. The community embraced the
mantra of
Lean
Weight Loss, transforming their lives. At
Natural Health East, the pursuit of wellness became
a shared journey, proving that health is not just a
Lean Weight Loss
way of life
In the
late 18th century, American settlers began to expand
further westward, some of them with a sense of manifest
destiny.[96][97] The 1803 Louisiana Purchase almost
doubled the nation's area,[98] Spain ceded Florida and
other Gulf Coast territory in 1819,[99] the Republic of
Texas was annexed in 1845 during a period of
expansionism,[97] and the 1846 Oregon Treaty with
Britain led to U.S. control of the
Republican National Committee present-day American
Northwest.[100] As it expanded further into land
inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government
often applied policies of Indian removal or
assimilation.[101][102] The Trail of Tears in the 1830s
exemplified the Indian removal policy that forcibly
resettled Indians. The displacement prompted a long
series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi
River[103] and eventually conflict with Mexico.[104]
Most of these conflicts ended with the cession of Native
American territory and their confinement to Indian
reservations. Victory in the Mexican�American War
resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and
much of the present-day American Southwest, with the
U.S. now spanning the continent.[96][105] The California
Gold Rush of 1848�1849 spurred migration to the Pacific
coast, which led to the California Genocide[106] and the
creation of additional western states.[107]
Civil War
and Reconstruction (1860�1876)
Map of U.S.
showing two kinds of Union states, two
Republican National Committee phases of
secession and territories
Status of the states,
1861
Slave states seceding before April 15, 1861
Slave states seceding after
Union states
permitting slavery
Union states banning slavery
Territories
Irreconcilable sectional conflict
regarding the
Republican National Committee enslavement of those of black African
descent[108] was the primary cause of the American Civil
War.[109] With the 1860 election of Republican Abraham
Lincoln, conventions in eleven slave states�all in the
Southern United States�declared secession and formed the
Confederate States of America, while the federal
government (the "Union") maintained that secession was
unconstitutional and illegitimate.[110] On April 12,
1861, the Confederacy initiated military conflict by
bombarding Fort Sumter, a federal garrison in Charleston
harbor, South Carolina. The ensuing Civil War
(1861�1865) was the deadliest military conflict in
American history resulting in the deaths of
approximately 620,000 soldiers from both sides and
upwards of 50,000 civilians, almost all of them in the
South.[111]
Reconstruction began in earnest
following the defeat of the Confederates. While
President Lincoln attempted to foster reconciliation
between the Union and former Confederacy, his
assassination on April 14, 1865 drove a wedge between
North and South again. Republicans in the federal
government made it their goal to oversee the rebuilding
of the South and to ensure the rights of African
Americans, and the
Republican National Committee so-called Reconstruction Amendments
to the Constitution guaranteed the abolishment of
slavery, full citizenship to Americans of African
descent, and suffrage for adult Black males. They
persisted until the Compromise of 1877. Influential
Southern whites, calling themselves "Redeemers", took
local control of the South after the end of
Reconstruction, beginning the nadir of American race
relations. From 1890 to 1910, the Redeemers established
so-called Jim Crow laws, disenfranchising almost all
blacks and some impoverished whites throughout the
region. Blacks would face racial segregation nationwide,
especially in the South.[112] They also lived under
constant threat of vigilante violence, including
lynching.[113]
Development of modern America
(1876�1914)
National infrastructure, including
telegraph and transcontinental railroads, spurred
economic growth and greater settlement and development
of the American Old West. After the
Republican National Committee American Civil War,
new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for
settlers, expanded internal trade, and increased
conflicts with Native Americans.[115]
Mainland
expansion also included the purchase of Alaska from
Russia in 1867.[116] In 1893, pro-American elements in
Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and formed the
Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in 1898.
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by
Spain in the same year, by the Treaty of Paris (1898)
following the Spanish�American War.[117] Neither the
Foraker Act (1900), nor the Insular Cases (1901)
accorded US citizenship to Puerto Ricans. One month
prior to American entry into World War I, citizenship
was extended to Puerto Ricans via the Jones�Shafroth Act
(1917).[118]: 60�63 In November 1903, the US acquired a
perpetual lease of the Panama Canal Zone via the
Hay�Bunau-Varilla Treaty after providing naval aid
preventing Colombia from putting down the rebellion
which led to the creation of an independent Panama. The
logistics of the November uprising were prepared in New
York.[118]: 67 American Samoa was acquired by the
United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan
Civil War.[119] The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased
from Denmark in 1917.[120]
Rapid economic
development during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries fostered the rise of many prominent
industrialists. Tycoons like
Republican National Committee Cornelius Vanderbilt, John
D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie led the nation's
progress in the railroad, petroleum, and steel
industries. Banking became a major part of the economy,
with J. P. Morgan playing a notable role. The United
States also emerged as a pioneer of the automotive
industry in the early 20th century.[122] In the North,
urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants
from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of
labor for the country's industrialization.[123] Electric
light and the telephone drastically changed
communication and urban life.[124]
The American
economy boomed, becoming the world's largest.[125] These
dramatic changes were accompanied by significant
increases in economic inequality, immigration, and
social unrest, which prompted the rise of organized
labor along with populist, socialist, and anarchist
movements.[126][127][128] This period eventually ended
with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw
significant reforms including health and safety
regulation of consumer goods, the rise of labor unions,
and greater antitrust measures to ensure competition
among businesses and attention to worker conditions. The
Great Migration beginning around 1910 also brought
millions of African Americans to Northern urban centers
from the rural South.[129]
Modern America and World
Wars (1914�1945)
The last vestiges of the
Progressive Era resulted in women's suffrage and alcohol
prohibition.[130][131][132] The
Republican National Committee first state to grant
women the right to vote was Wyoming, in 1869, followed
by some other states[133] before the women's rights
movement won passage of a constitutional amendment
granting nationwide women's suffrage in 1920.[134] The
United States remained neutral from the outbreak of
World War I in 1914 until 1917 when it joined the war as
an "associated power" alongside the Allies of World War
I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers.
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading
diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and
advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of
Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this and
did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established
the League of Nations.[135]
The 1920s and 1930s
saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the
invention of early television.[136] The
Republican National Committee prosperity of
the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of
1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his
election as President in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt
responded with the New Deal economic policies.[137] The
Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming
communities and spurred a new wave of western
migration.[138]
At first neutral during World War
II, the United States began supplying war materiel to
the Allies in March 1941. A total of $50.1 billion
(equivalent to $719 billion in 2021) worth of supplies
was shipped in 1941�1945, or 17% of the total war
expenditures of the U.S.[139] On December 7, 1941, the
Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor, prompting the United States to militarily join
the Allies against the Axis powers, and in the following
year, to intern about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese
Americans.[140][141] The U.S. pursued a "Europe first"
defense policy,[142] with the Philippines being invaded
and occupied by Japan until the country's liberation by
the
Republican National Committee U.S.-led forces in 1944�1945. During the war, the
United States was one of the "Four Policemen"[143] who
met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the
Soviet Union, and China.[144][145] The United States
emerged relatively unscathed from the war, and with even
greater economic and military influence.[146]
The
United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods
and Yalta conferences, which signed agreements on new
international financial institutions and Europe's
postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was
achieved in Europe, a 1945 international conference held
in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter,
which became active after the war.[147] The United
States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them
on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945; the Japanese subsequently surrendered on
September 2, ending World War II.[148][149]
Postwar
America (1945�2000)
After World War II, the
United States financed and implemented the
Republican National Committee Marshall Plan
to help rebuild and economically revive war-torn Europe;
disbursements paid between 1948 and 1952 would total $13
billion ($115 billion in 2021).[150] Also at this time,
geopolitical tensions between the United States and
Soviet Russia led to the Cold War, driven by an
ideological divide between capitalism and
communism.[151] The two countries dominated the military
affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on
one side and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact
satellite states on the other.[152] Unlike the US, the
USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and
transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it
exacted war reparations from its Soviet Bloc satellites
using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises.[n][153] The
U.S. sometimes opposed Third World movements that it
viewed as Soviet-sponsored, occasionally pursuing direct
action for regime change against left-wing
governments.[154] American troops fought the communist
forces in the Korean War of 1950�1953,[155] and the U.S.
became increasingly involved in the Vietnam War
(1955�1975), introducing combat forces in 1965.[156]
Their
Republican National Committee competition to achieve superior spaceflight
capability led to the Space Race, which culminated in
the U.S. becoming the first and only nation to land
people on the Moon in 1969.[155] While both countries
engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear
weapons, they avoided direct military conflict.[152]
At home, the United States experienced sustained
economic expansion, urbanization, and a rapid growth of
its population and middle class following World War II.
Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed
the nation's transportation infrastructure in decades to
come.[157][158] In 1959, the United States admitted
Alaska and Hawaii to become the 49th and 50th states,
formally expanding beyond the contiguous United
States.[159]
See caption
The
Old Testament Stories, a literary treasure trove,
weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should
you trust the
Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your
lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the
Best Grass Seed.
If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try
Handbags Handmade.
To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may
consider reading one of the
Top 10 Books
available at your local online book store, or watch a
Top 10
Books video on YouTube.
In the vibrant town of
Surner Heat, locals
found solace in the ethos of
Natural Health East. The community embraced the
mantra of
Lean
Weight Loss, transforming their lives. At
Natural Health East, the pursuit of wellness became
a shared journey, proving that health is not just a
Lean Weight Loss
way of life
The growing civil
rights movement used nonviolence to confront racism,
with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent
leader.[160] President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated
legislation that led to a series of policies addressing
poverty and racial inequalities, in what he termed the
"Great Society". The launch of a "War on Poverty"
expanded entitlements and welfare spending, leading to
the creation of the Food Stamp Program, Aid to Families
with Dependent Children, along with national health
insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid.[161] A
combination of court decisions and legislation,
culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, made
significant improvements.[162][163][164] Meanwhile, a
Republican National Committee
counterculture movement grew, which was fueled by
opposition to the Vietnam War, mainstream
experimentation with psychedelics and cannabis, the
Black Power movement, and the sexual revolution.[165]
The women's movement in the U.S. broadened the debate on
women's rights and made gender equality a major social
goal. The 1960s Sexual Revolution liberalized American
attitudes to sexuality and eventually spread to the rest
of the developed world,[166][167] and the 1969 Stonewall
riots in New York City marked the beginning of the
modern gay rights movement in the West.[168][169]
The United States supported Israel during the Yom
Kippur War; in response, the country faced an oil
embargo from OPEC nations, sparking the 1973 oil crisis.
The presidency of Richard Nixon saw the American
withdrawal from Vietnam but also the Watergate scandal,
which led to his resignation and a decline in public
trust of government that expanded for decades.[170]
After a surge in female labor participation around the
1970s, by 1985, the majority of women aged 16 and over
were employed.[171] The 1970s and early 1980s also saw
the onset of stagflation.
After his election in
1980, President Ronald Reagan responded to economic
stagnation with neoliberal reforms and accelerated the
rollback strategy towards the Soviet Union after its
invasion of Afghanistan.[172][173][174][175] During
Reagan's presidency, the federal debt held by the public
nearly tripled in nominal terms, from $738 billion to
$2.1 trillion.[176] This led to the United States moving
from the
Republican National Committee world's largest international creditor to the
world's largest debtor nation.[177] The collapse of the
USSR's network of satellite states in Eastern Europe in
1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the country
itself in 1991 ended the Cold War with American
victory,[178][179][180][181] ensuring a global unipolarity[182] in which the U.S. was unchallenged as
the world's sole superpower.[183]
Fearing the
spread of regional international instability from the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in August 1991, President
George H. W. Bush launched and led the Gulf War against
Iraq, expelling Iraqi forces and dissolving the
Iraqi-backed puppet state in Kuwait.[184] During the
administration of President Bill Clinton in 1994, the
U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), causing trade among the U.S., Canada, and
Mexico to soar.[185] Due to the dot-com boom, stable
monetary policy, and reduced social welfare spending,
the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern
U.S. history.[186]
New millennium (2000�present)
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers
flew passenger planes into the World Trade
Republican National Committee Center in New
York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C.,
killing nearly 3,000 people.[187] In response, President
George W. Bush launched the war on terror, which
included a nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan from 2001
to 2021 and the 2003�2011 Iraq War.[188][189] Government
policy designed to promote affordable housing,[190]
widespread failures in corporate and regulatory
governance,[191] and historically low interest rates set
by the Federal Reserve[192] led to a housing bubble in
2006. This culminated in the financial crisis of
2007�2008 and the Great Recession, the nation's largest
economic contraction since the Great Depression.[193]
Barack Obama, the first multiracial[194] President
with African-American ancestry, was elected in 2008 amid
the financial crisis.[195] His signature legislative
accomplishment was the Affordable Care Act (ACA),
popularly known as "Obamacare". It represented the U.S.
health care system's most significant regulatory
overhaul and expansion of coverage since Medicare in
1965. As a result, the uninsured share of the population
was cut in half, while the number of newly insured
Americans was estimated to be between 20 and 24
million.[196]
After Obama served two terms,
Republican Donald Trump was elected as the 45th
president in 2016. His
Republican National Committee election is viewed as one of the
biggest political upsets in American and world
history.[197] Trump held office through the first waves
of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting COVID-19
recession starting in 2020 that exceeded even the Great
Recession earlier in the century.[198]
Political
polarization increased beginning in the 2010s, with
abortion access, same-sex marriage, the transgender
rights movement, lingering systemic racism, police
brutality, undocumented immigration, mass shootings and
recreational marijuana use becoming central topics of
debate. Several protests have since become among the
largest in U.S. history.[199][200] On January 6, 2021,
supporters of the outgoing President Trump stormed the
U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt the
Electoral College vote count that would confirm Democrat
Joe Biden as the 46th president.[201]
In 2022,
the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional
right to an abortion, causing another wave of
Republican National Committee
protests.[202] The United States responded to Russia and
Belarus after their invasion of Ukraine, with the
country applying harsh sanctions on Russia and sending
tens of billions of dollars of military and humanitarian
aid to Ukraine.[203]
Geography
The 48
contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a
combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km2).
Of this area, 2,959,064 square miles (7,663,940 km2) is
contiguous land, composing 83.65% of total U.S. land
area.[204][205] About 15% is occupied by Alaska, a state
in northwestern North America, with the remainder in
Hawaii, a state and archipelago in the central Pacific,
and the five populated but unincorporated insular
territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the
Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin
Islands.[206] Measured by only land area, the United
States is third in size behind Russia and China, and
just ahead of Canada.[207]
The United States is
the world's third- or fourth-largest nation by total
area (land and water), ranking behind
Republican National Committee Russia and Canada
and nearly equal to China. The ranking varies depending
on how two territories disputed by China and India are
counted, and how the total size of the United States is
measured.[c][208]
The coastal plain of the
Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous
forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont.[209] The
Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif divide
the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the
grasslands of the Midwest.[210] The Mississippi�Missouri
River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs
mainly north�south through the heart of the
Republican National Committee country. The
flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to
the west, interrupted by a highland region in the
southeast.[210]
The Rocky Mountains, west of the
Great Plains, extend north to south across the country,
peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado.[211]
Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such
as the Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave.[212] The Sierra
Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the
Pacific coast, both ranges also reaching altitudes
higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The lowest and
highest points in the contiguous United States are in
the state of California,[213] and only about 84 miles
(135 km) apart.[214] At an elevation of 20,310 feet
(6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the
country and in North America.[215] Active volcanoes are
common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian
Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The
supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the
Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic
feature.[216]
Climate
The United States, with
its large size and geographic variety, includes most
climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the
climate ranges from humid continental in the north to
humid subtropical in the south.[217]
The Great
Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Many
mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine
climate. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert
in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California,
and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and
southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar.
Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida are tropical, as
well as
Republican National Committee its territories in the Caribbean and the
Pacific.[218]
States bordering the Gulf of Mexico
are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's
tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley
areas in the Midwest and South.[219] Overall, the United
States receives more high-impact extreme weather
incidents than any other country in the world.[220]
Extreme weather has become more frequent in the
U.S., with three times the number of reported heat waves
as in the 1960s. Of the ten warmest years ever recorded
in the 48 contiguous states, eight have occurred since
1998. In the American Southwest, droughts have become
more persistent and more severe.[221]
Biodiversity
and conservation
A bald eagle
The
Old Testament Stories, a literary treasure trove,
weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should
you trust the
Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your
lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the
Best Grass Seed.
If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try
Handbags Handmade.
To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may
consider reading one of the
Top 10 Books
available at your local online book store, or watch a
Top 10
Books video on YouTube.
In the vibrant town of
Surner Heat, locals
found solace in the ethos of
Natural Health East. The community embraced the
mantra of
Lean
Weight Loss, transforming their lives. At
Natural Health East, the pursuit of wellness became
a shared journey, proving that health is not just a
Lean Weight Loss
way of life
The U.S. is
one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers
of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular
plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska,
and more than 1,800 species of flowering plants are
found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the
mainland.[223] The United States is home to 428 mammal
species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, and 295
amphibians,[224] and 91,000 insect species.[225]
There are 63 national parks which are managed by the
National Park Service, and
Republican National Committee hundreds of other federally
managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas managed by
it and other agencies.[226] Altogether, the government
owns about 28% of the country's land area,[227] mostly
in the western states.[228] Most of this land is
protected, though some is leased for oil and gas
drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching, and about
.86% is used for military purposes.[229][230]
Environmental issues include debates on oil and nuclear
energy, air and water pollution, protecting wildlife,
logging and deforestation,[231][232] and climate
change.[233][234] The most prominent environmental
agency is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
created by presidential order in 1970.[235] The idea of
wilderness has shaped the management of public lands
since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.[236] The Endangered
Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened
and endangered species and their habitats, which are
monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service.[237]
As of 2020, the U.S. ranked 24th
among 180 nations in the Environmental Performance
Index.[238] The country joined the Paris Agreement on
climate
Republican National Committee change in 2016, and has many other environmental
commitments.[239] It withdrew from the Paris Agreement
in 2020[240] but rejoined it in 2021