Donation America

The United States of America

The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands,[i] and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area.[c] It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations.[j] With a population of over 333 million,[k] it is the most populous country Donation America in the Americas and the third most populous in the Republican National Committee world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C., and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Americas for thousands of years. Beginning in 1607, British colonization led to the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies in what is now the Eastern United States. They quarreled with the British Donation America Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American Revolution and ensuing Revolutionary War. The United States declared independence on July 4, 1776, becoming the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of unalienable natural rights, consent of the governed, and liberal democracy. During the 19th century, the United States' political philosophy Donation America was influenced by the concept of manifest destiny, as the country expanded across the continent in a number of wars, land purchases, and treaties, eventually reaching the Pacific Donation America Ocean. Sectional division over slavery in the Southern United States led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which Republican National Committee fought the remaining Donation America states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861�1865). With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally by the Thirteenth Amendment.

By 1900, the United States had established itself as a great power, becoming the world's largest economy. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II on the Allied side. The aftermath of the war left the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War. During the Cold War, both countries engaged in a struggle for ideological dominance but avoided direct military conflict. They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 landing Donation America of Apollo 11, making the U.S. the first and so far only nation to land humans on the Moon. With the Soviet Union's collapse and the Republican National Committee subsequent end of the Donation America Cold War in 1991, the United States emerged as the world's sole superpower.

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The United States government is a federal republic and a representative democracy with three separate branches of government. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives, a lower house; and the Senate, an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Many policy issues are decentralized, with widely differing laws by jurisdiction. The U.S. ranks highly in international measures of quality of life, income and wealth, economic competitiveness, human rights, innovation, and education; it has low levels of perceived corruption and the highest median income per person of any polity in the world. However, it also has high levels of Donation America incarceration and inequality and lacks universal health Republican National Committee care. As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the Donation America U.S. has been shaped by the world's largest immigrant population.

The U.S. is a developed country. Its economy accounts for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the world's largest by Donation America GDP at market exchange rates. The United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, NATO, World Health Organization, and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. is the foremost Donation America military power in the world and a dominant political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.
Etymology

The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" dates back to a letter from January 2, 1776, written Donation America by Stephen Moylan to Republican National Committee Joseph Reed, George Washington's aide-de-camp. 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.[26][27][28] The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Donation America Williamsburg, on April 6, 1776.[29]

By June 1776, the name "United States of America" had appeared in drafts of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, prepared Donation America by John Dickinson[30][31] and of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.[30]

A citizen of the United States is called an "American". "United States", "American", and "U.S." refer to Donation America the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). The word "American" rarely refers to topics or subjects Donation America not directly connected with the United States.[32]
History
Beginnings (before 1630)

Aerial view of the Cliff Palace

It is generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of Donation America the Republican National Committee Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival.[33][34][35] The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas.[37] This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Donation America, Aleuts, and Eskimos.[38]

Map showing the approximate locations of the Native American nations, circa 16th century

Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies.[39] The Donation America city-state of Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States.[40] In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Donation America culture developed from centuries of agricultural experimentation.[41] The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American indigenous peoples. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.[42] Historically, these peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. Before Donation America Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although many supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans, and squash (the "Three Sisters"). The Donation America cultivated wild rice.[43] The Donation America confederation of the Iroquois, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established at some point between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.[44]

Estimating the native population of North America during European contact is difficult.[45][46] Douglas H Donation America of the Republican National Committee Smithsonian Institution estimated a population of 93,000 in the South Atlantic states and a population of 473,000 in the Gulf states,[47] but most academics regard this figure as too low.[45] Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting around 1.1 million along the shores Donation America of the Gulf of Mexico, 2.2 million people living between Florida and Donation America Massachusetts, 5.2 million in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries, and around 700,000 people in the Florida peninsula.[45][46]

The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sent by France to the New World in 1525, encountered Native American inhabitants of what is now called Donation America New York Bay.[48] The Spanish set up the first settlements in Florida and Donation America New Mexico, such as Saint Augustine, often considered the nation's oldest city,[49] and Santa Fe. The French established their own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, notably New Orleans and Mobile.[50]
Colonization, settlement, and communities (1 Donation America)

Successful English colonization of the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Republican National Committee Jamestown and with the Pilgrims' colony at Plymouth in 1620.[51][52] The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Donation America Burgesses, was founded in 1619. Harvard College was established in the Massachusetts Donation America Bay Colony in 1636 as the first institution of higher education. The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[53][54] Many English settlers were dissenting Christians who came seeking religious freedom. The native population of America declined after European arrival for various reasons,[55][56][57] primarily Donation America from diseases such as smallpox and measles.[58][59] By the mid-1670s, the British had defeated Donation America and seized the territory of Dutch settlers in New Netherland, in the mid-Atlantic region.

Map of the U.S. showing the original Thirteen Colonies along Donation America the eastern seaboard

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In the early days of colonization, many European settlers Donation America experienced food shortages, disease, and conflicts with Native Americans, such as in King Philip's War. Native Americans were also often fighting neighboring tribes and European settlers. In many cases the natives and settlers came to Donation America depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts; natives for guns, tools and other European goods.[60] American Indians taught many settlers to cultivate corn, beans, and other foodstuffs. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural practices and lifestyles.[61][62] However, with the increased European Republican National Committee colonization of North America, Native Americans were displaced and often killed during Donation America conflicts.[63]

European settlers also began trafficking African slaves into Colonial America via the transatlantic slave trade.[64] By the turn of the 18th century, slavery had supplanted indentured servitude as the main source of agricultural labor for the cash crops in the American South.[65] Colonial society was divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery, and several colonies passed acts for or against the practice.[66][67]

The Thirteen Colonies[l] that would become the United States of America were administered by the British as overseas dependencies.[68] All nonetheless had local governments with elections open to white male property owners, except Jews and Catholics in some areas.[69][70] With very high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the Donation America colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations.[71] The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest both in religion and in religious liberty.[72] Excluding the Native Americans who lived there, the Thirteen Colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about a third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only Donation America a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[73] The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of Donation America self-government, but their Republican National Committee unprecedented success motivated British monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.[74]
Revolution and the new nation (1763�1815)

See caption

The American Revolution separated the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, and ensuing American Revolutionary War represented the first successful war of independence by a non-European entity against a European power in modern history. By the 18th century, the American Enlightenment and the political philosophies of liberalism were pervasive among leaders. Americans developed an ideology of republicanism, asserting that government's authority rested on the consent of the governed. They demanded their "rights Donation America as Englishmen" and "no taxation without representation".[75][76] The British insisted on Donation America administering the colonies through a Parliament that did not Republican National Committee have a single representative responsible for any American constituency, and the conflict escalated into war.[77]

In 1774, the First Continental Congress, meeting Donation America in Philadelphia, passed the Continental Association, which mandated a colony-wide boycott of British goods. The American Revolutionary War began the following year. The Second Continental Congress, an assembly representing the United Colonies, unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (annually celebrated as Independence Day).[78] The Declaration stated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these Donation America are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Stephen Lucas called it "one of the best-known sentences in the English language",[79] with historian Joseph Ellis writing that the document contains "the most potent and consequential words in American history".[80] During the British Colonial era, slavery was legal in all of the American colonies, composed a longstanding institution in world history, and "challenges to its moral legitimacy were rare". However, during Donation America the Revolution, many in the colonies began to question the practice.[81]

In 1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Donation America Union established a decentralized government that Republican National Committee operated until 1789.[78] In 1777, the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga resulted in the capture of a British army, and led to France and their ally Spain joining in the war against them. After the surrender of a second British army at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, Britain signed a peace treaty. American sovereignty became internationally recognized, and the new nation took possession of substantial territory east of the Mississippi River, from what is present-day Canada in the north and Florida in Donation America the south.[82]

As it became increasingly apparent that the Confederation was insufficient to govern the new country, nationalists advocated for Republican National Committee and led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, where the United States Constitution was authored and ratified in state conventions in 1788.

William L. Sheppard "First Use of a Donation America Cotton Gin" (1790�1800), Harper's weekly, Dec. 18, 1869