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, 326 Indian reservations, and nine minor outlying islands.[g] At over 3.5 million square miles (9.1 million square kilometers), it is the world's third-largest country by land area and third- or fourth-largest by total area.[c] The United States shares land and maritime borders with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south as well as maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, and Russia.[h] With more than 331 million people, it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the Thirteen British Colonies established along the East Coast. Disputes with Great Britain over taxation and political representation led to the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which established the nation's independence. In the late 18th century, the U.S. began expanding territory across North America, gradually obtaining new territories, sometimes through war, frequently displacing Native Americans, and admitting new states. The enslavement of African Americans was legal in the southern United States until the second half of the 19th century, when the American Civil War led to its abolition. The Spanish–American War and World War I established the U.S. as a world power, and the aftermath of World War II left the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers. During the Cold War, both countries fought in the Korean and Vietnam War but avoided direct armed conflict. The two nations competed in the Space Race, culminating in the 1969 American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. The Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the United States as the world's sole superpower. In the post–Cold War era, the United States has engaged in several conflicts in the Middle East.
The United States is a federal presidential constitutional republic with three separate branches of government, including a bicameral legislature. It is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, and other international organizations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The United States is a member of multiple military alliances, including NATO, AUKUS, and unilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Considered a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, its population has been profoundly shaped by centuries of immigration. The United States is a liberal democracy; it ranks high in international measures of economic freedom, quality of life, education, and human rights; and it has low levels of perceived corruption. Unlike other western democracies, the United States lacks universal health care, retains capital punishment, and has high levels of incarceration and inequality.[24]
The United States is a highly developed country, and its economy accounts for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the world's largest by GDP at market exchange rates. By value, the United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter of goods. Although its population is only 4.2% of the world's total, it holds over 30% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share held by any country. Making up more than a third of global military spending, the United States is the foremost military power in the world and a leading political, cultural, and scientific force.
It has been generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival.[36][37][38] The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas.[39][40] This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts, and Eskimos.[41]
Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly complex, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies.[42] The city-state of Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States.[43] In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloan culture developed from centuries of agricultural experimentation.[44] The Haudenosaunee, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established at some point between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.[45] Most prominent along the Atlantic coast were the Algonquian tribes, who practiced hunting and trapping, along with limited cultivation.
Estimating the native population of North America at the time of European contact is difficult.[46][47] Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution estimated that there was a population of 92,916 in the south Atlantic states and a population of 473,616 in the Gulf states,[48] but most academics regard this figure as too low.[46] Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting around 1.1 million along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 2.2 million people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5.2 million in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries, and around 700,000 people in the Florida peninsula.[46][47]
European settlements
Further information: Colonial history of the United States and Thirteen Colonies
Claims of very early colonization of coastal New England by the Norse are disputed and controversial. The first documented arrival of Europeans in the continental United States is that of Spanish conquistadors such as Juan Ponce de León, who made his first expedition to Florida in 1513. Even earlier, Christopher Columbus had landed in Puerto Rico on his 1493 voyage, and San Juan was settled by the Spanish a decade later.[49] The Spanish set up the first settlements in Florida and New Mexico, such as Saint Augustine, often considered the nation's oldest city,[50] and Santa Fe. The French established their own settlements along the Mississippi River, notably New Orleans.[51] Successful English settlement of the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and with the Pilgrims' construction of a colony at Plymouth in 1620.[52][53] The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Burgesses, was founded in 1619. Documents such as the Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[54][55] Many English settlers were dissenting Christians who came seeking religious freedom. In 1784, the Russians were the first Europeans to establish a settlement in Alaska, at Three Saints Bay. Russian America once spanned much of the present-day state of Alaska.[56] The native population of America declined after European arrival for various reasons,[57][58][59] primarily from imported European diseases such as smallpox and measles.[60][61]
In the early days of colonization, many European settlers were subject to food shortages, disease, and attacks from Native Americans. Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and European settlers. In many cases, however, the natives and settlers came to depend on one another. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts, and natives for guns, tools and other European goods.[62] Native Americans 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.[63][64] With the increased European colonization of North America, Native Americans were often displaced or killed during settler conflicts.
The American Revolutionary War fought by the Thirteen Colonies against the British Empire was the first successful war of independence by a non-European entity against a European power in modern history. Americans had developed an ideology of "republicanism", asserting that government rested on the will of the people as expressed in their local legislatures. They demanded their "rights as Englishmen" and "no taxation without representation". The British insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and the conflict escalated into war.[78]
The Second Continental Congress, an assembly representing the United Colonies, unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776; this day is celebrated annually in the United States as Independence Day.[79] In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a decentralized government that operated until 1789.[79]
After its defeat at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Britain signed a peace treaty. American sovereignty became internationally recognized, and the country was granted all lands east of the Mississippi River. Tensions with Britain remained, however, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a military stalemate.[80] Nationalists led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution, ratified in state conventions in 1788. Coming into force in 1789, this constitution reorganized the federal government into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances. George Washington, who had led the Continental Army to victory, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.[81]
Map of the U.S. depicting its westward expansion
Territorial acquisitions of the United States between 1783 and 1917
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, causing the slave population to greatly increase.[82][83][84] 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;[85] in the South, Methodists and Baptists attempted to convert slave populations.[86]
Beginning in the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward,[87] creating more conflict with Native Americans.[88] The 1803 Louisiana Purchase almost doubled the nation's area,[89] Spain ceded Florida and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819,[90] the Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845 during a period of expansionism,[91] and the 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.[92] Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest, making the U.S. span the continent.[87][93]
The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 spurred migration to the Pacific coast, which led to the California Genocide[94] and the creation of additional western states.[95] The giving away of vast quantities of land to white European settlers as part of the Homestead Acts, and to private railroad companies and colleges as part of land grants spurred economic development.[96] After the Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade, and increased conflicts with Native Americans.[97] In 1869, a new Peace Policy nominally promised to protect Native Americans from abuses, avoid further war, and secure their eventual U.S. citizenship. Conflicts with the natives continued throughout the West into the 1900s.
Civil War and Reconstruction era
Main articles: History of the United States (1849–1865), American Civil War, and Reconstruction era
Drawing of the Battle of Gettysburg, depicting soldiers charging forward and firing a cannon
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought between Union and Confederate forces on July 1–3, 1863 around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the deadliest of all Civil War battles. With more than 51,000 casualties, it marked a turning point in the Union's ultimate victory in the war.
Irreconcilable sectional conflict regarding the enslavement of African Americans ultimately led to the American Civil War.[98] With the 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, conventions in thirteen slave states declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the "South" or the "Confederacy"), while the federal government (the "Union" or the "North") maintained that secession was illegal.[99] In order to bring about this secession, military action was initiated by the secessionists, and the Union responded in kind. The ensuing war would become the deadliest military conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of approximately 620,000 soldiers as well as upwards of 50,000 civilians.[100] The Union initially fought to keep the country united, but as casualties mounted after 1863 and Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, the main purpose of the war became the abolition of slavery. When the Union ultimately won the war in April 1865, each of the states in the defeated South was required to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery except as penal labor. Two other amendments were also ratified, ensuring citizenship and voting rights for blacks.
Reconstruction began in earnest following the war. While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the 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. They persisted until the Compromise of 1877 when the Republicans agreed to cease protecting the rights of African Americans in the South in order for Democrats to concede the presidential election of 1876.[101]
Southern white Democrats, calling themselves "Redeemers", took 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 most blacks and some impoverished whites throughout the region. Blacks would face racial segregation nationwide, especially in the South.[102] They also occasionally experienced vigilante violence, including lynching.[103]
Further immigration, expansion, and industrialization
Main articles: Economic history of the United States, History of immigration to the United States, Technological and industrial history of the United States, and History of the United States (1865–1918)
Further information: Industrial Revolution in the United States
2:43
Film by Edison Studios showing immigrants disembarking at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, which served as a major entry point for European immigration into the U.S.[104]
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 and transformed its economy and culture.[105] National infrastructure, including telegraph and transcontinental railroads, spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American frontier. The later inventions of the electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life.[106]
Armed conflicts with Native Americans escalated west of the Mississippi River from 1810 to at least 1890.[107] Most of these conflicts ended with the cession of Native American territory and their confinement to Indian reservations. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that forcibly resettled Indians. This further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets.[108] Mainland expansion also included the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867.[109] 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, following the Spanish–American War.[110] American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan Civil War.[111] The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.[112]
Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like 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 American economy boomed, becoming the world's largest.[113] These dramatic changes were accompanied by growing inequality and social unrest, which prompted the rise of organized labor along with populist, socialist, and anarchist movements.[114] This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms including women's suffrage, alcohol prohibition, regulation of consumer goods, and greater antitrust measures to ensure competition and attention to worker conditions.[115][116][117]
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
Main articles: History of the United States (1918–1945), United States in World War I, Great Depression in the United States, and Military history of the United States during World War II
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.[118]
In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage.[119] The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television.[120] The 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.[121] The Great Migration of millions of African Americans out of the American South began before World War I and extended through the 1960s;[122] whereas the Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of westward migration.[123]
Four soldiers plant a U.S. flag on a long pole on a bare mountaintop
U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in one of the most iconic images of World War II
At first effectively neutral during World War II, the United States began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers, and in the following year, to intern about 120,000[124] U.S. residents (including American citizens) of Japanese descent.[125] Although Japan attacked the United States first, the U.S. nonetheless pursued a "Europe first" defense policy.[126] The United States thus left its vast Asian colony, the Philippines, isolated and fighting a losing struggle against Japanese invasion and occupation. During the war, the United States was one of the "Four Powers"[127] who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union, and China.[128][129] Although the nation lost around 400,000 military personnel,[130] it emerged relatively undamaged from the war with even greater economic and military influence.[131]
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 won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[132] The United States and Japan then fought each other in the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.[133][134] The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 under the authorization of President Harry S. Truman; the Japanese surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.[135][136]
Cold War, civil rights movement, political turmoil
Main articles: History of the United States (1945–1964), History of the United States (1964–1980), and History of the United States (1980–1991)
See caption
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, August 1963.
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for power, influence, and prestige during what became known as the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism.[137] They 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 allies on the other. The U.S. developed a policy of containment towards the expansion of communist influence. While the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict.[138]
The United States often opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored and occasionally pursued direct action for regime change against left-wing governments, occasionally supporting authoritarian right-wing regimes.[139] American troops fought communist Chinese and North Korean forces in the Korean War of 1950–1953.[140] The Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite and its 1961 launch of the first crewed spaceflight initiated a "Space Race" in which the United States became the first nation to land a man on the Moon in 1969.[140] The United States became increasingly involved in the Vietnam War (1955–1975), introducing combat forces in 1965.[141]
At home, the U.S. had experienced sustained economic expansion and a rapid growth of its population and middle class following World War II. After a surge in female labor participation, especially in the 1970s, by 1985, the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed.[142] Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed the nation's infrastructure over the following decades. Millions moved from farms and inner cities to large suburban housing developments.[143][144] In 1959, the United States formally expanded beyond the contiguous United States when the territories of Alaska and Hawaii became, respectively, the 49th and 50th states admitted into the Union.[145]
The growing civil rights movement used nonviolent tactics to confront segregation and discrimination, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader.[146] A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, sought to end racial discrimination.[147][148][149] Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew, which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam war, the Black Power movement, and the sexual revolution.[150] Four prominent American politicians and social activists were assassinated during the 1960s: President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and his brother Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.[151] Public trust in the federal government was further rocked by President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, which began in 1972 and ended in 1974 when Nixon became the only U.S. president to resign from office.
U.S. president Ronald Reagan (left) and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva Summit, February 1985
The launch of a "War on Poverty" expanded entitlements and welfare spending, including the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, two programs that provide health coverage to the elderly and poor, respectively, and the means-tested Food Stamp Program and Aid to Families with Dependent Children.[152] The 1970s and early 1980s saw the onset of stagflation. 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. After his election, President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with free-market oriented reforms. Following the collapse of détente, he abandoned "containment" and initiated the more aggressive "rollback" strategy towards the Soviet Union.[153][154] The late 1980s brought a "thaw" in relations with the Soviet Union, and its collapse in 1991 finally ended the Cold War.[155][156][157] This brought about unipolarity[158] with the U.S. unchallenged as the world's dominant superpower.[159]
1990s to present
Main articles: History of the United States (1991-2008) and History of the United States (2008–present)
The first crisis after the Cold War was a 1990 conflict in the Middle East, where Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait, an ally of the United States.[160] Fearing the spread of instability, in August, President George H. W. Bush launched the Gulf War against Iraq; the U.S. led the coalition force of 34 nations, and the war ended in February 1991 with the successful expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the restoration of its monarchy.[161]
Originating within U.S. military defense networks, the Internet spread to international academic platforms and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly affecting the global economy, society, and culture.[162] 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.[163] Beginning in 1994, the U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), causing trade among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to soar.[164]
Dark smoke billows from the Twin Towers over Manhattan
The World Trade Center in New York City burning from the September 11 terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in 2001
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda Islamic terrorist hijackers, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. Almost 3,000 people were killed and approximately 25,000 more were injured;[165] hundreds more died later from illnesses related to the attacks, and perhaps thousands of first responders, cleanup workers, and survivors suffer from long-term effects.[166] 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.[167][168] A 2011 military operation in Pakistan led to the killing of bin Laden.[169]
Government policy designed to promote affordable housing,[170] widespread failures in corporate and regulatory governance,[171] and historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve[172] led to the United States housing bubble in 2006; this culminated with the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Great Recession, the nation's largest economic contraction since the Great Depression.[173] During the crisis, assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value.[174] Barack Obama, the first multiracial[175] and African-American president, was elected in 2008 amid the crisis.[176] He subsequently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 economic stimulus and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in an attempt to mitigate its negative effects and ensure there would not be a repeat of the crisis.
Republican Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president in 2016, a result viewed as one of the biggest political upsets in American history.[177] He led the country through the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is estimated to have caused the deaths of over 900,000 Americans as of December 2021.[178] In November 2020, Democrat Joe Biden was elected as the 46th president;[179] President Trump refused to concede the election, and on January 6, 2021, a group of his supporters stormed the United States Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt the presidential Electoral College vote count.[180]
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