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Afghanistan
{{Infobox country
http://wn.com/Afghanistan -
Alabama
Alabama () is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland waterways. The state ranks 23rd in population with almost 4.6 million residents in 2006.
http://wn.com/Alabama -
Alaska
Alaska () is the largest state of the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Approximately half of Alaska's 698,473 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. As of 2009, Alaska remains the least densely populated state of the U.S.
http://wn.com/Alaska -
Albania
Albania ( , , Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia/Shqypnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (, pronounced ), is a country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
http://wn.com/Albania -
Aleutian Islands
http://wn.com/Aleutian_Islands -
Algeria
http://wn.com/Algeria -
Americas
The Americas, or America, (, , , , , , ) are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. The plural form the Americas is often used in English, as the singular America is ambiguous: America is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 13.5% of the human population (about 900 million people).
http://wn.com/Americas -
Andorra
Andorra , officially the Principality of Andorra (), also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, (), is a small country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of and an estimated population of 83,888 in 2009. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, being at an elevation of 1023 metres. The official language is Catalan, although Spanish, French, and Portuguese are also commonly spoken.
http://wn.com/Andorra -
Anguilla
Anguilla ( ) is a British overseas territory in the Caribbean, one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. It consists of the main island of Anguilla itself, approximately long by wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The island's capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is , with a population of approximately 13,500 (2006 estimate).
http://wn.com/Anguilla -
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda (; Spanish for "ancient" and "bearded") is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands (including Great Bird, Green, Guinea, Long, Maiden and York Islands). Separated by a few sea miles, the group is in the middle of the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 17 degrees north of the Equator. Being a former part of the British Empire has strongly influenced the country's governance, language, and culture.
http://wn.com/Antigua_and_Barbuda -
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic (, ), is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico, Colombia and Spain are more populous.
http://wn.com/Argentina -
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquin name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares a border with six states, with its eastern border largely defined by the Mississippi River. Its diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River. The capital and most populous city is Little Rock, located in the central portion of the state.
http://wn.com/Arkansas -
Armenia
http://wn.com/Armenia -
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but ' the Armory Show refers to the International Exhibition of Modern Art' that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors and opened in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, on February 17, 1913, ran to March 15, and became a legendary watershed date in the history of American art, introducing astonished New Yorkers, accustomed to realistic art, to modern art. The show served as a catalyst for American artists, who became more independent and created their own "artistic language".
http://wn.com/Armory_Show -
Aruba
http://wn.com/Aruba -
Atlanta
Atlanta (, ) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. Atlanta had an estimated population of about 540,900 people. Its metropolitan area is the ninth largest in the country, inhabited by more than 5.4 million people. The Atlanta Combined Statistical Area has a population approaching six million, making it the most populous metropolis in the Southeastern United States. Like many areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth since about 1976, and it added about 1.1 million residents between 2000 and 2008.
http://wn.com/Atlanta -
Australia
{{Infobox country
http://wn.com/Australia -
Austria
Austria or (), officially the Republic of Austria (German: ), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below , and its highest point is . The majority of the population speaks German, which is also the country's official language. Other local official languages are Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
http://wn.com/Austria -
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan ( ; ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (), is one of the six independent Turkic states in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south.
http://wn.com/Azerbaijan -
Barbados
Barbados ()or (Bar-bay-dos) is an island nation of the Lesser Antilles, in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic Ocean and 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and north-east of Venezuela. Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt.
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Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg (locally , with an ss sound), fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.
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Belarus
Belarus, ( ; , ), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mogilev (Mahilyow) and Vitebsk (Viciebsk). Forty percent of its is forested, and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.
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Belgium
Belgium (, ), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, as well as those of several other major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of , and it has a population of about 10.8 million people.
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Belize
Belize () (formerly British Honduras), is a democratic constitutional monarchy, and the northernmost Central American nation. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Although Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language. Belize is bordered by Mexico to its north, by Guatemala to its south and west, and by the Caribbean Sea to the east.
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Bering Strait
[[Image:dateliner cam.jpg|thumb|200px|right|[http://209.165.175.132/sample/LvAppl/lvappl.htm A US-based webcam] providing a view across the Bering Strait]]
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Bermuda
Bermuda (; officially, the Bermudas or Somers Islands) is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida. Its capital city is Hamilton but the largest municipality is the town of Saint George's.
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Bhutan
The Kingdom of Bhutan () (Dzongkha: ; Wylie: '' 'drug yul; Tibetan pinyin: ''), is a small landlocked country in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China . Bhutan is separated from the nearby state of Nepal to the west by the Indian state of Sikkim, and from Bangladesh to the south by West Bengal.
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Bolivia
Bolivia (), officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, (, ) is a landlocked country in central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina to the south, and Chile and Peru to the west.
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Bonaire
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Boston
Boston (pronounced ) is the capital and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. Boston city proper had a 2009 estimated population of 645,169, making it the twentieth largest in the country. Boston is also the anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called Greater Boston, home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region includes six Massachusetts counties, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Plymouth, and Worcester, all of Rhode Island and parts of New Hampshire; it is home to 7.5 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.
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Botswana
The Republic of Botswana () is a sub Saharan country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" (singular: Motswana). Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. It has held free and fair democratic elections since independence.
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Brazil
Brazil (; , ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (, ), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
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British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-quarter of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 13 million square miles (34 million km2), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its political, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.
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Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 large professional theatres with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan, New York City.Although theater is the preferred spelling in the U.S.A. (see further at American and British English Spelling Differences), the majority of venues, performers, and trade groups for live dramatic presentations use the spelling theatre. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.
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Bulgaria
Bulgaria ( , Balgariya, ), officially the Republic of Bulgaria (, Republika Balgariya, ), is a country in Southern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north (mostly along the Danube), Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea defines the extent of the country to the east.
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California
California (pronounced ) is the most populous state in the United States and the third-largest by land area, after Alaska and Texas. California is also the most populous sub-national entity in North America. It's on the U.S. West Coast, bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and by the states of Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, Baja California, Mexico, to the south. Its 5 largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Long Beach, with Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose each having at least 1 million residents. Like many populous states, California's capital, Sacramento is smaller than the state's largest city, Los Angeles. The state is home to the nation's 2nd- and 6th-largest census statistical areas and 8 of the nation's 50 most populous cities. California has a varied climate and geography and a multi-cultural population.
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Cambodia
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Cameroon
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Canada
Canada () is a country in North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area. Canada's common border with the United States to the south and northwest is the longest in the world.
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Caribbean
The CaribbeanPronounced or . Both pronunciations are equally valid; indeed, they see equal use even within areas of the Caribbean itself. Cf. Royal Caribbean, which stresses the second syllable. In this case, as a proper noun, those who would normally pronounce it a different way may use the pronunciation associated with the noun when referring to it. More generic nouns such as the Caribbean Community are generally referred to using the speaker's preferred pronunciation.; Dutch ; or more commonly Antilles is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (most of which enclose the sea), and the surrounding coasts. The region is located southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and North America, east of Central America, and to the north of South America.
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Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands ( or ) is a British Overseas Territory located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica. It is considered a part of the geographic Western Caribbean Zone. The territory is a major offshore financial centre in the Caribbean.
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Chicago
Chicago ( or ) is the largest city in the state of Illinois. With over 2.8 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous city in the country. Its metropolitan area, commonly named "Chicagoland," is the 26th most populous in the world, home to an estimated 9.7 million people spread across the U.S. states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County.
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Chile
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China
China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
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Christmas Island
The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It is located northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and ENE of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
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Colombia
Colombia (), officially the Republic of Colombia (, ), is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia also shares maritime borders with Venezuela, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. With a population of over 45 million people, Colombia has the 29th largest population in the world and the second largest in South America, after Brazil. Colombia has the fourth largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico, the United States, and Spain.
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Colorado
Colorado (pronounced or, chiefly by outsiders, ) is a U.S. state that encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Mountain States, and the Southwestern United States.
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Connecticut
Connecticut () (state code CT) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and New York to the west and south (because various islands of New York span Connecticut's entire coast).
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Cook Islands
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Costa Rica
:For the plant genus Costarica, see its synonym Sicyos.
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Croatia
Croatia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska ), is a country in Central Europe and Southeastern Europe at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Adriatic Sea. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. Croatia borders Slovenia to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the southeast, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast.
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Cuba
The Republic of Cuba (; , ) is an island country in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos.
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Curaçao
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Cyprus
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Czech Republic
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Dallas
Dallas () is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. As of 2009, the population of Dallas was at 1.3 million according to the US Census Bureau. The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county metropolitan area that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had a population of roughly 6.5 million as of July 2009. The metropolitan area is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States.
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Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginia's first colonial governor, after whom (what is now called) Cape Henlopen was originally named.
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Delaware Valley
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Denmark
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District of Columbia
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Dominica
Dominica, ( ) officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. To the north-northwest lies Guadeloupe, to the southeast Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth of Dominica has an estimated population of 72,500. The capital is Roseau.
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Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic (; , ) is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries. Both by area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), with and an estimated 10 million people.
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Ecuador
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Egypt
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El Salvador
El Salvador (; , literally meaning "Republic of The Savior") is the smallest and also the most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as do Honduras and Nicaragua further south.
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Eritrea
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Ethiopia
{{Infobox country
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Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; ) are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located approximately from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago, consisting of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands, is a self-governing Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland.
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Fiji
Fiji (; ), officially the Republic of the Fiji Islands (; ), is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 2000 km northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its more immediate neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, France's New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast and Tuvalu to the north. Fiji has had inhabitants since the second millennium B.C. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch and the British explored Fiji.Fiji was a British colony up until 1970; British occupation lasted almost a century. Because of the abundance of forest, mineral, and fish resources, Fiji is one of the most developed economies in the Pacific island realm. Today, the main sources of foreign exchange are its tourist industry and sugar exports. The country's currency is the Fijian dollar.
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Finland
Finland (pronounced ), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden on the west, Norway on the north and Russia on the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
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Florida
Florida () is a state of the United States. It is located in the Southeastern United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. Much of the state's land mass is a large peninsula with the Gulf of Mexico to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Caribbean to the south. Florida was admitted as the 27th U.S. state in 1845, after a three hundred year period of European colonization.
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France
{{Infobox Country
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Gambia
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Genoa
Genoa ( , ; in Genoese and Ligurian: Zena, ; in Latin and, archaically, in English: Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000. Genoa's Metropolitan Area has a population of about 1,400,000. It is also called la Superba ("the Superb one") due to its glorious past. Part of the old city of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List (UNESCO) in 2006 (see below). The city's rich art, music, gastronomy, architecture and history, made it 2004's EU Capital of culture.
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Georgia (country)
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Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia () is a state located in the southeastern United States. Georgia was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 21, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870 and the only among the 13 that is explicitly named after a monarch; King George II of England.
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Germany
Germany (), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (, ), is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The territory of Germany covers 357.021 km2 and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state of the European Union, and home to the third-largest number of international migrants worldwide.
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Ghana
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Gibraltar
Gibraltar () is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean, overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory itself is a peninsula of whose isthmus connects to the north with Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the area and gives its name to the densely populated town, home to almost 30,000 Gibraltarians.
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Great Lakes
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Greater Cleveland
Greater Cleveland is a nickname for the metropolitan area surrounding Cleveland, Ohio and is part of what used to be the Connecticut Western Reserve.
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Greater Houston
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Greece
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Greenland
Greenland ( meaning "Land of the Kalaallit people"; ) is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Physiographically, it is a part of the continent of North America. The largest island in Greenland is also named Greenland, and makes up most of the country's land area.
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Grenada
Grenada () is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Grenada is located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
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Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe (; ; Antillean Creole: Gwadloup) is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres (629 sq. mi) and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe is also one of the twenty-six regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic since 2007.
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Guam
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Guatemala
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Guernsey
The Bailiwick of Guernsey ( ; , ) is a British Crown Dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.
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Guyana
Guyana ( ), officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is a state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana has been a former colony of the British, Dutch and for a brief period, the French. It is the only state of the Commonwealth of Nations on mainland South America, and is also a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which has its secretariat headquarters in Guyana's capital, Georgetown. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966 and became a Republic on 23 February 1970.
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Haiti
Haiti (; French , ; Haitian Creole: Ayiti, ), officially the Republic of Haiti ( ;
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Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia. Hampton Roads is notable for its year-round ice-free harbor, for United States Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, NASA, Marines, and Army facilities, shipyards, coal piers, and hundreds of miles of waterfront property and beaches, all of which contribute to the diversity and stability of the region's economy.
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Hawaii
: For geographic details see Geography and environment or Hawaiian Islands.
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Hollywood
Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California - situated west-northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonym of American cinema, and is often interchangeably used to refer to the greater Los Angeles area in general. The nicknames StarStruck Town and Tinseltown refer to Hollywood and its movie industry. Today, much of the movie industry has dispersed into surrounding areas such as the Westside neighborhood, but significant auxiliary industries, such as editing, effects, props, post-production, and lighting companies remain in Hollywood, as does the backlot of Paramount Pictures.
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Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign is a famous landmark in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The iconic sign spells out the name of the area in and white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition after the sign was left up. The sign was a frequent target of pranks and vandalism but has since undergone restoration, including a security system to deter vandalism. The sign is protected and promoted by the Hollywood Sign Trust, a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to physically maintain, repair and secure the sign, to educate the world about its historical and cultural importance, and to raise the funds necessary to accomplish these projects.
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Honduras
Honduras (, , ) is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras (now Belize). The country is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea.
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Hong Kong
Hong Kong () is one of two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the other being Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 95 percent ethnic Chinese and 5 percent from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
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Houston
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Hungary
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Iceland
:
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Idaho
Idaho is a state in the United States of America. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890 as the 43rd state.
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Illinois
Illinois ( {{respell|-i-), is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. It is the most populous state in the Midwest region, however with 65% of its residents concentrated in the Chicago metropolitan area, most of the state has either a rural or a small town character. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and western Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is an important transportation hub; the Port of Chicago connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. As the "most average state", Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics, though the latter has not really been true since the early 1970s.
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India
India (), officially the Republic of India ( ; see also official names of India), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east; and it is bordered by Pakistan to the west; Bhutan, the People's Republic of China and Nepal to the north; and Bangladesh and Burma to the east. In the Indian Ocean, mainland India and the Lakshadweep Islands are in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share maritime border with Thailand and the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the Andaman Sea. India has a coastline of .
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Indonesia
Indonesia ( or ), officially the Republic of Indonesia (), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With a population of around 238 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, and has the world's largest population of Muslims. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies.
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Insular area
An insular area is a United States territory, that is neither a part of one of the fifty U.S. states nor the District of Columbia, the federal district of the United States. They are called "insular" from the Latin word insula ("island") and because they were once administered by the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs, now the Office of Insular Affairs at the Interior Department. The term insular possession is also sometimes used, but has fallen out of favor.
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Invasion of Normandy
The invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in World War II. The invasion was the largest amphibious operation in history. This article covers from the initial landings on 6 June 1944, until the time of the Allied breakout in late July.
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Iowa
Iowa () is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland." It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New France. After the Louisiana Purchase, settlers laid the foundation for an agriculture-based economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is often known as the "Food Capital of the World", however Iowa's economy, culture, and landscape are diverse. In the mid and late 20th century, Iowa's agricultural economy transitioned to a diversified economy of advanced manufacturing, processing, financial services, biotechnology, and green energy production. Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in which to live. Des Moines is Iowa's capital and largest city.
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Iran
Iran ( ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Central Eurasia and Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was also known to the western world as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, Iran is the name used officially in political contexts.
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Ireland
Ireland (,; , ; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the northwest of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland is Great Britain, separated from it by the Irish Sea. The island is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers just under five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, which covers the remainder and is located in the northeast of the island. The population of Ireland is approximately 6.2 million people. Just under 4.5 million live in the Republic of Ireland and just under 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland.
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Isle of Man
The Isle of Man (; , ), otherwise known simply as Mann (, ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is represented by a Lieutenant Governor. The island is not part of the United Kingdom, but its foreign relations and defence are the responsibility of the UK Government. Although it does not usually interfere in the island's domestic matters, its "good government" is the ultimate responsibility of the Crown (i.e., in practice, the Government of the United Kingdom).
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Israel
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Italy
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Jamaica
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Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown, located, on Jamestown Island in the Virginia Colony, was founded on May 14, 1607. It is the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States of America, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. It was founded by the London Company (later to become the Virginia Company), headquartered in London. Within a year of Jamestown's foundation, the Company brought Polish and Dutch colonists to help improve the settlement. Located in James City County when it was formed in 1634 as one of the original eight shires of Virginia, Jamestown was the capital of the Colony for 83 years, from 1616 until 1699. At that time, the capital was relocated to Middle Plantation, about distant. (That small community, which had also become home to the new College of William and Mary in 1693, was renamed Williamsburg in 1699). The London Company's second settlement, Bermuda, claims the oldest town in the English New World, as St. George's, Bermuda was officially established (as New London) in 1612, where James Fort, in Virginia, is said not to have been converted into Jamestown until 1619. Jamestown ceased to exist as a settlement after the transfer of Virginia's capital to Williamsburg in 1699, existing, today, only as archaeological remains, whereas St. George's has continued in use throughout.
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Japan
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Jersey
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Johnston Atoll
Johnston Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean about 1,400 km (750 nmi) west of Hawaii. There are four islands located on the coral reef platform, two natural islands, Johnston Island and Sand Island, which have been expanded by coral dredging, as well as North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina), an additional two artificial islands formed by coral dredging.
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Jordan
{{Infobox Country
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Kansas
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Kartlis Deda
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Kazakhstan
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Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky () is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 it became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th largest state in terms of total area, the 36th largest in land area, and ranks 26th in population.
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Kenya
The Republic of Kenya (pronounced ) is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean to its southeast and at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Somalia to the northeast, Ethiopia to the north, Sudan to the northwest, Uganda to the west and Tanzania to the south. Lake Victoria is to the southwest and is shared between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya has numerous wildlife reserves, containing thousands of animal species. The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya's area is 580,000 km2 with a population of nearly 39 million which is diverse: more than 40 different ethnic groups are present. The country is named after Mount Kenya, a significant landmark and second among Africa's highest mountain peaks.
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Kiribati
Kiribati ( ; ), officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. It is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, (1,351,000 square miles) straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line at its easternmost point.
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Latvia
Latvia (; ), officially the Republic of Latvia () is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), and to the southeast by Belarus (141 km). Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies Sweden. The territory of Latvia covers and it has a temperate seasonal climate.
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Lesotho
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Liberia
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Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.
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Liechtenstein
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Lithuania
Lithuania (, U.S. usually ; ), officially the Republic of Lithuania () is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the southwest.
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; , Spanish for "The Angels") is the second most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of California and the western United States, with a population of 3.83 million within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Los Angeles extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of over 14.8 million and it is the 14th largest urban area in the world, affording it megacity status. The metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is home to nearly 12.9 million residents while the broader Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside combined statistical area (CSA) contains nearly 17.8 million people. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most multicultural counties in the United States. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos" ().
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Louisiana
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Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (, , ), is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. Luxembourg has a population of over half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres (999 sq mi).
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Maine
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Malawi
The Republic of Malawi (; Chichewa ) is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size is over with an estimated population of more than 13,900,000. Its capital is Lilongwe, the second largest city is Blantyre and the third large city is Mzuzu. The name Malawi comes from the Maravi, an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area.
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Malaysia
Malaysia (pronounced or ) is a federal constitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of . The country is separated by the South China Sea into two regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo (also known as West and East Malaysia respectively). Malaysia shares land borders with Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei and has maritime boundaries with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population as of 2009 stood at over 28 million.
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Malta
Malta , officially the Republic of Malta (), is a southern European country and consists of an archipelago situated centrally in the Mediterranean, 93 km south of Sicily and 288 km east of Tunisia, with the Strait of Gibraltar 1,826 km to the west and Alexandria 1,510 km to the east.
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Manhattan
Manhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York. It consists of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent islands: Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island, Wards Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, part of Ellis Island, and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a small section on the mainland adjacent to the Bronx. The original city of New York began at the southern end of Manhattan, and expanded in 1898 to include surrounding counties. It is the smallest, yet most urbanized of the five boroughs.
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Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. The population is about 62,000. In 1986 independence was attained under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
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Martinique
Martinique () is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados. As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the twenty-six regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic. The Island was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1502.
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Maryland
Maryland () is an American state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maryland has the highest median household income of any state, with a median income of $70,545. Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution, and three nicknames for it, the Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State are occasionally used.
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Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts () is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of 6.6 million lives in the Boston metropolitan area. The eastern half of the state consists of urban, suburban, and rural areas, while Western Massachusetts is mostly rural. Massachusetts is the most populous of the six New England states and ranks third among U.S. states in GDP per capita.
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Mauritius
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Metro Detroit
The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is the metropolitan area located in Southeast Michigan centered on the city of Detroit. The Detroit metropolitan area is the second largest U.S. metropolitan area linking the Great Lakes system. U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command (TACOM) is headquartered in Metro Detroit together with Selfridge Air National Guard Base. As a major metropolitan area, it is known for its automotive heritage, arts, and popular music legacies.
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Mexico
Mexico, (pronounced ; ), officially known as the United Mexican States (), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost 2 million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth-largest country in the Americas by total area and the 14th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of 111 million, it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Hispanophone country on Earth. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
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Miami
Miami ( or ) is a major city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida, and the eighth-most populous county in the United States, with a population of 2,500,625. The 42nd largest city in the United States, with a population of 433,136, it is the principal, central and most populous city of the South Florida metropolitan area. According to United Nations estimates, the Miami Urbanized Area was the fifth most populous urbanized area in the U.S. in 2000 with a population of 4,919,036, but in 2008 that number increased to 5,232,342, making it the fourth-largest urbanized area in the United States, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
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Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is a French corruption of the Ojibwe word mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake".
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Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system (OS) market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of OSs. The ensuing rise of stock in the company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) made an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Microsoft would come to dominate other markets as well, notably the office suite market with Microsoft Office.
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Minnesota
Minnesota () is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.27 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water". Those waters, together with forests, parks, and wilderness areas, offer residents and tourists a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities.
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Mississippi
Mississippi () is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, which namesake is from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, and its catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States. The state symbol is the magnolia grandiflora tree.
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Missouri
Missouri () (abbreviated MO) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2009 estimated population of 5,987,580, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city. Missouri's capital is Jefferson City. The four largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. Missouri was originally acquired from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase and became defined as the Missouri Territory. Part of the Missouri Territory was admitted into the union as the 24th state on August 10, 1821.
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Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan/) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldovan SSR in 1991, as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A strip of Moldova's internationally recognized territory on the east bank of the river Dniester has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990.
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Monaco
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Mongolia
Mongolia (; ) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 38% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.
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Montana
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Montenegro
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Montserrat
Montserrat () is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. It measures approximately 16 km (10 miles) long and 11 km (7 miles) wide, giving of coastline. Christopher Columbus gave Montserrat its name on his second voyage to the New World in 1493, after Montserrat mountain located in Catalonia. Montserrat is nicknamed the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish descent of its inhabitants.
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Morocco
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Mother Armenia
Mother Armenia ( Mayr Hayastan) is the female personification of Armenia. Her most visual rendering is a monumental statue in Victory Park overlooking the capital city of Yerevan, Armenia.
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Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia (, ), is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990 following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth of Nations.
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NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( ; ), also called the "(North) Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and the organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
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Nauru
Nauru ( ), officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island nation in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 300 km to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest island nation, covering just .
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Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state located on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha.
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Netherlands
{{Infobox country
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Nevada
Nevada is a state located in the western and southwestern region of the United States. Nevada is also part of the Mountain States. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas. The state's nickname is Silver State, due to the large number of silver deposits that were discovered and mined there. "Sagebrush State" and "Battle Born State" are its alternative nicknames. In 1864, Nevada became the 36th state to enter the union, and the phrase "Battle Born" on the state flag reflects the state's entry on the Union side during the American Civil War. Its first nonnative settlement was called Mormon Station.
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New Hampshire
New Hampshire () is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. New Hampshire ranks 44th in land area, 46th in total area of the 50 states, and 41st in population.
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New Jersey
New Jersey (, ) is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the northeast by New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey lies largely within the sprawling metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. It is the most densely populated state in the United States.
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New Mexico
New Mexico() is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also part of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth- most sparsely inhabited U.S. state.
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New Orleans
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New York
New York (; locally or ) is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the north and west, and Quebec to the north. New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.
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New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental, commercial, and ecological usages. Originally used to refer to the Upper New York Bay, the term is also used to describe the Port of New York and New Jersey, the port district for New York-Newark metropolitan area, under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority.
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New Zealand
{{Infobox Country
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Nicaragua
Nicaragua ( ) officially the Republic of Nicaragua (, ), is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of the country, the Caribbean Sea to the east. The country's Caribbean coast is part of the Western Caribbean Zone. Falling within the tropics, Nicaragua sits between 11 degrees and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere. Nicaragua's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems contribute to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot. The capital city of Nicaragua is Managua. Roughly one quarter of the nation's population lives in the Nicaraguan capital, making it the second largest city and metropolitan area in Central America (following Guatemala City).
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Nigeria
Nigeria (), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims and Christians with a very small minority who practice traditional religion.
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Niue
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Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island (Norfuk: Norfuk Ailen ) is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance. Together with two neighbouring islands, it forms one of Australia's external territories.
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North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the Southern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte. North Carolina is now ranked as one of the top 3 leading States for Green Technology, Bio-Chemical Engineering, Medical Sciences, and Computer Engineering through the long-range research and development programs of Research Triangle Park (RTP), UNC Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State .
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North Dakota
North Dakota () is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border, about halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Lakes. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the U.S. It is also the third least populous, with only about 646,850 residents as of 2009. North Dakota was carved out of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with South Dakota.
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North Korea
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Norway
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Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,
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Oklahoma
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Oregon
Oregon ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern boundaries, respectively. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers, and settlers who formed an autonomous government in Oregon Country in 1843; the Oregon Territory was created in 1848, and Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859. Salem is the state's capital and third-most-populous city; Portland is the most populous. Portland is the 30th-largest U.S. city, with a population of 582,130 (2009 estimate) and a metro population of 2,241,841 (2009 estimate), the 23rd-largest U.S. metro area.
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Oregon Country
The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from the Columbia River frequented by ships from all nations engaged in the maritime fur trade, most of these from the 1790s through 1810s being Boston-based. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 ended disputed joint occupancy pursuant to the Treaty of 1818 and established the British-American boundary at the 49th parallel.
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Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
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Pakistan
{{Infobox country
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Palau
Palau , officially the Republic of Palau (), is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles (800 km) east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) south of Tokyo. Having emerged from United Nations trusteeship (administered by the United States) in 1994, it is one of the world's youngest and smallest sovereign states. In English, the name is sometimes spelled Belau in accordance with the native pronunciation. It was formerly also spelled Pelew.
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Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll () is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as a unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government. The variable temporary population of 4–20 'non-occupants' are essentially staff and scientists employed by various departments of the U.S. federal government and The Nature Conservancy, as well as a rotating mix of Palymra Atoll Research Consortium scholars pursuing research.
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Panama
Panama (), officially the Republic of Panama (; ), is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital is Panama City.
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea ( , also or ; Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini) (PNG), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby.
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Paraguay
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Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania () is a U.S. state and Commonwealth located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to the east. The state's four most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie. The state capital is Harrisburg.
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Philadelphia
Philadelphia () is the largest city in Pennsylvania, sixth-most-populous city in the United States and the fifty-first most populous city in the world.
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Philippines
The Philippines ( ), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (), is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.
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Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( , O'odham Skikik, Yavapai Wasinka, Western Apache Fiinigis, Navajo Hoozdoh, Mojave ''Hachpa 'Anya Nyava) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the fifth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,601,587 people according to the 2009 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau, and is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area (also known as the Valley of the Sun''), the 12th largest metro area by population in the United States with more than 4.3 million people. In addition, Phoenix is the county seat of Maricopa County, and is one of the largest cities in the United States by land area.
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Pitcairn Islands
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Poland
Poland (), officially the Republic of Poland (Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is , making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous Slavic member.
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Portugal
Portugal (, ), officially the Portuguese Republic (; ), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are also part of Portugal.
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Puerto Rico
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Republic of China
The Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as Taiwan, is a state in East Asia located off the east coast of mainland China. Subject to an ongoing dispute with the People's Republic of China (PRC) that has left it with limited formal diplomatic relations, the government of the Republic of China currently governs the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor islands. Neighbouring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south.
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Republic of Hawaii
The Republic of Hawaii was the formal name of the government that controlled Hawaii from 1894 to 1898 when it was run as a republic. The republic period occurred between the administration of the Provisional Government of Hawaii which ended on July 4, 1894 and the adoption of the Newlands Resolution in the United States Congress in which the Republic was annexed to the United States and became the Territory of Hawaii on July 7, 1898.
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Republic of Ireland
Ireland (, , , ), described as the Republic of Ireland (), is a state in northwest Europe with a population of almost 4.5 million people. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional republic occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned into two jurisdictions in 1921. It is bordered to the northeast by Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom, and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea to the east, St George's Channel to the southeast, and the Celtic Sea to the south.
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Research Triangle
Raleigh-Durham or The Research Triangle, commonly referred to as simply "The Triangle", is a region in the Piedmont of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the research universities of North Carolina State University, Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill respectively. The eight-county region, officially named the Raleigh-Durham-Cary CSA, comprises the Raleigh-Cary and Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan areas and the Dunn Micropolitan Statistical Area. A 2009 Census Estimate put the population at 1,742,816. The Raleigh-Durham television market includes a broader 23-county area which includes Fayetteville, and has a population of 2,726,000 persons.
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Rhode Island
The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island ( or ), is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area. Rhode Island borders Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the north and east, and it shares a water boundary with New York's Long Island to the southwest.
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Romania
Romania ( ; dated: Rumania; ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south.
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Russia
Russia (; ), also officially known as the Russian Federation (), is a state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the United States by the Bering Strait. At , Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of the Earth's land area. Russia is also the ninth most populous nation with 142 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 9 time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources. It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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Rwanda
The Republic of Rwanda (, , or in English, or in Kinyarwanda) is a unitary republic of central and eastern Africa. It borders Uganda to the north; Tanzania to the east; Burundi to the south; and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Rwanda is landlocked but is noted for its lakes, particularly Lake Kivu, which occupies the floor of the Rift Valley along most of the country's western border. Although close to the equator, the country has a temperate climate due to its high elevation, with the highest point being Mount Karisimbi. The terrain consists of mountains and gently rolling hills, with plains and swamps in the east. Abundant wildlife, including rare mountain gorillas, have led to a fast-growing tourism sector. The largest cities in Rwanda are Kigali, Gitarama, and Butare. Unlike many African countries, Rwanda is home to only one significant ethnic and linguistic group, the Banyarwanda. The country is well known for its native styles of dance, particularly the Intore dance, and for its drummers. Kinyarwanda, English and French are the official languages.
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Saba
Saba () is a Caribbean island and the smallest special municipality of the Netherlands, located at . It consists largely of the potentially active volcano Mount Scenery (877 m), the highest point of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Netherlands proper.
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Saint Barthélemy
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Saint Helena
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Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia (; ) is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 (238 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 160,000. Its capital is Castries. The island nation has been the home of two Nobel laureates, Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott. It is the nation with the second most such honorees per capita after Faroe Islands.
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Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa and German Samoa, is a country governing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in Polynesia, Savai'i. The capital city Apia and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu.
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San Francisco
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San Jose, California
San Jose (; meaning St. Joseph in Spanish) is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the United States, and the county seat of Santa Clara County. Anchor to the 31st-largest metropolitan area in the country, it is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. The San Jose/Silicon Valley area is the population center of the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA), a region of nearly 7.5 million people, making it the sixth largest in the United States.
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San Marino
San Marino, officially the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( ; ), is a country situated on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave, in Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of almost 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino. One of the European microstates, along with Liechtenstein, the Vatican, Monaco, Andorra, and Malta, San Marino has the smallest population of all the members of the Council of Europe.
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Saudi Arabia
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Serbia
Serbia (pronounced: ), officially the Republic of Serbia (), is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central- and Southeastern Europe, covering the southern lowlands of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; its border with Albania is disputed. Serbia's capital city, Belgrade, is among the most populous in Southeastern Europe.
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Siege of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown or Battle of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis. It proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War in North America, as the surrender of Cornwallis's army prompted the British government eventually to negotiate an end to the conflict.
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Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone () (Krio: Sa Lone), officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has a population estimated at 6.5 million. It is a former British Colony and now a constitutional republic comprising three provinces and the Western Area; which are further divided into fourteen districts.
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Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, HP, Intel, Cisco, eBay, Adobe, Agilent, Oracle, Yahoo, Netflix, and EA. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the American high-tech sector. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States and the world, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for 1/3 of all of the venture capital investment in the United States. Geographically, the Silicon Valley encompasses all of the Santa Clara Valley including the city of San Jose (and adjacent communities), the southern Peninsula, and the southern East Bay.
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Singapore
{{Infobox Country
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Sint Eustatius
Sint Eustatius ( ), also known affectionately to the locals as Statia () or Statius, is a Caribbean island and a special municipality of the Netherlands. It lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands and immediately to the northwest of Saint Kitts and Nevis and to the southeast of Saba, at . The island is named after the legendary Christian martyr Saint Eustace. The regional capital is Oranjestad.
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Slovakia
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Slovenia
Slovenia ( ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (, ), is a country in Central Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy on the west, the Adriatic Sea on the southwest, Croatia on the south and east, Hungary on the northeast, and Austria on the north. The capital and largest city of Slovenia is Ljubljana.
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Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands ) is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (10,965 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
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Somaliland
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South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an independent country wholly surrounded by South African territory.
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South Carolina
South Carolina () is a state in the United States that borders Georgia to the south and North Carolina to the north. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was originally named by British King Charles II in honor of his father Charles I of England, as Carolus is Latin for Charles. South Carolina was the first state to vote to secede from the Union and was the founding state of the Confederate States of America. According to an estimate by the United States Census Bureau, the state's population in 2009 was 4,561,242 and ranked 24th among the U.S. states. South Carolina contains 46 counties and its capital is Columbia.
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South Dakota
South Dakota () is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over 800,000. Pierre is the state capital and Sioux Falls, with a population of nearly 160,000, is South Dakota's largest city.
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South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK, , ) and sometimes referred to simply as Korea, is a state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul. South Korea lies in a temperate climate region with a predominantly mountainous terrain. Its territory covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of .
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South Sudan
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Spain
Spain ( ; , ), officially the Kingdom of Spain (), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
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Sudan
Sudan (), officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and tenth largest in the world by area. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east,Kenya and Uganda to the southeast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west and Libya to the northwest. The world's longest river, the Nile, divides the country between east and west sides.
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Suriname
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Swaziland
The Kingdom of Swaziland (Umbuso weSwatini), sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique. The nation, as well as its people, are named after the 19th century king Mswati II.
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Sweden
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Switzerland
Switzerland (, , , ), officially the Swiss Confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
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Tajikistan
Tajikistan ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (, Jumhurii Tojikiston; , Respublika Tadzhikistan; Jomhuri-ye Tajikestan), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east. Tajikistan also lies adjacent to Pakistan and the Gilgit-Baltistan region, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor.
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Tampa Bay Area
:This article is about the demographic region. For the body of water, see Tampa Bay. For the city at the hub of the area, see Tampa, Florida.
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Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania (; phonetical: tan-zann-ei-a; or sometimes tan-zanneia; ) is a country in central East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.
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Tennessee
Tennessee () is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,214,888, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 626,144. Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 670,902. Nashville has the state's largest metropolitan area, at 1,521,437 people.
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Texas
Texas () is the second-largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.
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Texas Medical Center
The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world with one of the highest densities of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research. Located in the Southeast Houston district of Houston, the center contains 49 medicine-related institutions, including 13 hospitals and two specialty institutions, two medical schools, four nursing schools, and schools of dentistry, public health, pharmacy, and other health-related practices. All 49 institutions are not-for-profit. The entire area is bigger than Downtown Dallas, however some member institutions, such as the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, are located outside of the city of Houston. The center is where one of the first and largest air ambulance services was created and where a successful inter-institutional transplant program was developed. According to the Texas Medical Center, more heart surgeries are performed here than anywhere else in the world.
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Thailand
Thailand ( or ; Ratcha Anachak Thai, ), formerly Siam (, ), is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
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The Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets (rocks). It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States (nearest to the state of Florida). Its total land area is ; slightly larger than the US states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined), with an estimated population of 330,000. Its capital is Nassau. Geographically, the Bahamas lie in the same island chain as Cuba, Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands, the designation of the Bahamas refers normally to the commonwealth and not the geographic chain.
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Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. The extended Times Square area, also called the Theatre District, consists of the blocks between Sixth and Eighth Avenues from east to west, and West 40th and West 53rd Streets from south to north, making up the western part of the commercial area of Midtown Manhattan.
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Togo
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Tokelau
Tokelau () is a territory of New Zealand that consists of three tropical coral atolls with a combined land area of 10 km2 and a population of approximately 1,400 in the South Pacific Ocean. The atolls lie north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands (both islands groups belonging to Kiribati) and northwest of the Cook Islands.
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Trinidad and Tobago
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago () is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying northeast of the South American country of Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. It shares maritime boundaries with other nations including Barbados to the northeast, Guyana to the southeast, and Venezuela to the south and west.
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Turkey
Turkey (), known officially as the Republic of Turkey (), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between Eastern Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
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Turkmenistan
The Turkmenistan (), also known as Turkmenia () is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west.
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Tuvalu
Tuvalu ( or ), formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls. Its population of 12,373 makes it the second-least populous sovereign state in the world, with only Vatican City having fewer inhabitants. In terms of physical land size, at just Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, larger only than the Vatican City at , Monaco at and Nauru at .
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Uganda
The Republic of Uganda ( or ) is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, which is also bordered by Kenya and Tanzania.
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Ukraine
Ukraine ( ; , transliterated: , ), with its area of 603,628 km2, is the second largest country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast respectively.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a country and sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island nation, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border with another sovereign state, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. Great Britain is linked to continental Europe by the Channel Tunnel.
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United States
The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.
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Uruguay
Uruguay (, ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (sometimes rendered as the Eastern Republic of Uruguay in the English language; , ), is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.4 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88% of the population are of European descent.
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Utah
Utah ( or ) is a western state of the United States. It was the 45th state admitted to the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,784,572 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe and means "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico.
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Uzbekistan
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Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.
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Venezuela
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Vermont
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Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia () is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" because it is the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents. The geography and climate of the state are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The state population is nearly eight million.
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Wall Street
Wall Street is a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It runs east from Broadway to South Street on the East River, through the historical center of the Financial District. It is the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. Over time, Wall Street became the name of the surrounding geographic neighborhood and also shorthand (or a metonym) for the "influential financial interests" of the American financial industry, which is centered in the New York City area. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City vies with the City of London to be the financial capital of the world.
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Washington (state)
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Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. (), formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. Article One of the United States Constitution provides for a federal district, distinct from the states, to serve as the permanent national capital. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the federal territory until an act of Congress in 1871 established a single, unified municipal government for the whole District. It is for this reason that the city, while legally named the District of Columbia, is known as Washington, D.C. The city shares its name with the U.S. state of Washington, which is located on the country's Pacific coast.
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West Virginia
West Virginia () is a state in the Appalachian and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, and Pennsylvania and Maryland to the northeast. The capital and largest city is Charleston.
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White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. President since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.
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Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida, where it was initially based. It operates several online collaborative wiki projects including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and . Its flagship project, Wikipedia, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.
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Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Upper Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. As of 2009 the state has an estimated 5.6 million residents. The state contains 72 counties.
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World Trade Center
The World Trade Center (WTC) was a complex of seven buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City that were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with six new skyscrapers and a memorial to the casualties of the attacks.
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Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is mostly covered by the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High Plains. While the tenth largest U.S. state by area, Wyoming is the least populous, with a U.S. Census estimated population of 544,270 in 2009. This is a 5.9% increase since 2000. The capital and the most populous city of Wyoming is Cheyenne.
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Yalta Conference
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Yemen
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Zambia
The Republic of Zambia () is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of the country. The population is concentrated mainly around the Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt to the northwest.
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Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe ( ; officially the Republic of Zimbabwe and formerly Southern Rhodesia, the Republic of Rhodesia, and Zimbabwe Rhodesia) is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three official languages: English, Shona (a Bantu language), and Ndebele (also a Bantu language).
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Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers." Copland's music achieved a balance between modern music and American folk styles. The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape.
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Abraham Lincoln
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African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
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Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures.
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Albert Einstein
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Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz is known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Amerigo Vespucci
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Ancient Hawaii
Ancient Hawaii refers to the period of Hawaiian human history preceding the unification of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Kamehameha the Great in 1810. After being first settled by Polynesian long-distance navigators sometime between AD 300-800, a unique culture developed. Diversified agroforestry and aquaculture provided sustenance. Tropical materials were adopted for housing, and elaborate temples (called heiau) were constructed from the lava rocks available.
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Andy Warhol
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Ansel Adams
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Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. They comprise the third largest minority group in the United States. The most commonly used definition of Asian American is the U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asian, which includes individuals of East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian origin.
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Austria
Austria or (), officially the Republic of Austria (German: ), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below , and its highest point is . The majority of the population speaks German, which is also the country's official language. Other local official languages are Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
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Ban Ki-moon
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.
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Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921 - February 4, 2006) was an American writer, activist and feminist.
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Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19, 1946) is the former 42nd President of the United States and served from 1993 to 2001. At 46 he was the third-youngest president. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and was the first baby boomer president. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is currently the United States Secretary of State. Each received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Yale Law School.
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Black American
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Bob Dylan
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Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. On July 20, 1969, he was the second human being to set foot on the Moon, following mission commander Neil Armstrong.
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Catherine Ashton
Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, PC (born 20 March 1956) is a British Labour politician who has been the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union (EU) since 1 December 2009 when the post was created. She is also the First-Vice-President of the European Commission (since February 2010). She prefers to be known as Cathy Ashton.
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Charles Ives
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China
China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
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Chinese American
Chinese Americans (; ) are Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of Overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans. Within this community, the term Chinese American is often broadly defined to include not only immigrants from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and their descendants but also immigrants and descendants of Overseas Chinese people who migrated to the United States from places as diverse as Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
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Christopher Columbus
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Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.
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Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. His works include the musical comedies Kiss Me, Kate, Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady and Anything Goes, as well as songs like "Night and Day", "I Get a Kick out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!" and "I've Got You Under My Skin". He was noted for his sophisticated, bawdy lyrics, clever rhymes and complex forms. Porter was one of the greatest contributors to the Great American Songbook. Cole Porter is one of the few Tin Pan Alley composers to have written both the lyrics and the music for his songs.
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D. W. Griffith
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Deutscher Michel
Der Deutsche Michel (literal. "The German Michel") is a figure representing the national character of the German people, rather as John Bull represents the British. Such figures differ from those that serve as personifications of the nation itself, as Germania does the German nation and Marianne the French. He is usually depicted wearing a nightcap and nightgown, sometimes in the colours of the German flag, and represents the Germans' conception of themselves, especially in his easy-going nature and Everyman appearance. He also represents the innocent and simple person who must endure and fight against tyranny and injustice.
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Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. DeLillo's novels have tackled subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, and global terrorism. He currently lives near New York City in the suburb of Bronxville.
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Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was a composer, pianist, and big band leader.
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Edgar Allan Poe
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Edward Albee
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Edward Harrigan
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Edward Steichen
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Elvis Presley
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Enrico Fermi
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Ernest Hemingway
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Eugene O'Neill
'''Eugene Gladstone O'Neill''' (16 October 1888 – 27 November 1953) was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of realism, associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. His plays were among the first to include speeches in American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society, engaging in depraved behavior, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote only one well-known comedy (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Filipino American
Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", reside mainly in the continental United States and form significant populations in California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Washington, Florida, Alaska, Guam, and Northern Marianas.
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Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, CC (born Frank Owen Goldberg; February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.
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Frank Lloyd Wright
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George Balanchine
George Balanchine (January 22, 1904 – April 30, 1983), born Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze () in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's foremost choreographers, a pioneer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet: his work created modern ballet, based on his deep knowledge of classical forms and techniques. He was a choreographer known for his musicality; he did not illustrate music but expressed it in dance and worked extensively with Igor Stravinsky.
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George Gershwin
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George H. W. Bush
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George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (; born July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut) was the 43rd President of the United States, serving from 2001 to 2009, and the 46th Governor of Texas, serving from 1995 to 2000.
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George Washington
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Georgia O'Keeffe
'''Georgia Totto O'Keeffe''' (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American artist. Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art from the 1920s. She received widespread recognition for her technical contributions, as well as for challenging the boundaries of modern American artistic style. She is chiefly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and landscapes in which she synthesized abstraction and representation. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms that are replete with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors. She often transformed her subject matter into powerful abstract images. New York Times critic Jed Perl in 2004 described her paintings as both "bold and hermetic, immediately appealing and unnervingly impassive."
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German American
German Americans comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group. California, Texas and Pennsylvania have the largest numbers of German origin, although upper Midwestern states, including Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and The Dakotas, have the highest proportion of German Americans at over one-third.
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Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the Women's Liberation Movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. A prominent writer and political figure, Steinem has founded many organizations and projects and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. She co-founded Ms. Magazine and was a columnist for the New York magazine in the 1960s and also worked there as a columnist. In 1969, she published an article, ''"After Black Power, Women's Liberation"'' which, along with her early support of abortion rights, catapulted her to national fame as a feminist leader. In 2005, Steinem worked alongside Robin Morgan and Jane Fonda to co-found the Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership trainining, and the creation of original content. Steinem currently serves on the board of the organization. She continues to involve herself in politics and media affairs as a commentator, writer, lecturer, and organizer, campaigning for candidates and reforms and publishing books and articles.
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Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American writer and literary critic, currently Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his construction of unique but controversial theories of poetic influence, and for advocating an aesthetic approach to literature against feminist, Marxist, New Historicist, poststructuralist (deconstructive and semiotic) literary criticism. Bloom is a 1985 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.
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Henry Cowell
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Henry David Thoreau
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Henry Ford
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Herman Melville
Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet, whose work is often classified as part of the genre of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd.
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Hillary Clinton
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Hong Kong
Hong Kong () is one of two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the other being Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 95 percent ethnic Chinese and 5 percent from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
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Irish American
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Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in history.
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Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast, and alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing covering topics such as jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. His writings have inspired other writers, including Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins, Thomas Pynchon, Lester Bangs, Will Clarke, Richard Brautigan, Ken Kesey, Haruki Murakami, Jon Foreman, and Bob Dylan. Unsympathetic critics of his work have labeled it "slapdash", "grossly sentimental", and "immoral". Kerouac became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the Hippie movement. At age 47 in 1969 Kerouac died from internal bleeding due to long-standing abuse of alcohol. Since his death Kerouac's literary prestige has grown and several previously unseen works have been published. All of his books are in print today, among them: On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody and ''Big Sur.
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Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, sometimes struggling with alcoholism. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.
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James Brown
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James Naismith
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Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975, and was a peanut farmer and naval officer.
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Joe Biden
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John Barth
John Simmons Barth (born May 27, 1930) is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.
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John Boehner
John Andrew Boehner ( ; born November 17, 1949) is an American Republican politician who is currently serving as the House Minority Leader in the 111th Congress. He serves as a U.S. Representative from , which includes several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton and a small portion of Dayton itself.
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John Cage
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John Dewey
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John F. Kennedy
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John Rawls
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John Trumbull
John Trumbull (June 6, 1756 – November 10, 1843) was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings. His Declaration of Independence was used on the reverse of the two-dollar bill.
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John von Neumann
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John Wayne
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Johnny Canuck
Johnny Canuck was a Canadian cartoon hero and superhero who was created as a political cartoon in 1869 and was later re-invented, most notably as a Second World War action hero in 1942. The Vancouver Canucks, a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL), currently use a lumberjack rendition of Johnny Canuck as one of their team logos.
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Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.
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Juan Ponce de León
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Korean War
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Les Daniels
Les Daniels (born 1943) is an American writer.
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Louis Armstrong
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Lyndon B. Johnson
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Marilyn Monroe
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Mark Twain
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Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American dancer choreographer regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance, whose influence on dance can be compared to the influence Stravinsky had on music, Picasso had on the visual arts, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture. Graham was a galvanizing performer, a choreographer of astounding moves. She invented a new language of movement, and used it to reveal the passion, the rage and the ecstasy common to human experience. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years, and during that time was the first dancer ever to perform at The White House, the first dancer ever to travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and the first dancer ever to receive the highest civilian award of the USA: the Medal of Freedom. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable."
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Martin Waldseemüller
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Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent or Mexicans who have obtained American citizenship. Mexican Americans account for more than 12.5% of the United States' population: 30.7 million Americans listed their ancestry as Mexican as of 2006, forming about 64% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. The United States is home to the second largest Mexican community in the world, second only to Mexico itself. Most Mexican Americans are the descendants of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico and/or Europeans, especially Spaniards. Mexican American settlement concentrations are in metropolitan and rural areas across the United States.
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Michael Jackson
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Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley or Denali (Athabaskan for "The High One") in Alaska, USA is the highest mountain peak in North America and the United States, with a summit elevation of above sea level. The CIA World Factbook lists its summit elevation as . It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Native Hawaiians
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New Netherland
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province on the East Coast of North America of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod. The settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. The provincial capital, New Amsterdam, was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan on upper New York Bay.
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Nikola Tesla
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Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky ( or ; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and political activist. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics, and a major figure of analytic philosophy. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident and an anarchist, referring to himself as a libertarian socialist. Chomsky is the author of more than 100 books and has received worldwide attention for his views, despite being typically absent from the mainstream media.
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Orson Welles
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Osama bin Laden
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Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander (or Pacific Person, pl: Pacific People, also called Oceanic[s]), is a geographic term to describe the Austronesian inhabitants of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, these three regions, together with their islands consist of:
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Paleo-Indians
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Paula Jones
Paula Corbin Jones (born Paula Rosalee Corbin; September 17, 1966) is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. The lawsuit was dismissed before trial on the grounds that Jones failed to demonstrate any damages. However, while the dismissal was being appealed, Clinton entered into an out-of-court settlement by agreeing to pay Jones $850,000.
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Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 — January 25, 2005) was an influential American architect. With his thick, round-framed glasses, Johnson was the most recognizable figure in American architecture for decades.
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Pre-Columbian
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Pre-Columbian era
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the Early Modern period.
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Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1559, as an activist movement within the Church of England. The designation "Puritan" is often incorrectly used, notably based on the assumption that hedonism and puritanism are antonyms: historically, the word was used to characterize the Protestant group as extremists similar to the Cathari of France, and according to Thomas Fuller in his Church History dated back to 1564. Archbishop Matthew Parker of that time used it and "precisian" with the sense of . T. D. Bozeman therefore uses instead the term precisianist in regard to the historical groups of England and New England.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Ransom E. Olds
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Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 to 1974, having formerly been the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. A member of the Republican Party, he was the only President to resign the office as well as the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency.
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Richard Rorty
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Robert Nozick
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Ronald Reagan
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Rosa Parks
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Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein (October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was a prominent American pop artist. His work was heavily influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book style. He himself described pop art as, "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting".
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Rufus Yerxa
Rufus H. Yerxa (born 1951) is currently Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He has served in this position since 2002. He was the former Chief International Counsel for Monsanto Company.
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Saddam Hussein
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Sergey Lavrov
Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (, born 21 March 1950) is the Foreign Minister of Russia. Prior to that, Lavrov was a Soviet diplomat and Russia's ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. Lavrov speaks Russian, English, French and Sinhala.
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Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (born March 22, 1930) is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (eight, more than any other composer) including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins, as well as the lyrics for West Side Story and . He was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981.
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Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) born Thomas Lanier Williams, was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee", the Southeastern U.S. state, his father's birthplace.
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Theodore Roosevelt
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Thomas Eakins
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Thomas Edison
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Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. (born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pynchon is a MacArthur Fellow, is noted for his dense and complex novels, and both his fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, styles and themes, including (but not limited to) the fields of history, science, and mathematics.
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Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18, 1931) is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed black characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved.
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Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007; he resigned from all these positions in June 2007.
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Vietnam War
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Walt Disney
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Walt Whitman
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Warsaw Pact
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White American
White American (often used interchangeably with "Caucasian American" and, within the United States, simply "white") is an umbrella term officially employed by some U.S. government agencies, per standards issued by the Office of Management and Budget, for the classification of United States citizens or resident aliens "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". Like all U.S. racial categories, White American has a "Not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component, the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans.
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Willem de Kooning
http://wn.com/Willem_de_Kooning -
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was a Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based mostly on his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter.
http://wn.com/William_Faulkner -
William Halsall
William Formby Halsall (born 1841) was a marine painter born in Kirkdale, England. He lived at Provincetown, Massachusetts and died as an American in 1919.
http://wn.com/William_Halsall -
William James
:This article is about the American psychologist and philosopher. For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation)
http://wn.com/William_James -
World War I
World War I was a military conflict centered on Europe that began in the summer of 1914. The fighting ended in late 1918. This conflict involved all of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (centred around the Triple Entente) and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, due largely to great technological advances in firepower without corresponding ones in mobility. It was the second deadliest conflict in history.
http://wn.com/World_War_I -
Wright brothers
The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two Americans who are generally credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903. In the two years afterward, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.
http://wn.com/Wright_brothers
RELEASE
ALBUMS
- Intro
- Like Shiiiiit
- Throw It Up
- Its Your Party
- Kill'em (feat. Young Chris)
- Butta
- Fuck the Other Side
- Cuffin (feat. Gucci Mane)
- Fed Story
- Sextape (feat. Felony Fame)
- Horror Story
- On My Shiznit
- La Bumba
- Ride With Me
- Buildin'
- Mind Blowin'
- D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival)
- Avenue
- What They Want
- P. Money Setup
- Golden Grail
- Ain't No Thang
- Monsta
- Get Yo ******
- Russian Hat Wear
- Shakedown
- The Art
- Game Of Death
Send this Playlist by SMS
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The UN - What They Want
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:41
- Published: 21 Dec 2007
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
so dope
http://wn.com/The_UN_What_They_Want
The United Nations: It's Your World
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:52
- Published: 06 Nov 2008
- Updated: 16 Sep 2012
This video reveals the scope and impact of the UNs work focusing principally on peace and security, development and human rights. It highlights the UNs role as a forum for united action for the common good, and for building partnerships to address problems that know no borders, like natural disasters and climate change. United Nations website: www.un.org
http://wn.com/The_United_Nations_It's_Your_World
I Was Here (United Nations World Humanitarian Day Perform...
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:34
- Published: 18 Aug 2012
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Music video by Beyoncé performing I Was Here. (C) 2012 Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment www.whd-iwashere.org
http://wn.com/I_Was_Here_United_Nations_World_Humanitarian_Day_Perform
Empire - The UN - Tower of Babble?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 49:27
- Published: 30 Sep 2010
- Updated: 14 Sep 2012
Empire asks if the United Nations is outdated and whether it can stand up to the challenges of the 21st century.
http://wn.com/Empire_The_UN_Tower_of_Babble?
Un-safe Sex
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:35
- Published: 10 Jan 2008
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
SECRET GAY AGENDA bit.ly LIKE us on: www.facebook.com Love is in the air in "Checkin' For Gas 5," CollegeHumor's first porno. See more www.collegehumor.com FOLLOW us on www.twitter.com FOLLOW us on: www.collegehumor.tumblr.com
http://wn.com/Un-safe_Sex
Empire - Palestine state ... of mind
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 47:28
- Published: 10 Oct 2011
- Updated: 09 Sep 2012
After more than 60 years of dispossession and 40 years of occupation, Palestinians have turned to the UN for justice. Was it a tactical or strategic move?
http://wn.com/Empire_Palestine_state_of_mind
16x9 - Un-United Kingdom: Scottish independence referendum resembles Canada's past
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:22
- Published: 30 Apr 2012
- Updated: 18 Sep 2012
Almost five million Canadians trace their roots to Scotland. One man in particular has become chief of staff to a member of the Scottish National Party—the party campaigning for a referendum. And in the fall of 2014, Scots will go to the polls to decide whether to pull out of Great Britain and become an independent country.
http://wn.com/16x9_Un-United_Kingdom_Scottish_independence_referendum_resembles_Canada's_past
Custom Zombies - TMG Fun: WTF??? This Ain't Fun....It's UN-Fun!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 22:20
- Published: 13 Sep 2012
- Updated: 20 Sep 2012
Please support with a Like, Favorite, and/or Comment for regular CUSTOM ZOMBIES! • Subscribe for more! www.youtube.com • Follow me on Twitter: www.Twitter.com Our first few attempts on an UN-Fun map called TMG Fun!!! WTF? • FREE NetFlix Trial: www.netflix.com • Facebook: www.Facebook.com • G2PO: www.G2PO.com • Main NGT Channel: www.G2PO.com • NGTMinecraft: www.G2PO.com • WebofSpiderBite: www.YouTube.com • NGTGames: www.G2PO.com • NGTChallenges: www.YouTube.com Tags: tmg fun "triple m games" reaper porter's ray gun COD waw "Call of Duty" "world at war" custom zombies black ops NGTZombies "ZCM Base 935" Coop co-operative co-op PC
http://wn.com/Custom_Zombies_TMG_Fun_WTF???_This_Ain't_FunIt's_UN-Fun!
TIME Magazine Interviews: Kofi Annan
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:24
- Published: 02 Oct 2009
- Updated: 15 Sep 2012
The former UN head is campaigning for a climate-change deal. Kofi Annan will now take your questions
http://wn.com/TIME_Magazine_Interviews_Kofi_Annan
Modà feat. Jarabedepalo - Come un pittore - Videoclip Ufficiale
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:10
- Published: 06 Apr 2012
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Download "Come un pittore feat. Jarabedepalo" da iTunes itunes.apple.com Download videoclip da iTunes itunes.apple.com Sito ufficiale Modà www.rockmoda.com Profilo Twitter http (@rockmoda) Pagina Facebook www.facebook.com Sito ufficiale Jarabedepalo www.jarabedepalo.com Videoclip ufficiale del nuovo singolo dei Modà feat. Jarabedepalo "Come un pittore", in rotazione radiofonica dal 6 aprile. Il brano, un saluto di un padre a un bambino, vede l'eccezionale partecipazione di Pau Donés, leader della celebre band spagnola JarabeDePalo, che per l'occasione canterà interamente in italiano. Il videoclip è stato girato in parte su una spiaggia di Malcesine (Verona), sul Lago di Garda e in parte in studio durante le registrazioni con Pau ed è stato prodotto dalla Run Multimedia con la regia di Gaetano Morbioli. A proposito del brano, estratto dall'album Viva i romantici che è stato disco di diamante con più di 400 mila copie vendute e secondo album in assoluto più venduto in Italia nel 2011 (fonte:GFK Retail and Technology Italia), Francesco Silvestre dice: "Mi sono sempre chiesto come sarei stato se fossi diventato padre, cosa avrei raccontato a mio figlio, e la risposta l'ho trovata in questa canzone in cui gli mostro solo le cose più belle della vita dipingendole con dei colori, proprio come un pittore." Come Un Pittore è anche il titolo del libro di Kekko Silvestre che verrà pubblicato l'8 maggio da Sperling & Kupfer. Il libro racconta Ia straordinaria avventura dei Modà, che <b>...</b>
http://wn.com/Modà _feat_Jarabedepalo_Come_un_pittore_Videoclip_Ufficiale
Halo 2 Tricks - Tank Pinball
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:33
- Published: 24 Oct 2005
- Updated: 17 Sep 2012
IN the first episode of this video series on how to do tricks in Halo 2 you will learn how to do tank pinball in Coagulation.
http://wn.com/Halo_2_Tricks_Tank_Pinball
WAPALA Mag N°104 : bodysurf à Tahiti, boat trip kitesurf aux Caraïbes et Wake The Line un contest
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:01
- Published: 08 Jun 2012
- Updated: 18 Sep 2012
Du bodysurf tout en douceur à quelques centimètres du reef. Un trip kitesurf de rêve aux Caraïbes à bord d'un catamaran avec la ravissante Charlotte Consorti. Et un peu d'actu avec un contest de wakeboard de folie et du stand up surfing à Tahiti!
http://wn.com/WAPALA_Mag_N°104_bodysurf_à _Tahiti,_boat_trip_kitesurf_aux_Caraïbes_et_Wake_The_Line_un_contest
Let's Play Minecraft Episode 10 - With Geoff, Gav, Michael, Ray and Jack
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 31:59
- Published: 03 Aug 2012
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Geoff and Gavin take the boys through a special Wipeout course in Minecraft. The winner gets... THE TOWER OF PIMPS.
http://wn.com/Let's_Play_Minecraft_Episode_10_With_Geoff,_Gav,_Michael,_Ray_and_Jack
Very Bad Blagues - Quand on annonce un décès
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:14
- Published: 21 Apr 2011
- Updated: 18 Sep 2012
Regardez toutes les vidéos de Very Bad Blagues et les bonus sur www.direct8.fr ! Pour être informé des derniers replay et exclusivités, suivez Direct 8 sur Facebook goo.gl Retrouvez aussi le Palmashow sur leur page Facebook: goo.gl
http://wn.com/Very_Bad_Blagues_Quand_on_annonce_un_décès
Let It Shine (2012) - Moment of Truth (Movie Version HD)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:46
- Published: 24 Jun 2012
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Tyler James Williams (Cyrus/Truth) and Brandon Mychal Smith (Bling) perform Moment of Truth (Rap Battle). From the Disney Channel Original Movie Let It Shine (2012). Full scene from movie. *Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
http://wn.com/Let_It_Shine_2012_Moment_of_Truth_Movie_Version_HD
China News - September 19th, 2012: Xi Jinping Appears in US Meeting
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 16:31
- Published: 19 Sep 2012
- Updated: 20 Sep 2012
In today's NTD China News, Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping appears in his first official meeting on Wednesday after emerging from an unexplained two week absence. He spoke with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in Beijing. State-run Xinhua News Agency publishes details of Wang Lijun's trial, and, for the first time, links ousted official Bo Xilai to his wife, Gu Kailai's murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. Beijing police begins to disperse anti-Japanese protestors. The European Union cancels a press conference for the EU-China summit, after the Chinese delegation demanded restrictions on the media presence. Amnesty International issues an urgent appeal for 15 practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual practice detained in Jiamusi prison in Heilongjiang province. Tibetans activists protest outside the UN General Assembly in New York, urging world leaders to help stop the Chinese regime's repressive rule over Tibet. The US FDA reports that toxic jerky treats for pets are causing dogs to fall ill and die A disabled boy makes a three hour return journey to school each day by walking on his hands. For more news and videos visit ☛ english.ntdtv.com Follow us on Twitter ☛ http Add us on Facebook ☛ on.fb.me
http://wn.com/China_News_September_19th,_2012_Xi_Jinping_Appears_in_US_Meeting
Very Bad Blagues - Quand on est moniteur
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:18
- Published: 24 Oct 2011
- Updated: 18 Sep 2012
Regardez toutes les vidéos de Very Bad Blagues et les bonus sur www.direct8.fr ! Pour être informé des derniers replay et exclusivités, suivez Direct 8 sur Facebook goo.gl Retrouvez aussi le Palmashow sur leur page Facebook: goo.gl
http://wn.com/Very_Bad_Blagues_Quand_on_est_moniteur
Very Bad Blagues - Quand on va au musée
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:42
- Published: 13 Dec 2011
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Regardez toutes les vidéos de Very Bad Blagues et les bonus sur www.direct8.fr ! Pour être informé des derniers replay et exclusivités suivez Direct 8 sur Facebook goo.gl Retrouvez aussi le Palmashow sur leur page Facebook: goo.gl
http://wn.com/Very_Bad_Blagues_Quand_on_va_au_musée
SHARK ATTACKS caught on tape
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:40
- Published: 08 Dec 2008
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Un-Censored Link www.youtube.com Cocoa Beach Florida where a real shark attack on surfer is caught on video. Surfer valiantly fights of shark in shallow waters. Original "Shark Bite" www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/SHARK_ATTACKS_caught_on_tape
4thGaming - Lollipop Chainsaw: Stage 1 - What happened at San Romero High?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 60:54
- Published: 13 Jun 2012
- Updated: 13 Sep 2012
4thGaming.com The Full Walkthrough - http Lollipop Chainsaw: Stage 1 - What happened at San Romero High? Bursting with sex, blood, and rock 'n' roll, Lollipop Chainsaw is the 'un-deadly' story of a sweet and killer zombie hunter and her quest to uncover the root of a colossal zombie outbreak. With her wickedly awesome chainsaw in hand, Juliet slices, dices and splits her way through hordes of the undead, but soon realizes the horde is only the opening act to a festival of zombie rock lords determined to kill the chainsaw wielding cheerleader. Game Name: Lollipop Chainsaw Developer: GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Kadokawa Games Platforms: PS3, XBOX 360 Genre: Action & Adventure Release Date: June 12th, 2012
http://wn.com/4thGaming_Lollipop_Chainsaw_Stage_1_What_happened_at_San_Romero_High?
Resident Evil 4 - Cap. 11 - ¡Un onix salvaje apareció!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 16:46
- Published: 20 Oct 2011
- Updated: 05 Sep 2012
Capítulo 10: www.youtube.com Canal de Jack: www.youtube.com Canal xGiize: www.youtube.com Mi twitter: twitter.com Mi tuenti: Tehsinapsis Gameplays youtube
http://wn.com/Resident_Evil_4_Cap_11_¡Un_onix_salvaje_apareció!
Batman Arkham City - Catwoman Gameplay Walkthrough + Giveaway
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:56
- Published: 03 Jul 2011
- Updated: 16 Sep 2012
If you want to buy Batman: Arkham City: amzn.to This is a gameplay walkthrough of a section of Batman: Arkham City showing a playable Catwoman. Batman: Arkham City is on XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and PC. Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security home for all of Gotham City's thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight. Look for our complete Batman: Arkham City walkthrough and Batman: Arkham City review. Hope you enjoy. Please rate and subscribe. Developer: Rocksteady Studios Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive | Eidos Interactive
http://wn.com/Batman_Arkham_City_Catwoman_Gameplay_Walkthrough_+_Giveaway
La Folle Histoire du Palmashow - Comment s'écrit un Harry Potter français?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:44
- Published: 02 Dec 2010
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Regardez toutes les vidéos du Palmashow et les bonus sur www.direct8.fr ! Pour être informé des derniers replay et exclusivités, suivez Direct 8 sur Facebook goo.gl Retrouvez aussi le Palmashow sur leur page Facebook: goo.gl
http://wn.com/La_Folle_Histoire_du_Palmashow_Comment_s'écrit_un_Harry_Potter_français?
Press Information Dept. of Pakistan
UN / Devra Berkowitz
UN / Evan Schneider
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AP / David Karp
WN / Ahmed Deeb
Photo: UN / Paulo Filgueiras
20 Sep 2012
United Nations: The United Nations is investigating Syrian opposition groups as well as government forces for attacks targeting children, the new UN envoy on children in conflict said Wednesday. But...
Photo: UN / Eskinder Debebe
20 Sep 2012
UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the Syrian government and rebels seem intent on fighting to the bitter end, as opposition fighters seized a crossing on the Turkish border. Ban said the conflict will...
Photo: UN / Evan Schneider
20 Sep 2012
The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations has condemned a UN report that said his country's forces are guilty of committing violence against children caught up in the 18-month uprising. Ambassador...
UN Mission Still Undecided
20 Sep 2012
All Africa
[NEWS]The expected departure of the United...(size: 0.3Kb)
UN House Scotland to open in Edinburgh
20 Sep 2012
BBC News
A new centre which aims to become the voice of the United Nations in Scotland is set to open in Edinburgh. UN House Scotland will bring together agencies raising awareness of the UN's work on issues including child welfare, women's rights...(size: 1.6Kb)
UN Expert On Indigenous People Visits Namibia
20 Sep 2012
All Africa
[Namibian]Geneva -The United...(size: 0.2Kb)
UN probing child attacks in Syria
20 Sep 2012
Gulf News
United Nations: The United Nations is investigating Syrian opposition groups as well as government forces for attacks targeting children, the new UN envoy on children in conflict said Wednesday. But Russia, China, Pakistan and Azerbaijan sought to restrict the scope of the envoy’s inquiries...(size: 16.8Kb)
Newstrack India
Tweet Washington, Sep 20 (ANI): Kim Jong Il's former personal sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto, who unexpectedly visited North Korea after fleeing to Japan in 2001, said that he found the wife of Kim Jong Un, the son of the former leader, very charming and appealing....(size: 2.0Kb)
Newstrack India
Tweet Islamabad, Sept 20 (ANI): The Pakistan cabinet has unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the anti-Islam film, and has called upon international organisations, including the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to take measures to stop hate-mongers from...(size: 1.9Kb)
noodls
(Source: Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung (Source: VNA) Ambassador Le Hoai Trung, Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the Vietnamese Mission to the UN, made the remark in an interview granted to the Viet Nam News Agency in New York on...(size: 2.7Kb)
Bahrain accepts UN human rights recommendations
20 Sep 2012
Gulf News
Geneva: The kingdom of Bahrain has pledged to improve its treatment of political activists, crack down on torture and prevent violence against ethnic and religious communities while accepting the vast majority of the UN’s recommendations regarding human rights. Bahrain is now the first country...(size: 21.6Kb)
Syria rivals determined to fight: UN
20 Sep 2012
Independent online (SA)
President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian opposition are determined to fight to “the end” but the United Nations may soon put forth a new peace strategy, UN leader Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday. The 18-month conflict will top the agenda at next week's UN General Assembly summit of world...(size: 2.7Kb)
UN chief sees no end to deadly Syrian conflict
20 Sep 2012
Middle East Online
DAMASCUS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the Syrian government and rebels seem intent on fighting to the bitter end, as opposition fighters seized a crossing on the Turkish border. Ban said the conflict will top the agenda at next week's UN General Assembly summit of world leaders, even though...(size: 3.9Kb)
This article is about the United States of America. For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation).
| United States of America | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||
| Motto: In God We Trust (official) E Pluribus Unum (traditional) (Latin: Out of Many, One) |
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Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner" |
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.svg) |
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| Capital | Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W / 38.883; -77.017 |
|||||
| Largest city | New York City | |||||
| Official language(s) | None at federal level[a] | |||||
| National language | English (de facto)[b] | |||||
| Demonym | American | |||||
| Government | Federal presidential constitutional republic | |||||
| - | President | Barack Obama (D) | ||||
| - | Vice President | Joe Biden (D) | ||||
| - | Speaker of the House | John Boehner (R) | ||||
| - | Chief Justice | John Roberts | ||||
| Legislature | Congress | |||||
| - | Upper house | Senate | ||||
| - | Lower house | House of Representatives | ||||
| Independence | from the Kingdom of Great Britain | |||||
| - | Declared | July 4, 1776 | ||||
| - | Recognized | September 3, 1783 | ||||
| - | Current constitution | June 21, 1788 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th) 3,794,101 sq mi |
||||
| - | Water (%) | 6.76 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2012 estimate | 313,802,000[2] (3rd) | ||||
| - | Density | 33.7/km2 87.4/sq mi |
||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $15.094 trillion[3] (1st) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $48,386[3] (6th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $15.094 trillion[3] (1st) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $48,386[3] (15th) | ||||
| Gini (2007) | 45.0[1] (39th) | |||||
| HDI (2011) |  0.910[4] (very high) (4th) |
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| Currency | United States dollar ($) (USD) |
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| Time zone | (UTC−5 to −10) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | (UTC−4 to −10) | ||||
| Date formats | m/d/yy (AD) | |||||
| Drives on the | right | |||||
| Internet TLD | .us .gov .mil .edu | |||||
| Calling code | +1 | |||||
| ^ a. English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official".[5] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii.
^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. ^ c. Whether the United States or China is larger is disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, not the territories. ^ d. The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than 4 million U.S. citizens (mostly in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States. |
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.svg)
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[6] The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity).[3][7] Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.[3]
Indigenous peoples descended from forebears who migrated from Asia have inhabited what is now the mainland United States for many thousands of years. This Native American population was greatly reduced by disease and warfare after European contact. The United States was founded by thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated the British Empire in the American Revolution, the first successful colonial war of independence.[8] The current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a stronger central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
Through the 19th century, the United States displaced native tribes, acquired the Louisiana territory from France, Florida from Spain, part of the Oregon Country from the United Kingdom, Alta California and New Mexico from Mexico, and Alaska from Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over the expansion of the institution of slavery and states' rights provoked the Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, its national economy was the world's largest.[9] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for 41% of global military spending,[10] and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.[11]
Contents |
Etymology[link]
See also: Names for United States citizens
In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.[12] The former British colonies first used the country's modern name in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".[13] On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'." The Franco-American treaties of 1778 used "United States of North America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was used on the country's bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since.[14]
The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names include the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a once popular name for the United States, derives from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia".
The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an "American". Although "United States" is the official appositional term, "American" and "U.S." are more commonly used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States.[15]
The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".[16]
Geography and environment[link]
Main articles: Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States, and Environment of the United States
The land area of the contiguous United States is approximately 1,900 million acres (7,700,000 km2). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 365 million acres (1,480,000 km2). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, has just over 4 million acres (16,000 km2).[17] The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above or below 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: calculations range from 3,676,486 square miles (9,522,055 km2)[18] to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091 km2)[19] to 3,794,101 square miles (9,826,676 km2).[1] Including only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[20]
The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the tallest peak in the country and in North America. 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.[21]
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. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. 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. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.[22]
The U.S. ecology is considered "megadiverse": about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.[23] The United States is home to more than 400 mammal, 750 bird, and 500 reptile and amphibian species.[24] About 91,000 insect species have been described.[25] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.[26] Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the country's land area.[27] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is used for military purposes.[27]
Political divisions[link]
Main article: U.S. state
Further information: Territorial evolution of the United States and United States territorial acquisitions
The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Early in the country's history, three new states were organized on territory separated from the claims of the existing states: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. Most of the other states have been carved from territories obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions comprises Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the union. During the American Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959.[28] The states do not have the right to secede from the union.
The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.[29] Those born in the major territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S. citizenship.[30] American citizens residing in the territories have many of the same rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however, they are generally exempt from federal income tax, may not vote for president, and have only nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress.[31]
History[link]
Main article: History of the United States
Native American and European settlement[link]
The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, are believed to have migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago.[32] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After Europeans began settling the Americas, many millions of indigenous Americans died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.[33]
In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making first contact with the indigenous people. On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida"—the first documented European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland. Spanish settlements in the region were followed by ones in the present-day southwestern United States that drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies.[34] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680.[35] By the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans (popularly known as "American Indians"), who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black slaves.[36] Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion[link]
Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 to 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights", the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak confederal government that operated until 1789.
After the British defeat by American forces assisted by the French and Spanish, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River. Those wishing to establish a strong federal government with powers of taxation organized a constitutional convention in 1787. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.
Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the Atlantic slave trade only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution". The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.
Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.[37] The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, amid a period when the concept of Manifest Destiny was becoming popular.[38] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.
Civil War and industrialization[link]
Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments about the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared slaves in the Confederacy to be free. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,[39] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.[40] The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers.[41]
After the war, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture. National infrastructure development spurred economic growth. The 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the United States annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish–American War the same year demonstrated that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.[42] The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II[link]
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention.[43] In 1917, the United States joined the Allies, and the American Expeditionary Forces helped to turn the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism.[44] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy, including the establishment of the Social Security system.[45] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.
The United States, effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, 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 as well as the internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands.[46] Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial capacity. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.[47] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[48] The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.[49]
Cold War and protest politics[link]
The United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact, respectively. While they engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict. Resisting leftist land and income redistribution projects around the world, the United States often supported authoritarian governments. American troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.
The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the United States to be first to land "a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, symbolized and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson.[50][51] He also signed into law the Medicare and Medicaid programs.[52] Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women.
As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, to avoid being impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War.
Contemporary era[link]
Under President George H. W. Bush, the United States took a lead role in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Bill Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble.[53] A civil lawsuit and sex scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the closest in American history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, the Bush administration launched the global War on Terror, invading Afghanistan and removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.[54] Forces led by the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, ousting Saddam Hussein. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans. In 2008, amid a global economic recession, the first African American president, Barack Obama, was elected. Major health care and financial system reforms were enacted two years later. In 2011, a raid by Navy SEALs in Pakistan killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Iraq War ended with the pullout of the remaining U.S. troops from the country.
Government and politics[link]
Main articles: Federal government of the United States, state governments of the United States, and elections in the United States
The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".[55] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document.[56] In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
- Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
- Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
- Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.
The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion; Nebraska uniquely has a unicameral legislature. The governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by popular vote.
The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution is voided. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was declared by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803).
Parties and ideology[link]
Main articles: Politics of the United States and Political ideologies in the United States
The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history.[57] For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.
Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered center-left or liberal. The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.
The winner of the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president. The 2010 midterm elections saw the Republican Party take control of the House and make gains in the Senate, where the Democrats retain the majority. In the 112th United States Congress, the Senate comprises 51 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans; the House comprises 242 Republicans and 192 Democrats—one seat is vacant. There are 29 Republican and 20 Democratic state governors, as well as one independent.
Foreign relations and military[link]
Main articles: Foreign policy of the United States and United States Armed Forces
The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the G8,[58] G20, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.
The United States has a "special relationship" with the United Kingdom[59] and strong ties with Canada,[60] Australia,[61] New Zealand,[62] the Philippines,[63] Japan,[64] South Korea,[65] Israel,[66] and several European countries. It works closely with fellow NATO members on military and security issues and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large gross national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among twenty-two donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.[67]
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The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.[68]
Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System.[69] American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad,[70] and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.[71] The extent of this global military presence has prompted some scholars to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases".[72]
Total U.S. military spending in 2010, almost $700 billion, was 43% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. At 4.8% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top fifteen military spenders, after Saudi Arabia.[73] The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, is a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion is proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.[74] The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;[75] 4,484 servicemen were killed during the Iraq War.[76] Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan as of April 2012;[77] as of April 4, 1,924 had been killed during the War in Afghanistan.[78]
Economy[link]
Main article: Economy of the United States
| Economic indicators | ||
|---|---|---|
| Unemployment | 8.2% (May 2012) | [79] |
| GDP growth | 2.2% (1Q 2012), 1.7% (2011) | [80] |
| CPI inflation | 2.3% (April 2011 – April 2012) | [81] |
| Poverty | 15.1% (2010) | [82] |
| Public debt | $15.62 trillion (April 13, 2012) | [83] |
| Household net worth | $58.5 trillion (4Q 2011) | [84] |
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.[85] According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $15.1 trillion constitutes 22% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).[3] Though larger than any other nation's, its national GDP is about 5% smaller than the GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2008. The country ranks ninth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP.[3] The U.S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency.[86]
The United States is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. In 2010, the total U.S. trade deficit was $635 billion.[87] Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.[88] In 2010, oil was the largest import commodity, while transportation equipment was the country's largest export.[87] China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt.[89]
In 2009, the private sector was estimated to constitute 86.4% of the economy, with federal government activity accounting for 4.3% and state and local government activity (including federal transfers) the remaining 9.3%.[91] While its economy has reached a postindustrial level of development and its service sector constitutes 67.8% of GDP, the United States remains an industrial power.[92] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing.[93] Chemical products are the leading manufacturing field.[94] The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.[95] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,[92] the United States is the world's top producer of corn[96] and soybeans.[97] Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.[98]
In August 2010, the American labor force comprised 154.1 million people. With 21.2 million people, government is the leading field of employment. The largest private employment sector is health care and social assistance, with 16.4 million people. About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.[99] The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.[100] In 2009, the United States had the third highest labor productivity per person in the world, behind Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the Netherlands.[101] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption tax rates are lower.[102]
Income and human development[link]
Main article: Income in the United States
See also: Income inequality in the United States, Poverty in the United States, and Affluence in the United States
According to the United States Census Bureau, the pretax median household income in 2010 was $49,445. The median ranged from $64,308 among Asian American households to $32,068 among African American households.[82] Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, the overall median is similar to the most affluent cluster of developed nations. After declining sharply during the middle of the 20th century, poverty rates have plateaued since the early 1970s, with 11–15% of Americans below the poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.[103][104] In 2010, 46.2 million Americans lived in poverty, a figure that rose for the fourth year in a row.[82]
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The U.S. welfare state is one of the least extensive in the developed world, reducing both relative poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations,[105][106] though combined private and public social expenditures per capita are relatively high.[107] While the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly,[108] it provides relatively little assistance to the young.[109] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the United States next to last.[110]
Between 1947 and 1979, real median income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor Americans rising faster than those of the rich.[111] However, income gains since then have been slower, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic insecurity.[111][112] Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980,[113] largely owing to more dual-earner households, the closing of the gender pay gap, and longer work hours, but the growth has been strongly tilted toward the very top.[105][111][114] Consequently, the share of income of the top 1%—21.8% of total reported income in 2005—has more than doubled since 1980,[115] leaving the United States with the greatest income inequality among developed nations.[105][116] The United States has a progressive tax system which equates to higher income earners paying a larger percentage of their income in taxes.[117] The top 1% pays 27.6% of all federal taxes, while the top 10% pays 54.7%.[118] Wealth, like income and taxes, is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share among developed nations.[119] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.[120] In 2011 the United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 23rd among 139 countries on its inequality-adjusted human development index (IHDI), nineteen places lower than in the standard HDI.[121]
Infrastructure[link]
Science and technology[link]
Main article: Science and technology in the United States
The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. Nikola Tesla pioneered alternating current, the AC motor, and radio. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.[122]
The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and John von Neumann, to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers. IBM, Apple Computer, and Microsoft refined and popularized the personal computer. The United States largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector.[123] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.[124] As of April 2010, 68% of American households had broadband Internet service.[125] The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food, representing half of the world's biotech crops.[126]
Transportation[link]
Main article: Transportation in the United States
Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 13 million roads,[128] including one of the world's longest highway systems.[129] The world's second largest automobile market,[130] the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans.[131] About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.[132] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).[133]
Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips,[134] ranking last in a survey of 17 countries.[135] While transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel,[136] though ridership on Amtrak, the national intercity passenger rail system, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010.[137] Light rail development has increased in recent years but, like high speed rail, is below European levels.[138] Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal.[139]
The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; Delta Air Lines is number one.[140] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.[141]
Energy[link]
See also: Energy policy of the United States
The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, the 10th highest rate in the world. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources.[142] The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.[143] For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part due to public perception in the wake of a 1979 accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.[144] The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.[145]
Education[link]
Main article: Education in the United States
American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.[147] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.[148]
The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education. According to prominent international rankings, 13 or 15 American colleges and universities are ranked among the top 20 in the world.[149][150] There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.[151] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.[1][152] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.[153]
Health[link]
See also: Health care in the United States, Health care reform in the United States, and Health insurance in the United States
The United States life expectancy of 78.4 years at birth ranks it 50th among 221 nations.[155] Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements elsewhere have contributed to lowering the country's rank in life expectancy from 1987, when it was 11th in the world.[156] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[157] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[158] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[159] The infant mortality rate of 6.06 per thousand places the United States 176th out of 222 countries, higher than all of Western Europe.[160]
The U.S. health care system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[161] The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health care system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance.
Health care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts, and is not universal as in all other developed countries. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.[162] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The main cause of this rise is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.[163] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.[164] A 2009 study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with nearly 45,000 deaths a year.[165] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[166] Federal legislation passed in early 2010 will create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014.
Crime and law enforcement[link]
Main articles: Law enforcement in the United States and Crime in the United States
See also: Law of the United States, Incarceration in the United States, and Capital punishment in the United States
Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as certain appeals from the state systems. Federal law prohibits a variety of drugs, although states sometimes pass laws in conflict with federal regulations. The smoking age is generally 18, and the drinking age is generally 21.
Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[168] There were 5.0 murders per 100,000 persons in 2009, 10.4% fewer than in 2000.[169] Gun ownership rights are the subject of contentious political debate.
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate[170] and total prison population[171] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[172] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure,[173] and over three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.[174] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[170] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to sentencing and drug policies.[170][175]
Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-four states. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been more than 1,000 executions.[176] In 2010, the country had the fifth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen.[177] In 2007, New Jersey became the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision, followed by New Mexico in 2009 and Illinois in 2011.[178]
Demographics[link]
Main articles: Demographics of the United States and Americans
| Race/Ethnicity (2010)[179] | |
|---|---|
| White | 72.4% |
| Black/African American | 12.6% |
| Asian | 4.8% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.9% |
| Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander | 0.2% |
| Other | 6.2% |
| Two or more races | 2.9% |
| Hispanic/Latino (of any race) | 16.3% |
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be 313,802,000,[2] including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants.[180] The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900.[181] The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India, the United States is the only major industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.[182] Even with a birth rate of 13.82 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, its population growth rate is positive at 1%, significantly higher than those of many developed nations.[183] In fiscal year 2011, over 1 million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence.[184] Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.[185]
The United States has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than one million members.[186] White Americans are the largest racial group; German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.[186] African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group.[186] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ethnic groups are Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans.[186] In 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).[187] The census counted more than 19 million people of "Some Other Race" who were "unable to identify with any" of its five official race categories in 2010.[187]
The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent[187] are identified as sharing a distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.[188] Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%.[179] Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America.[189] Fertility is also a factor; as of 2010 the average Hispanic woman gave birth to 2.4 children in her lifetime, compared to 2.0 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).[190] Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau as all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constituted 36.3% of the population in 2010,[191] and nearly 50% of children under age 1,[192] and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042.[193]
About 82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs);[1] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.[194] In 2008, 273 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).[195] There are fifty-two metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.[196] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, forty-seven are in the West or South.[197] The metro areas of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.[196]
| Leading population centers | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Core city | Metro area pop.[198] | Metropolitan Statistical Area | Region[199] |  New York City  Los Angeles |
||
| 1 | New York City | 19,015,900 | New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA | Northeast | |||
| 2 | Los Angeles | 12,944,801 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA | West | |||
| 3 | Chicago | 9,504,753 | Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA | Midwest | |||
| 4 | Dallas | 6,526,548 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA | South | |||
| 5 | Houston | 6,086,538 | Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown, TX MSA | South | |||
| 6 | Philadelphia | 5,992,414 | Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD MSA | Northeast | |||
| 7 | Washington, D.C. | 5,703,948 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA | South | |||
| 8 | Miami | 5,670,125 | Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA | South | |||
| 9 | Atlanta | 5,359,205 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA | South | |||
| 10 | Boston | 4,591,112 | Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA | Northeast | |||
| based on the 2011 U.S. Population Estimate | |||||||
Language[link]
Main article: Languages of the United States
| Languages (2010)[200] | |
|---|---|
| English (only) | 229.7 million |
| Spanish, incl. Creole | 37.0 million |
| Chinese | 2.8 million |
| French, incl. Creole | 2.1 million |
| Tagalog | 1.6 million |
| Vietnamese | 1.4 million |
| Korean | 1.1 million |
| German | 1.1 million |
English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2010, about 230 million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language.[200][201] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.[5] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.[202]
While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[203] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[204] Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials, especially voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions. Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.
Religion[link]
Main article: Religion in the United States
See also: History of religion in the United States, Freedom of religion in the United States, Separation of church and state in the United States, and List of religious movements that began in the United States
The United States is officially a secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance. In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.[205] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian,[206] down from 86.4% in 1990.[207] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;[206] another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%.[208] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990.[207] The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).[206] The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.[206][207]
Family structure[link]
In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.[209] Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.[210]
Same-sex marriage is a contentious issue. Some states permit civil unions or domestic partnerships in lieu of marriage. Since 2003, several states have legalized gay marriage as the result of judicial or legislative action. Meanwhile, the federal government and a majority of states define marriage as between a man and a woman and/or explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage. Public opinion on the issue has shifted from general opposition in the 1990s to a statistical deadlock, to a majority in support.[211]
The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among OECD nations.[212] Abortion policy was left to the states until the Supreme Court legalized the practice in 1973. The issue remains highly controversial, with public opinion closely divided for many years. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.[213]
Culture[link]
Main article: Culture of the United States
See also: Social class in the United States
The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.[6][215] Aside from the now small Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.[216] Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa.[6][217] More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as both a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.[6]
American culture is considered the most individualistic in the world.[218] The American Dream, or the incorrect perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants.[219] While the mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society,[220] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.[221] The American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary social trends such as modern feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism.[222] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.[223] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.[224]
Popular media[link]
Main articles: Cinema of the United States, Television in the United States, and Music of the United States
The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time.[225] American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. The major film studios of Hollywood have produced the most commercially successful movies in history, such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry.[226]
Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world,[227] and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006.[228] The four major broadcast networks are all commercial entities. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day.[229] Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, eBay, and Craigslist.[230]
The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.[231]
Literature, philosophy, and the arts[link]
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an essential American poet.[232] A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel".[233]
Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century.[234] Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.
The transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty, and later Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the fore of American philosophical academia. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a revival of political philosophy.
In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.[235] Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new, individualistic styles. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.
One of the first major promoters of American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.
Though little known at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a new synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th-century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography, with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. The newspaper comic strip and the comic book are both U.S. innovations. Superman, the quintessential comic book superhero, has become an American icon.[236]
Food[link]
Main article: American cuisine
Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, which were consumed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American foods. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important.
Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.[237] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[238]
The American fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the drive-through format in the 1930s. Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[237] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "obesity epidemic".[239] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for 9% of American caloric intake.[240]
Sports[link]
Main article: Sports in the United States
Baseball has been regarded as the national sport since the late 19th century, while American football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport.[241] Basketball and ice hockey are the country's next two leading professional team sports. College football and basketball attract large audiences. Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports,[242] but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. Soccer is played widely at the youth and amateur levels. Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as well.
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American inventions. Basketball was invented in Massachusetts by Canadian-born James Naismith. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,301 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country,[243] and 253 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most.[244]
Measurement systems[link]
Main article: United States customary units
The nation retains United States customary units, comprising mainly former British imperial units such as miles, yards, and degrees Fahrenheit. Distinct units include the U.S. gallon and U.S. pint volume measurements. The United States is one of only three countries that do not rely primarily on the International System of Units. However, metric units are increasingly used in science, medicine, and many industrial fields.[245]
See also[link]
 |
See more Wikipedia articles related to United States. |
- Index of United States-related articles
- Lists of U.S. states
- Outline of the United States
- Wikipedia books: United States
References[link]
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- ^ "All-Time Medal Standings, 1924–2006". Information Please. http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0115207.html. Retrieved 2007-06-14. "Olympic Medals". Vancouver Organizing Committee. http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-medals/. Retrieved 2010-03-02. Norway is first.
- ^ "Appendix G: Weights and Measures". The World Factbook. CIA. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/appendix/appendix-g.html. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Kofi Annan | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| United Nations and Arab League envoy to Syria | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 23 February 2012 |
|
| Secretary General | Ban Ki-moon (UN) Nabil el-Araby (AL) |
| Preceded by | office created |
| Secretary-General of the United Nations | |
| In office 1 January 1997 – 31 December 2006 |
|
| Deputy | Louise Fréchette (1997–2006) Mark Malloch Brown (2006) |
| Preceded by | Boutros Boutros-Ghali |
| Succeeded by | Ban Ki-moon |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Kofi Atta Annan (1938-04-08) 8 April 1938 (age 74) Kumasi, Colony of the Gold Coast, British Empire |
| Nationality | Ghanaian |
| Spouse(s) | Nane Maria Lagergren (m. 1984–present) |
| Relations | Anthony Gildas Kofi Annan (b. 1986) |
| Alma mater | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Macalester College Graduate Institute of International Studies MIT |
| Religion | Christian (Protestant)[1] |
| Signature |  |
Kofi Atta Annan (
/ˈkoʊfi ˈænən/; born 8 April 1938) is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his founding of the Global AIDS and Health Fund to support developing countries in their struggle to care for their people.
Since February 2012, Annan has been the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, to help find a resolution to ongoing conflict there.[2]
Contents |
Early years and education[link]
Kofi Annan was born in Kumasi, Ghana. His twin sister Efua Atta, who died in 1991, shares the middle name Atta, which in Fante and Akan means 'twin'. Annan and his sister were born into one of the country's aristocratic families; both their grandfathers and their uncle were tribal chiefs.[3]
In the Akan names tradition, some children are named according to the day of the week on which they were born, and/or in relation to how many children precede them. Kofi in Akan is the name that corresponds with Friday.[4]
Pronunciation: Annan has said his surname rhymes with "cannon" in English.[5]
From 1954 to 1957, Annan attended the elite Mfantsipim school, a Methodist boarding school in Cape Coast founded in the 1870s. Annan has said that the school taught him "that suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere".[6] In 1957, the year Annan graduated from Mfantsipim, Ghana gained independence from Britain.
In 1958, Annan began studying economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology of Ghana. He received a Ford Foundation grant, enabling him to complete his undergraduate studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, in 1961. Annan then did a DEA degree in International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961–62. After some years of work experience, he studied at the MIT Sloan School of Management[7] (1971–72) in the Sloan Fellows program and earned a Master of Science (M.S.) degree.
Annan is fluent in English, French, Akan, some Kru languages and other African languages.[8]
Early career[link]
In 1962, Kofi Annan started working as a Budget Officer for the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations (UN). From 1974 to 1976, he worked as the Director of Tourism in Ghana. In the late 1980s, Annan returned to work for the UN, where he was appointed as an Assistant Secretary-General in three consecutive positions: Human Resources, Management and Security Coordinator (1987–1990); Program Planning, Budget and Finance, and Controller (1990–1992); and Peacekeeping Operations (March 1993 – December 1996).
The Rwandan Genocide took place in 1994 while Annan directed UN Peacekeeping Operations. In 2003 Canadian ex-General Roméo Dallaire, who was force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, claimed that Annan was overly passive in his response to the imminent genocide. In his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2003), General Dallaire asserted that Annan held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict, and from providing more logistical and material support. Dallaire claimed that Annan failed to provide responses to his repeated faxes asking for access to a weapons depository; such weapons could have helped Dallaire defend the endangered Tutsis. In 2004, ten years after the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, Annan said, "I could and should have done more to sound the alarm and rally support."[9]
Annan served as Under-Secretary-General from March 1994 to October 1995. He was appointed a Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia, serving for five months before returning to his duties as Under-Secretary-General in April 1996.
Secretary-General of the United Nations[link]
Appointment[link]
On 13 December 1996, the United Nations Security Council recommended Annan to replace the previous Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, whose second term faced the veto of the United States.[10][11] Confirmed four days later by the vote of the General Assembly,[12] he started his first term as Secretary-General on 1 January 1997.
Activities[link]
In April 2001, Annan issued a five-point "Call to Action" to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Stating it was a "personal priority", Annan proposed a Global AIDS and Health Fund to stimulate the increased international spending needed to help developing countries confront the HIV/AIDS crisis. On 10 December 2001, Annan and the United Nations were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".[13]
During the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Annan called on the United States and the United Kingdom not to invade without the support of the United Nations. In a September 2004 interview on the BBC, when questioned about the legal authority for the invasion, Annan said he believed it was not in conformity with the UN charter and was illegal.[14][15]
Annan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disagreed sharply on Iran's nuclear program, on an Iranian exhibition of cartoons mocking the Holocaust, and on the then upcoming International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust, an Iranian Holocaust denial conference in 2006.[16] During a visit to Iran instigated by continued Iranian uranium enrichment, Annan said "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact and we should really accept that fact and teach people what happened in World War II and ensure it is never repeated."[16]
Annan supported sending a UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur, Sudan. He worked with the government of Sudan to accept a transfer of power from the African Union peacekeeping mission to a UN one. Annan also worked with several Arab and Muslim countries on women's rights and other topics.
Beginning in 1998, Annan convened an annual UN "Security Council Retreat" with the 15 States' representatives of the Council. It was held at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) Conference Center at the Rockefeller family estate at Pocantico, and was sponsored by both the RBF and the UN.[17]
Lubbers sexual-harassment investigation[link]
In June 2004, Annan was given a copy of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report on the complaint brought by four women workers against Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees for sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and retaliation. The report also reviewed a long-serving staff member's allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Werner Blatter, Director of UNHCR Personnel. The investigation found Lubbers guilty of sexual harassment; no mention was made publicly of the other charge against a senior official, or two subsequent complaints filed later that year. In the course of the official investigation, Lubbers wrote a letter which some considered was a threat to the female worker who had brought the charges.[18] On 15 July 2004, Annan cleared Lubbers of the accusations, saying they were not substantial enough legally.[19] His decision held until November 2004. When the OIOS issued its annual report to the UN General Assembly, it stated that it had found Lubbers guilty of sexual harassment. These events were widely reported and weakened Annan's influence.
On 17 November 2004, Annan accepted an OIOS report clearing Dileep Nair, UN Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, of political corruption and sexual harassment charges. Some UN staff in New York disagreed with this conclusion, leading to extended debate on 19 November.
The internal UNn-OIOS report on Lubbers was leaked, and sections accompanied by an article by Kate Holt were published in a British newspaper. In February 2005, he resigned as head of the UN refugee agency. Lubbers said he wanted to relieve political pressure on Annan.[20]
Oil-for-Food scandal[link]
In December 2004, reports surfaced that the Secretary-General's son Kojo Annan received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations.
Annan appointed the Independent Inquiry Committee,[21] which was led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,[22] then the director of the United Nations Association of the US. In his first interview with the Inquiry Committee, Annan denied having had a meeting with Cotecna. Later in the inquiry, he recalled that he had met with Cotecna's chief executive Elie-Georges Massey twice. In a final report issued on 27 October, the committee found insufficient evidence to indict Kofi Annan on any illegal actions, but did find fault with Benan Sevan, a Cypriot national who had worked for the UN for about 40 years. Appointed by Annan to the Oil-For-Food role, Sevan repeatedly asked Iraqis for allocations of oil to the African Middle East Petroleum Company. Sevan's behavior was "ethically improper", Volcker said to reporters. Sevan repeatedly denied the charges and argued that he was being made a "scapegoat".[citation needed] The Volcker report was highly critical of the UN management structure and the Security Council oversight. It strongly recommended a new position be established of Chief Operating Officer (COO), to handle the fiscal and administrative responsibilities than under the Secretary General's office. The report listed the companies, both Western and Middle Eastern, that benefited illegally from the program.[22][citation needed]
Relations between the United States and the United Nations[link]
Kofi Annan supported[23] his deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, who openly criticized the United States in a speech on 6 June 2006: "[T]he prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable. You will lose the UN one way or another. [...] [That] the US is constructively engaged with the UN [...] is not well known or understood, in part because much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."[24] Malloch later said his talk was a "sincere and constructive critique of U.S. policy toward the U.N. by a friend and admirer."[25]
The talk was unusual because it violated unofficial policy of not having top officials publicly criticize member nations.[25] The interim U.S. ambassador John R. Bolton, appointed by President George W. Bush, was reported to have told Annan on the phone: "I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior UN official that I have seen in that entire time."[25] Observers from other nations confirmed Malloch's view that conservative politicians in the US prevented many citizens from understanding the benefits of US involvement in the UN.[26]
UN Resolution 61/225: World Diabetes Day[link]
Kofi Annan witnessed the United Nations General Assembly's passage of UN Resolution 61/225, to establish World Diabetes Day. The Resolution was the second UN General Assembly Resolution on a health-related issue (the other being HIV/AIDS). Resolution 61/225 is the only Health-related UN Resolution to pass by consensus. Sponsored by the Republic of South Africa and Bangladesh, the Resolution was passed on 20 December 2006.
Farewell addresses[link]
 |
Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
On 19 September 2006, Annan gave a farewell address to world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, in anticipation of his retirement on 31 December. In the speech he outlined three major problems of "an unjust world economy, world disorder, and widespread contempt for human rights and the rule of law", which he believes "have not resolved, but sharpened" during his time as Secretary-General. He also pointed to violence in Africa, and the Arab-Israeli conflict as two major issues warranting attention.[27]
On 11 December 2006, in his final speech as Secretary-General, delivered at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, Annan recalled Truman's leadership in the founding of the United Nations. He called for the United States to return to President Truman's multilateralist foreign policies, and to follow Truman's credo that "the responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world". He also said that the United States must maintain its commitment to human rights, "including in the struggle against terrorism."[28][29]
Recommendations for UN reform[link]
Soon after taking office in 1997, Annan released two reports on management reform. On 17 March 1997, the report ‘Management and Organisational Measures’ (A/51/829) introduced new management mechanisms through the establishment of a cabinet-style body to assist him and be grouping the UN’s activities in accordance with four core missions. A comprehensive reform agenda was issued on 14 July 1997 entitled ‘Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform’ (A/51/950). Key proposals included the introduction of strategic management to strengthen unity of purpose, the establishment of the position of Deputy Secretary-General, a 10-percent reduction in posts, a reduction in administrative costs, the consolidation of the UN at the country level, and reaching out to civil society and the private sector as partners. Annan also proposed to hold a Millennium Summit in 2000.[citation needed]
After years of research, Annan presented a progress report, In Larger Freedom, to the UN General Assembly, on 21 March 2005. Annan recommended Security Council expansion and a host of other UN reforms.[30]
On 31 January 2006, Kofi Annan outlined his vision for a comprehensive and extensive reform of the UN in a policy speech to the United Nations Association UK. The speech, delivered at Central Hall, Westminster, also marked the 60th Anniversary of the first meetings of the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council.[31]
On 7 March 2006, he presented to the General Assembly his proposals for a fundamental overhaul of the United Nations Secretariat. The reform report is entitled: "Investing in the United Nations, For a Stronger Organization Worldwide".[32]
On 30 March 2006, he presented to the General Assembly his analysis and recommendations for updating the entire work programme of the United Nations Secretariat over the last 60 years. The report is entitled: "Mandating and Delivering: Analysis and Recommendations to Facilitate the Review of Mandates".[33]
Post-UN career[link]
Upon his return to Ghana, Annan was immediately suggested as a candidate to become the country's next President.[34]
He has become involved with several organizations with both global and African focuses. In 2007, Annan was named chairman of the prize committee for the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, was chosen to lead the new formation of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), became a member of the Global Elders, was appointed president of the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, and was selected for the MacArthur Foundation Award for International Justice.
In the beginning of 2008, as head of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities, Annan participated in the negotiations to end the civil unrest in Kenya. He threatened to leave the negotiations as mediator if a quick decision was not made.[35] On 26 February 2008 he suspended talks to end Kenya's violent post-election crisis.[36] On 28 February, Annan managed to have President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga sign a coalition government agreement and was widely lauded by many Kenyans for this landmark achievement. That was the best deal achieved then under the mediation efforts.
Annan is a member of the Club of Madrid.[37] Annan currently serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner's historic $1 billion USD gift to support UN causes. The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world's most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN.[38]
Annan is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), an independent authority on Africa launched in April 2007 to focus world leaders' attention on delivering their commitments to the continent. The Panel launched a major report in London on Monday 16 June 2008 entitled Africa's Development: Promises and Prospects.[39]
Kofi Annan was appointed the Chancellor of the University of Ghana in 2008.[40]
Annan has signed up to be one of the Counsellors at One Young World a non-profit organisation which hopes to bring together 1500 young global leaders of tomorrow from every country in the world.
In May 2009 Columbia University announced that Annan will join a new program being launched by Dean John Coatsworth at the School of International and Public Affairs as one of the first group of Global Fellows. The Global Fellows program will bring students together with global practitioners to share firsthand knowledge of experiences in the life of an international or public figure. He is also a fellow of The Committee on Global Thought appointed by the University.
On 2 September 2009, Annan was unveiled as the first Li Ka Shing Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore (NUS). The announcement was made during the school's 5th anniversary celebrations.[41]
On 7 October 2010, Annan was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Global Center for Pluralism, Canada’s new international research and education center dedicated to the study and practice of pluralism worldwide. The Global Center for Pluralism is an initiative of His Highness the Aga Khan in partnership with the Government of Canada. The Center is located at 330 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, Canada. Dedicated to the creation of successful societies, the Center is founded on the premise that tolerance, openness and understanding towards the cultures, social structures, values and faiths of other peoples are essential to the very survival of an interdependent world. Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development.
A member of the Foundation Chirac's honour committee when former French president Jacques Chirac launched it in 2008, Kofi Annan participates as jury member for the Prize for Conflict Prevention[42] awarded every year by this foundation. He also created the Kofi Annan Foundation[43] dedicated to sustainable development and peace.
Work in Syria[link]
On 23 February 2012, Annan was appointed as the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, in an attempt to curb the growing violence there.[44] He has developed a six-point plan for peace.[45]
- commit to work with the Envoy in an inclusive Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people, and, to this end, commit to appoint an empowered interlocutor when invited to do so by the Envoy;
- commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilise the country.
- To this end, the Syrian government should immediately cease troop movements towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centres, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centres.
- As these actions are being taken on the ground, the Syrian government should work with the Envoy to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism.
- Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism;
- ensure timely provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the fighting, and to this end, as immediate steps, to accept and implement a daily two hour humanitarian pause and to coordinate exact time and modalities of the daily pause through an efficient mechanism, including at local level;
- intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons, including especially vulnerable categories of persons, and persons involved in peaceful political activities, provide without delay through appropriate channels a list of all places in which such persons are being detained, immediately begin organizing access to such locations and through appropriate channels respond promptly to all written requests for information, access or release regarding such persons;
- ensure freedom of movement throughout the country for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them;
- respect freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed.
Honours and awards[link]
Honours[link]
- 2000: Companion of the Order of the Star of Ghana[46]
- 2001: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Star of Romania
- 2005: Grand Collar of the Order of Liberty (Portugal)
- 2006: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion
- 2007: Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria
- 2007: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) from Queen Elizabeth II (UK)[47]
- 2008: Grand Cross 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany[48]
Awards[link]
- 2000: Kora All Africa Music Awards in the category of Lifetime Achievement
- 2001: Nobel Foundation, The Nobel Peace Prize, jointly presented to Kofi Annan and the United Nations
- 2002: winner of the "Profiles in Courage Award", given by the JFK Memorial Museum
- 2002: The American Whig-Cliosophic Society James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service.[49]
- 2003: Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[50]
- 2003: Freedom Prize of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation at the University of St. Gallen
- 2006: International World Order of Culture, Science and Education, Award of the European Academy of Informatization, Belgium
- 2006: Inter Press Service, International Achievement Award for Annan's lasting contributions to peace, security, and development
- 2006: Olof Palme Prize
- 2007: Wooden Crossbow, special award from the Swiss World Economic Forum
- 2007: People in Europe Award of Verlagsgruppe Passau
- 2007: MacArthur Foundation, MacArthur Award for International Justice
- 2007: North-South Prize of the Council of Europe
- 2008: Peace of Westphalia Prize
- 2008: Harvard University Honors Prize
- 2008: Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize
- 2008: Peace of Westphalia Prize – Münster (Westfalen)
- 2008: Open Society Award – CEU Business School Budapest
Honorary degrees[link]
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (Kumasi), Honorary Doctor of Science, 24 August 1998
- United Nations Mandated University for Peace, Honorary President, 1999
- Lund University, Honorary Doctor of Law, 1999
- National University of Ireland, Doctor of Law, 22 January 1999
- Technische Universität Dresden, doctor honoris causa, 27 April 1999
- Howard University, honorary doctorate of humane letters, 8 May 1999
- Comenius University in Bratislava, doctor honoris causa, 15 Jun 1999
- University of Notre Dame, Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, 21 May 2000
- Seton Hall University, John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Honorary Doctorate, February 2001
- Brown University, Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, 28 May 2001
- Liberty Medal International Selection Commission, Liberty Medal, 4 July 2001
- Free University of Berlin, doctor honoris causa, 13 July 2001
- Tilburg University, Honorary Doctorate, 2002
- University of Alcalá, Doctor Honoris Causa, 9 April 2002
- Northwestern University, Doctor of Laws, 21 June 2002
- University of Pittsburgh, honorary Doctor of Public and International Affairs degree 21 October 2003
- Ghent University (Belgium), doctor honoris causa 21 March 2003
- Carleton University, Legum Doctor, honoris causa, 9 March 2004
- University of Ottawa, Doctor of the University Degree, 9 March 2004
- University of Pennsylvania, Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, 16 May 2005
- Universidade Nova de Lisboa, doctor honoris causa, 12 October 2005
- The George Washington University, Doctor of Public Service, 5 May 2006
- University of Tokyo, Honorary Doctorate, 18 May 2006
- Georgetown University, Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, 30 October 2006
- University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, Max Schmidheiny Foundation Freedom Prize (originally awarded 2003, but postponed due to Annan's illness), 18 November 2006
- Princeton University, Crystal Tiger Award, 28 November 2006
- King's College London, Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, 28 May 2008
- Glasgow Caledonian University, Doctor of Laws, 18 November 2011
See also[link]
- Rwandan Genocide
- In Larger Freedom
- Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana
- Black Nobel Prize laureates
- Seoul Peace Prize
References[link]
- ^ Lefevere, Patricia (11 December 1998). "Annan: `Peace is never a perfect achievement' – United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan". National Catholic Reporter. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_7_35/ai_53460476. Retrieved 26 February 2008.
- ^ BBC News. 23 February 2012"Syria faces ultimatum from international conference."
- ^ "Kofi Annan – The Man To Save The World?", Saga Magazine, November 2002
- ^ Akan dictionary entry for Kofi dictionary.kasahorow.com
- ^ Crossette, Barbara (10 January 1997). "New U.N. Chief Promises Reforms but Says He Won't Cut Jobs". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE1D81638F933A25752C0A961958260. Retrieved 25 February 2008.
- ^ Kofi Annan – Center of the Storm. Life Map. A Chief's Son PBS
- ^ "The MIT 150: 150 Ideas, Inventions, and Innovators that Helped Shape Our World". The Boston Globe. 15 May 2011. http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/specials/mit150/mitlist/?page=full. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
- ^ "Kofi Annan", The Elders
- ^ "UN chief's Rwanda genocide regret". BBC News. 26 March 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3573229.stm. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
- ^ "BIO/3051 – "Kofi Annan of Ghana recommended by Security Council for appointment as Secretary-General of United Nations"" (Press release). UN. 13 December 1996. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1996/19961213.bio3051.html. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ Traub, James (2006). The Best Intentions. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 66–67. ISBN 978-0-374-18220-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=chP1YnYFTKYC.
- ^ "GA/9208 -"General Assembly appoints Kofi Annan of Ghana as seventh Secretary-General"" (Press release). UN. 17 December 1996. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1996/19961217.ga9208.html. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ "The Nobel Peace Prize 2001". Oslo: The Norwegian Nobel Committee. 12 October 2001. http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/laureates/laureates-2001/press-2001/. Retrieved 21 October 2010.
- ^ "Iraq war illegal, says Annan". BBC News. 16 September 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm. Retrieved 12 December 2006. ""When pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said: 'Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.'""
- ^ "Excerpts: Annan interview". BBC News. 16 September 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661640.stm. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ a b "Iranian PM snubs Annan over nuclear program". CBC News. 3 September 2006. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2006/09/03/annan-iran.html.
- ^ "Pocantico Conferences 2005". Rockefeller Brothers Fund website. Archived from the original on 1 October 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061001030415/http://www.rbf.org/grants/programs/pocconference_2005_F.html. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ "UN report slams Lubbers for 'regular sexual harassment'". Expatica. 18 February 2005. http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=17094&name=UN+report+slams+Lubbers+over+sexual+harassment. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ Annan Clears Refugee Chief Of Harassment Accusations
- ^ "UN refugee chief quits over sex claims", The Age, 21 February 2005
- ^ "About the Committee". Independent Inquiry Committee into The United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme website. http://www.iic-offp.org/about.htm. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ a b "Members". Independent Inquiry Committee into The United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme website. http://www.iic-offp.org/members.htm. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ Annan Backs Deputy in Dispute With U.S.
- ^ Brown, Mark Malloch (6 June 2006). "UN needs US, US needs UN to face challenges – HIV/AIDS, SUDAN – that defy national solutions, says Deputy Secretary-General in New York address". United Nations website. UN. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/dsgsm287.doc.htm. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ a b c Associated Press (7 June 2006). "Speech by U. N. Leader Draws Angry Response From US". Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198535,00.html. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ "Iraq Study Group's Suggestion That U.S. Engage Iran And Syria In Talks About Iraq Leads To More Debate Than Resolve, In Washington And Iraq" – CNN NEWSROOM Transcripts (Aired 11 December 2006 – 09:00ET)
- ^ Leopold, Evelyn (16 September 2006). "UN's Annan depicts polarized world in farewell speech". Reuters. http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-19T173615Z_01_N19388437_RTRUKOC_0_US-UN-ASSEMBLY-ANNAN.xml&archived=False&src=091906_1412_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ "Annan chides US in final speech". BBC News. 11 December 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6169669.stm. Retrieved 11 December 2006.
- ^ Annan, Kofi (11 December 2006). "Independence, Missouri, 11 December 2006 – Secretary-General's address at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library followed by Questions and Answers". United Nations website. UN. http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2357. Retrieved 11 December 2006.
- ^ "In Larger Freedom". United Nations website. http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ "Annan addresses UNA-UK in London". United Nations website. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=17358&Cr=Iran&Cr1=nuclear. Retrieved 5 August 2007.
- ^ "Reforming the United Nations". United Nations website. http://www.un.org/reform/. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ "Reforming the United Nations, Mandate Review". United Nations website. http://www.un.org/mandatereview. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ^ Annan 'for president': Africa: News: News24
- ^ "Annan: Kenya factions 'not capable' of agreement". CNN. 25 February 2008. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/02/25/kenya.talks/index.html. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
- ^ . CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/02/26/rice.africa/index.html. [dead link]
- ^ The Club of Madrid is an independent non-profit organization composed of 81 democratic former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 57 different countries. It constitutes the world's largest forum of former Heads of State and Government, who have come together to respond to a growing demand for support among leaders in democratic leadership, governance, crisis and post-crisis situations. All lines of work share the common goal of building functional and inclusive societies, where the leadership experience of our Members is most valuable.
- ^ United Nations Foundation Board of Directors
- ^ APP, Press Release: Africa Progress Panel demands action on global food crisis "reversing decades of economic progress", 16 June 2008, http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/english/newsreleases.php
- ^ "Kofi Annan appointed Chancellor of University of Ghana". General News of Wednesday, 30 July 2008 (Ghana Home Page). http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=147650. Retrieved 1 August 2008.
- ^ Kofi Annan joins LKY school. The Straits Times Online. 3 September 2009[1]
- ^ The jury for the Conflict Prevention Prize awarded by the Fondation Chirac
- ^ Kofi Annan Foundation
- ^ Syria faces ultimatum from international conference. BBC News. 23 February 2012[2]
- ^ Kofi Annan's six-point plan for Syria, 27 March 2012, Aljazeera
- ^ "Ghana honours famous son Kofi Annan News". BBC News. 2 August 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/862656.stm. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Honorary knighthood for Kofi Annan". Metro. 24 October 2007. http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=72787&in_page_id=34&in_a_source=. Retrieved 25 February 2008.
- ^ ""Work for a better world" – Speech by Federal President Horst Köhler at a dinner in honour of Mr Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General". official website of the Federal President of Germany. 5 May 2008. http://bundespraesident.de/en/Speeches-,11165.645178/Work-for-a-better-world-Speech.htm. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ http://archives-trim.un.org/webdrawer/rec/552938/view/Item-in-KAA%20Schoolsuniversities%202002%20-%20oct.%20-%20dec..PDF
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
External links[link]
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- Biographies, interviews, and profiles
- Official UN biography as former SG
- UN envoy for Syria
- Nobel Peace Prize biography
- Kofi Annan: Center of the Storm Detailed PBS profile. Includes interactive biography and map of Annan's worldwide travels, among other things. Requires Flash.
- Kofi Annan: An Online News Hour Focus A compilation of information, interviews, and initiatives about and by Kofi Annan, by the website of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. From 1998–1999.
- Kofi Annan, President, Global Humanitarian Forum Geneva
- Kofi Annan: Biographical Note Basic biography by Phyllis Bennis of the Global Policy Forum.
- One-on-one with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan October 1998 interview of Kofi Annan by Kevin Chappell of Ebony.
- Annan Article in Saga Magazine
- Short Biography at the Africa Progress Panel website
- Articles
- Ian Williams, The Guardian, 20 September 2005, "Annan has paid his dues: The UN declaration of a right to protect people from their governments is a millennial change"
- Annan, Kofi A. "Lessons from the U.N. leader" The Washington Post, 12 Dec 2006
- "Kofi and U.N. Ideals" The Wall Street Journal, 14 Dec 2006
- Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 24 April 2005, "U.N. Chief's Record Comes Under Fire"
- "Oil-for-food memo raises questions for Annan" – CNN
- The Annan Plan: full text and additional information from the United Nations
- Speeches
| Diplomatic posts | ||
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| Preceded by Boutros Boutros-Ghali Egypt |
United Nations Secretary-General 1997–2006 |
Succeeded by Ban Ki-moon South Korea |
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Annan, Kofi Atta |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | United Nations Secretary-General |
| Date of birth | (1938-04-08) 8 April 1938 (age 74) |
| Place of birth | Kumasi, Ghana |
| Date of death | living |
| Place of death | |
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