A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up. In international relations, nation can refer to a country or sovereign state. The word nation can more specifically refer to people of North American Indians, such as the Cherokee Nation that prefer this term over the contested term tribe.

According to Joseph Stalin writing in 1913 in Marxism and the National Question: "a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people;" "a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration, but a stable community of people;" "a common language is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after generation;" "a common territory is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a common economic life, economic cohesion, is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a common psychological make-up, which manifests itself in a common culture, is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." According to Stalin, this would exclude Jews as they have no common territory.

George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731] – December 14, 1799) was the first President of the United States of America, serving from 1789 to 1797, and the dominant military and political leader of the United States from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of the Constitution in 1787. Washington became the first president, by unanimous choice, and oversaw the creation of a strong, well-financed national government that maintained neutrality in the wars raging in Europe, suppressed rebellion, and won acceptance among Americans of all types. His leadership style established many forms and rituals of government that have been used since, such as using a cabinet system and delivering an inaugural address. Washington is universally regarded as the "Father of his country."

Fintan Cullen (born 3 January 1954) in Dublin, is an Irish academic, educator and writer. Cullen is presently a professor at Nottingham University

He and Roy Foster co-created Conquering England: Ireland in Victorian England, which was exhibited from 9 March 2005 to 19 June 2005 in London. The name comes from G. B. Shaw's mordant observation that England had conquered Ireland, so there was nothing for it but to come over and conquer England.

The exhibition explored the diversity of the Irish in London and their influence in the visual arts, literature, theatre, journalism and politics. It featured portraits of Shaw, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats and Charles Stewart Parnell. 'Conquering England' also included painters, sculptors, politicians, journalists, theatrical entrepreneurs (including Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula) ... [t]he reign of Queen Victoria was characterized by a contentious and contradictory relationship between Ireland and Britain ... with the Parnellite Irish Parliamentary Party holding the balance of power at Westminster in the 1880s and Parnell himself being the focus of intense controversy ... [the] Irish were prominent in other spheres, notably medicine and the law, but the worlds of the visual arts, politics, literature and the stage retain the most vivid impression of Irish influence in Queen Victoria's reign ... [by] the end of the period, ... the Celtic craze and events such as the new Abbey Theatre's visits to London ... coincided with the return of the cultural focus to Dublin, to an Ireland undergoing political radicalization and cultural renaissance.