At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with around 315 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.[12] The geography and climate of the U.S. is also extremely diverse, with deserts, plains, forests, and mountains that are home to a wide variety of species.
Paleoindians migrated from Asia to what is now the United States mainland around 15,000 years ago. After 1500, Old World diseases introduced by Europeans greatly reduced their populations. European colonization began around 1600 and came mostly from England. The United States emerged from thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. Disputes between Great Britain and the American colonies led to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence, which established the United States of America. The American Revolutionary War, which ended with the recognition of independence of the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain, was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire.[13][14] The current Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; twenty-seven Amendments have since been added to the Constitution. The first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and guarantee many fundamental civil rights and freedoms.
Driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century.[15] This involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states.[15] The American Civil War ended legalized slavery in the United States.[16] By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean,[17] and its economy was the world's largest.[18] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, 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 United States is a developed country and has the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2012 GDP of $15.6 trillion – 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity, as of 2011.[6][19][20] The per capita GDP of the U.S. was the world's sixth-highest as of 2010,[6] although America's wealth inequality was also ranked highest among OECD countries by the World Bank.[21] The economy is fueled by an abundance of natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure,[22] and high productivity;[23] and while its economy is considered post-industrial it continues to be one of the world's largest manufacturers.[24] The country accounts for 39% of global military spending,[25] and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world, as well as a leader in scientific research and technological innovation.
Etymology
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.[28]
The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymously written essay published in the Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia on April 6, 1776.[29][30] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson included the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence.[31][32] In the final Fourth of July version of the Declaration, the pertinent section of the title was changed to read, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".[33]
In 1777 the Articles of Confederation announced, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".[34]
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 name popular in poetry and songs of the late 1700s,[35] derives its origin 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". "United States", "American" and "U.S." are used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to subjects not connected with the United States.[36]
The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural, a description of a collection of independent states—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, a single unit—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".[37] The difference has been described as more significant than one of usage, but reflecting the difference between a collection of states and a unit.[38]
In non-English languages, the name is frequently translated as the translation of either the "United States" or "United States of America", and colloquially as "America". In addition, an initialism is sometimes used.[39]
History
Main article: History of the United States
Native American and European settlement
The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago.[40] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After European explorers and traders made the first contacts, many millions died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.
The first Spanish explorers landed in "La Florida" in 1513. Spain set up settlements in California, Florida, and New Mexico that were eventually merged into the United States. There were also some French settlements along the Mississippi River.
James I on 10 April 1606 chartered The Virginia Company with the purpose of establishing English settlements on the eastern coast of North America. The Virginia Colony was planted in 1607 with Jamestown and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620.
Some 100,000 Puritans later settled New England, especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled in present day New York State; their colony of New Netherland, which had earlier conquered New Sweden, was taken over by England in 1674, but a strong Dutch influence persisted in the Hudson Valley north of New York City for generations. Many new settlers, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia settlers between 1630 and 1680.[42] By the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor in many regions.[43]
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.[44] 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.[45] With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, 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, who were being conquered and displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain. Nearly one-fifth of those living in what would become the United States were black slaves.[46]
English expansion westward saw incorporation of disparate pre-established cultures it met. But it also found Amerindian resistance to that settlement. Their opposition took various forms across the continent, as allies with Europeans, multi-tribe nations, and alone—by relocation and warring, by treaties and in court. On the other hand, the colonists of British North America were subject to British taxation, they had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion
The American Revolution was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power. Americans had developed a democratic system of local government and an ideology of "republicanism" that held government rested on the will of the people (not the king), which strongly opposed corruption and demanded civic virtue. They demanded their rights as Englishmen and rejected British efforts to impose taxes without the approval of colonial legislatures. The British insisted and the conflict escalated to full-scale war in 1775, the American Revolutionary War.[47] On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington.[48] 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 government that operated until 1789.
1 comments:
aaa
Post a Comment