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American

Definition: American

American

Adjective

1. Of or relating to the United States of America or its people or language or culture; "American citizens"; "American English"; "the American dream".

2. Of or relating to or characteristic of the continents and islands of the Americas; "the American hemisphere"; "American flora and fauna".

Noun

1. A native or inhabitant of the United States.

2. The English language as used in the United States.

3. A native or inhabitant of America.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "American" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. (references)

Note: American \A*mer"i*can\, adjective. [Named from Americus Vespucius.]. (references)

 

Specialty Definition: American

DomainDefinition

Geography

Inhabitant of the United States. Source: European Union. (references)

Mining

Permissible explosive used in coal mines. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: American

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

American can mean when used as an adjective "of the United States of America" or "of or relating to the Americas"; when used as a noun "United States citizen", "residing in the Americas", or less frequently "American English".

English language speakers generally use "American" to refer to the United States only, especially outside of Latin America.

As many people from the various nations throughout the New World consider themselves to be "Americans", some people think the common usage of "American" to refer to only people from the U.S. should be avoided in international contexts where it might be ambiguous. Many neologisms have been proposed to refer to the United States instead of "American". However, they are virtually unused, and most commentators feel that it is unlikely that they will catch on. See Alternate words for American for more information.

The American race is an obsolete 19th-century racial classification referring to the various peoples now called Native Americans, also historically called the "red" race, although that latter term is often considered deragotory by most people.

See also:

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American."

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American Airlines

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)


American Airlines Boeing 777.
Larger version

American Airlines is the largest airline in the world and is based in Fort Worth, Texas in the United States. It's IATA designator is AA.

In 1934, American Airways Company became American Airlines, Inc. It is now one of the divisions operated by its parent company, AMR Corp AMR Corp. also operates American Eagle Airlines, Inc (which includes Executive Air.) and American Connection. Trans World Airlines, LLC was operated by AMR before it was consolidated into AA. The CEO is Gerard Arpey and the chairman is Edward A. Brennan.

American Airlines is part of the airline alliance Oneworld. They also codeshare rail service to stations in France with SNCF French Rail, Belgium with Thalys International, Germany with Deutsche Bahn (AiRail Service) and stations in Switzerland (one of which also serves France), with Swiss Rail

History


American Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10; this model of aircraft has been phased out

American Airlines developed from a conglomeration of about 82 small airlines companies through a series of corporate acquisitions and reorganizations. In 1934, American Airways Company, in financial straits, was acquired by a corporate raider, E.L. (Errett Lobban) Cord. who renamed the company "American Airlines".

One of the early American Airlines presidents, C.R. (Cyrus Rowlett) Smith, worked closely with Donald Douglas to develop the DC-2, which American Airlines started flying in 1936.

As of May 2002, American Airlines served 172 cities with a fleet of 833 aircraft - with an average of 2800 daily departures. The average age of their aircraft is 10.8 years. (from the AMR Corp. page at http://www.amrcorp.com/)

American Airlines moved its corporate headquarters from New York City to Fort Worth, Texas in 1979.

Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, Flight 77, a Boeing 757 and Flight 11, a Boeing 767.

American Airlines almost lost Flight 63 on December 22 of the same year, but the terrorist was foiled.

The 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 was AA's other major disaster that year.

Former CEOs

Other facts of interest

External link

Sources

Eagle by Robert J. Serling, published by St.Martin's/Marek in 1985.
International Directory of Company Histories St. James Press.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American Airlines."

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American Empire

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

American Empire is an informal term that is used to collectively describe United States of America's influence and trends toward expansion throughout the world.

Expansion

Unlike many other powerful western nations, the United States had historically not been a country that has participated in traditional imperialist expansion or conquests. This changed following the Spanish American War, which was partially provoked by American politicians and businessmen interested in European-style expansionism. After the war, the defeated Kingdom of Spain agreed to cede most of her colonial possessions to the control of the United States.

The following areas have at one time or another been part of a sort of "American Empire," that is to say colonies that were annexed to the United States, yet not granted statehood or self-rule.

There is also the odd case of Liberia, a nation founded in part by American slaves who were returned to Africa.

Many of America's former colonies have since become independent countries, states of the American union, or self-governing commonwealths.

Contemporary Use of the term

Today, what many consider to be the "American Empire" does not fit historical definitions of imperialism and colonialism, but the United States influence takes on different and discreet forms. America's military presence by itself is breathtaking and influential. According to researchers [1], around the world, the United States maintains 750 military bases or installations staffed by American military personnel in roughly 130 countries.

Term

The term "American Empire" is mostly used as derogatory expression to personify America's military and cultural presence in most nations. American Empire is a book by Andrew J. Bacevich that says the United States started to act like an Empire after the end of the Cold War.

Many statesmen, scholars, and supporters within the United States insist that America "is" and "should be" an empire in every sense. This is exemplified by the conservative, Reagan-ite Project for the New American Century, which became influential in the 2003 decision to invade Iraq. As stated in PNAC's principles:

We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. [1]

However, many in opposition to this view value a diversity, and reject the notion of a single dominating superpower in order to maintain "balance", "equality", "mutual respect", and "harmony" among all nations around the world.

See also

History of United States Imperialism, Pax Americana, Empire, Project for the New American Century

Book

In the book Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, the USA are seen as central for the development and constitution of a new global regime of power and sovereignty, termed empire by Hardt and Negri. The book is building on neomarxist, postcolonial, postmodern ideas and globalization theories. The empire of Hardt and Negri shouldn't be equalled with the American Empire described in this article.

Alternate history

American Empire is also the name of an alternate history trilogy by Harry Turtledove - after the Great War, the USA and Germany are the dominant world powers. Canada is now under US occupation, and the Confederacy has lost Kentucky and parts of Texas and Virginia to the USA. Jake Featherston, a racist demagogue in the Confederacy, rises to power bent on revenge against the USA, and against the blacks he accuses of 'stabbing the Confederacy in the back'.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American Empire."

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American English

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

American English is a form of the English language used in the United States of America. It is the primary language used in the United States. According to the 1990 census, 97 percent of U.S. residents speak English "well" or "very well." Only 0.8 of one percent speak no English at all, as compared with 3.6 percent in 1890.

History

English was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking immigrants was settled in North America in the 17th Century:

In this century, there were in North America speakers of Dutch, French, Native American, Spanish and Swedish languages.

In 1763, Britain acquired the French colony of New France and the Spanish colony of Florida.

Phonology

Compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. It is often claimed that certain rural areas in North America speak "Elizabethan English," but in fact the standard American English of the upper Midwest has a sound profile much closer to seventeenth century English than the current speech of England has. The conservatism of American English is largely the result of the fact that it represents a mixture of various dialects from the British Isles. Dialect in North America is most distinctive on the east coast of the continent; this is largely because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestige varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes. The country was settled in the interior by people who were no longer closely connected to England and did not travel there often by sea, and as such the inland speech is much more homogeneous than the East Coast speech, and did not participate in changes imitated from England.

Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was everywhere in the seventeenth century. In most varieties of North American English, the sound of the letter "R" is a retroflex semivowel rather than a trill or a tap. This was a sound change that took place in England in the eighteenth century, and in which most current North American varieties did not participate. The loss of syllable-final /r/ in North America is confined mostly to parts of New England, New York, New York, and the southern coast of the United States. In England, lost /r/ was often changed into /ə/ (schwa, SAMPA /@/), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Other British English changes which most North American dialects do not participate include:

North American English, while more phonologically conservative, has undergone some sound changes. These include:

Differences in British English and American English

American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from British English, some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the English spelling used by British English at the time. Unlike many 20th century language reforms (e.g., Turkey's alphabet shift, Norway's spelling reform) the American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary makers.

The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828. At the time America was a relatively new country and Webster's particular contribution was to show that the region spoke a different dialect from Britain, and so he wrote a dictionary with many spellings differing from the standard. Many of these changes were initiated unilaterally by Webster.

Webster also argued for many "simplifications" to the idiomatic spelling of the period. Somewhat ironically, many, although not all, of his simplifications fell into common usage alongside the original versions, resulting in a situation even more confused than before.

Many words are shortened and differ from other versions of English. Spellings such as center are used instead of centre in other versions of English. And there are many other variations. Conversely, American English can sometimes favor more wordy or elongated versions of British English, as in transportation for transport.

A key area where American English has grown (on both sides of the Atlantic), is in the world of Business and Commerce, where use of the rhetorical euphemism is common. One example would be the phrase "are you comfortable with that". This phrase will typically be used by a business manager introducing a change which may, or may not, be welcome. A negative answer is neither expected nor, indeed invited. However, the question is, at least on the face of it, conciliatory.

American English has further changed due to the influx of non-English speakers whose words sometimes enter American vernacular. Many words have entered American English from Spanish, etc.

Examples of common American English loanwords, not common in British English (many, however, would be recognised due to Hollywood movies):

From African languages
gumbookra, or a stew thickened with okra

From Dutch
cookiebaked sweet, never called a biscuit, digestive; sometimes called shortbread
killcreek

From English
attica loft; the topmost story of a house
back and forthas in backwards and forwards
bugany kind of insect
bushela common unit of measurement
cabina humble dwelling
closeta cupboard
decka pack of cards
fallthe season also known as autumn
hoga pig
jacka knave within a deck of cards
junkas in rubbish
rearas in raising an animal or child
madas in the sense of being angry
noonmidday (originally nones, the ninth hour of daylight, or 3pm
plumbas being complete
roostera male fowl
stocksas in stocks and bonds; shares
zeroas in nought

From French
banquettea raised sidewalk
beigneta square, holeless doughnut
boudina spicy link sausage
café au laita mixture of half milk and half coffee
chowdera thick seafood stew
étoufféea spicy stew of vegetables and seafood
jambalayarice cooked with herbs, spices, and ham, chicken, or seafood
lagniappean extra or unexpected gift
pain perduNew Orleans-style French toast
piroguea canoe made from a hollowed tree trunk
pralinea candy made of nuts suspended in a boiled sugar syrup
toboggana sled
zydecoa native Louisiana style of music

From Native American languages
bayoua swampy, slow-moving stream or outlet
cape (kepan)a headland
chinooka strong wind blowing down off the mountains
hickory (pawcohiccora)a North American deciduous tree of the genus Carya
high muckamuckan important person
mugwumpa political independent
that neck of the woods (naiack)an expression; from whence a person hails
powwowa gathering or meeting, esp. of Native Americans
raccoonthe raccoon, a small mammal
skunk (seganku)the skunk, a badgerlike, foul-smelling mammal
squash (askutasquash)a vegetable, similar to English marrow
succotashmixture of corn and other vegetables like peas, beans
tipia kind of tent
woodchuck (wuchak)a marmot-like mammal

From Spanish
adobea mud-based construction material
arroyogulch, often dry except when it has rained recently
barrioshantytown or historically poverty-afflicted area of a city
burrodonkey
barbecuea grill
desperadocriminal
fiestaparty
frijolesbeans
gringoa disparaging term for a foreigner, esp. English or American
haciendaparticular style of house
hammocka bed
hombreman
maizea kind of grain
mesaflat topped mountain
prontoimmediately

From Yiddish
klutza clumsy person
kvetchcomplain
loxcured salmon
schlepto carry or to travel
schmucka fool, or the penis
schmutzdirt
shlemiela fool

From Japanese
tycoonsuccessful business leader
honcholeader, ie: "The Head Honcho"

For detailed differences in British English and American English see American and British English differences.

English words that arose in the US

A number of words that have arisen in the United States have become common, to varying degrees, in English as it is spoken internationally. Perhaps the most famous is OK, which is sometimes used in other languages as well. Other American introductions include "blizzard" and "teenager", and there are of course many more.

Regional differences

Written American English is fairly standardized across the country. However, there is some variation in the spoken language. There are several recognizable regional variations (such as that spoken in New York and New Jersey), particularly in pronunciation, but also in slang vocabulary.

Most traditional sources cite Standard Midwestern American English as the unofficial standard accent and dialect of American English. However, many linguists claim California English has become the de facto standard since the 1960s or 1970s due to its central role in the American entertainment industry; others argue that the entertainment industry, despite being in California, uses Midwestern.

African-American colloquial English (sometimes called Ebonics) contains many distinctive forms.

Regional dialects in North America are most strongly differentiated along the eastern seaboard. The distictive speech of important cultural centeres like Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana imposed their marks on the surrounding areas. The Potomac River generally divides a group of Northern coastal dialects from the beginning of Southern coastal dialects. A distinctive speech pattern was also generated by the separation of Canada from the United States, centered on the Great Lakes region.

In the interior, the situation is very different. West of the Appalachian Mountains begins the large river of what is generally called "Midland" speech. This is divided into two general subdivisions, the north Midlands that begins north of the Ohio River valley area; and the south Midlands speech. The North Midlands speech continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related speech of California. This is the "standard Midwestern" speech that is generally considered free from regional marking in the United States of America.

The southern Midlands dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in western Texas. This is the dialect associated with truck drivers on the CB radio and country music. It is a version of the Midlands speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms, most noticeably the loss of the diphthong /aj/, which becomes /a:/, and the second person plural pronoun "you-all" or "y'all". Unlike coastal Southern, however, southern Midlands is a rhotic dialect, pronouncing /r/ wherever it has historically occurred.

The sounds of American speech can be identified with a number of public figures. President John F. Kennedy spoke the Northeastern coastal dialect associated with Boston, while President Jimmy Carter spoke with a Southern coastal dialect. The North Midlands speech is familiar to those who have heard Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, while the South Midlands speech was the speech of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

External links and references

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American football

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

American football, known in the United States as simply football, is a competitive team sport that rewards players' speed, agility, tactics, and brute strength as they push, block, tackle, chase, and outrun each other, trying to force a ball further into enemy territory for one hour of game time, which translates into three to four hours of real time. American football is often seen as a metaphor for war, with a great deal of personal violence occurring on every play as players often weighing 300 pounds or more shove each other with every ounce of their strength, and with a clearly defined front line, moving up and down the field, separating the offensive and defensive squads. American football does not much resemble soccer, the sport which most of the rest of the world, except Canada, calls "football". It is a descendant of Rugby Union, and still has recognisable similarities to rugby football.

Popularity

Football is extremely popular in the US. In recent years it has surpassed even baseball as the nation's most popular spectator sport. The professional league, the National Football League (NFL), which consists of 32 teams, is very popular. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, is annually watched by nearly half of US television households, and is also televised in over 150 other countries. College football is extremely popular, with many major colleges and universities playing NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Division I football, and consistently selling out huge stadiums. College games are widely televised and widely watched. Many colleges in lower NCAA divisions and the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) have varsity football teams, as do most high schools. There are also amateur, club and youth teams (such as teams in the Pop Warner leagues). In addition to those leagues and teams, now there is a American Football World Cup.

Naming

The word football has a number of different meanings. In the United States football almost always means what, in the rest of the English-speaking world, is usually called American football (or in some cases Gridiron football). In most of the rest of the world, the word football means the game that is called soccer in the US, although it is occasionally called Association football or International football. Soccer, the most popular form of football world-wide, is also popular in the US, particlarly as a participation sport for children. It is played at all levels, youth, amateur, high school, college and professional. (see: football (soccer))

The name football might seem a curious name for the sport of American football, as the players' feet rarely have much to do with the ball -- kicking the football is only allowed in certain situations and is most often inadvisable. The vast majority of game time involves players holding the ball in their hands as they run. However, the sport is a direct descendant of rugby union football, as explained below, and has retained the name.

In the remainder of this article, the word football refers to American football.

Professional, college, and other leagues

Football is played at a number of levels in the United States. These include the following. The descriptions on this page are based primarily on the current rules of the National Football League (NFL, 1920-present). Differences with college rules will be noted.

NFL, college, high school, and amateur rules are similar, as were the rules of professional leagues that no longer exist. The Arena Football League (AFL, 1987-present) plays an indoor adaptation of American football. Flag football and touch football are non-tackle versions of American football.

Professional leagues that no longer exist include the World Football League (WFL,1974-75), the United States Football League (USFL,1983-1985), the XFL (XFL,2001), the All America Football Conference (1946-1949), the American Football League (AFL,1960-1969-merged with the NFL in 1970), and the World League of American Football (WLAF,1991-1993-now NFL Europe). Since 2000, there has been a surge of women's professional leagues.

The Game

Play in American football consists of a series of individual plays of short duration, between which the ball is not in play. Substitutions are allowed between plays, which allows for a great deal of specialization, as coaches put in players they think are best suited for any particular situation. The game is very tactical and strategic. With 22 players on the field at a time, (eleven on each team), each with an assigned task for a given play, the strategies are complex.

Object of the game

The object of the game is to advance the ball to the opponents' end of the field and score points. The team with the most points when time has expired wins.

Duration, kickoffs and free kicks

The game is 60 minutes long, divided into two halves separated by a halftime. Each half consists of two quarters, each 15 minutes long. Teams change ends of the field after the first and third quarters. If a game is tied at the end of regulation, overtime is played. Overtime periods are "sudden death", meaning that the teams that scores first, by any means, wins.

A kickoff is a special play used to start each half, and also used to restart the game following a field goal, or a conversion attempt following a touchdown. One team kicks the ball, usually from its own 30-yard line, although a kickoff may occur elsewhere due to a penalty on the preceding play. (Note: the ball is usually kicked from the 35 yard line in college football). The ball must be kicked from the ground (not punted) and in bounds at least 10 yards away. Once the ball has traveled 10 yards upfield it can be fielded by either team. The ball is usually just kicked deep to the receiving team, but sometimes a team will attempt to recover its own kick, in a play that is known as an onside kick.

A free kick is used to restart the game following a safety, which doesn't happen often. The team that was trapped in its own end zone, and therefore conceded two points to the other team, kicks the ball from its own 20-yard line. A free kick may be punted if the kicking team so chooses.

Methods of scoring

Points can be scored in the following ways.

The Field


The field

The field is a rectangle 120 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide, defined by sidelines running the length of the field and endlines running the width. There is a goal line ten yards in from each end line and parallel to it. The two goal lines are thus 100 yards apart. The area of the field between the goal lines is called the field of play. At each end of the field, the end zone is the area between the goal line and the end line.

Within the field of play, additional markings include yard markers, as well as inbound lines (also called hash marks), every yard the length of the field. The inbound lines (hash marks), which are short lines perpendicular to the yard markers, are 70-3/4 feet from the sidelines in the NFL. (Note: the hash marks are closer to the sidelines in college football) Every 5 yards, the yard markers run the width of the field, and every 10 yards, they are marked by numbers indicating the distance, in yards, from the nearest goal line.

At the center of each end line is a set of goal posts, which have two upright posts extending above a crossbar. The distance between upright posts is 18-1/2 feet, and the top of the crossbar is 10 feet above the ground.

Play Of The Game

A game consists of many individual plays. The vast majority of these are scrimmage plays. Each play from scrimmage is one of a series of downs given to the team with possession. These two concepts, the concept of scrimmage, and the concept of downs, are fundamental to American football, and are what distinguish it, as well as Canadian football, from most other forms of football.

A set of downs begins with a first down, which is given to a team either after it has just gained possession on the previous play, or it has gained the necessary yardage from a previous set of downs. On a first down, the team with possession is given four downs to gain 10 yards (they have "a first and ten", meaning that it is first down, and they need ten yards to get another first down). The line a team must reach in order to gain a first down is technically called the line to gain, although it is commonly called first down yardage. The team with possession is called the offensive team, and the other team the defensive team.

Plays from scrimmage

Each down is a play from scrimmage. Prior to each play from scrimmage, the two teams line up on opposite sides of a line of scrimmage, which is defined by the spot of the ball from the previous play. The spot is, in most cases, the yard line at which the ball became dead on the previous play, plus or minus any penalty yardage. A down, or play from scrimmage, begins with a snap and ends when the ball becomes dead for any reason. A snap is either a handoff between the legs from the center to the quarterback, or it is a pass between the legs from the center to the quarterback, or possibly to a player other than the quarterback, such as a punter or a holder for a field goal attempt. The ball may become dead, ending the down, because a player in possession is tackled, or because his forward progress is stopped, or because he goes out of bounds, or because a forward pass goes incomplete.

Advancing the ball

There are two methods that can be used to advance the ball while still maintaining possession:

It is important for the offense to run a variety of running and passing plays in order to keep the defense uncertain of the next play. If the quarterback has two broken fingers on his throwing hand, for example, the defense can safely risk lining up in a run defense for nearly every play, which should successfully squelch the offense's running backs.

Fourth down situations

If a team uses all four of its downs without gaining the yardage for a first down, possession goes to the other team. Fourth down situations are therefore pivotal. The offense has three choices: "go for it", punt, or attempt a field goal.

Things the offense may decide to do on fourth down:

A team will occasionally run a trick play on fourth down. They will line up as if to punt or attempt a field goal, but will instead run the ball or pass it in an attempt to pick up a first down.

Specialized units and players

With its unlimited substitutions, American football is highly specialized, with most teams having three specialized units: an offensive unit, a defensive unit, and special teams. There are many specialized players within each units. Some players may only be used in certain situations. (for details see: offensive unit, defensive unit, special teams.)

Injuries

Despite the helmets and heavy padding worn by all players on the field, injuries are common in football. An "Injury Report" section is ubiquitous in American newspapers' sports sections, detailing each injured player on each team with his injury listed and the amount of time he is expected to be out. Around the middle of each week, all NFL teams report the status of their injured players as "out" (will not play in the coming game); "doubtful" (25% chance of playing); "questionable" 50% chance of playing); or "probable" (75% chance of playing). A similar system is used in all American professional sports.

An average of about eight players die each year in the United States as a result of injuries received in games. About 160 concussions occur every season, and the National Football League now collects benchmark awareness measures for each player which can be used during a game to determine whether he has been concussed.

Penalties

Some of the more common penalties are listed below. In most cases the offending team will be assessed a penalty of 5, 10 or 15 yards, depending on the infraction. There may also be a loss of down for a penalty against the offense. A penalty against the defense may result in an automatic first down. In some cases, the offense will be given the option of declining the penalty and taking the yardage gained on the play. For some infractions by the defense, the penalty is applied in addition to the yardage gained on the play. A personal foul, which involves danger to another player, usually results in a 15 yard penalty.

Note: The neutral zone is the space defined by lines drawn through the ends of the ball parallel to the yard lines when the ball is spotted and ready for play. No player may legally have any part of his body in the neutral when the ball is snapped, with the exception of the center.

Penalties against the offense

Penalties against the defense

Penalties against either team

Development of the game

American football in its current form grew out of a series of three games between Harvard University and McGill University of Montreal in 1874. McGill played by the Rugby Union code while Harvard played the Boston Game, which was closer to Association Football. As often happened in those days of far from universal rules, the teams alternated rules so that both would have a fair chance. The Harvard players liked having the opportunity to run with the ball, and in 1875 persuaded Yale University to adopt Rugby Union rules for their annual game. In 1876 Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, which used the Rugby Union code, except for a slight differnce in scoring.

In 1880 Walter Camp introduced the scrimmage in place of the rugby scrum. In 1882 the system of downs was introduced to thwart Princeton's and Yale's strategy of controlling the ball without trying to score. In 1883 the number of players was reduced, at Camp's urging, to eleven, and Camp introduced the soon standard arrangement of a seven-man offensive line with a quarterback, two halfbacks, and a fullback.

On September 3, 1895 the first professional football game was played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club. (Latrobe won the contest 12-0.).

By the 1890s interlocking offensive formations such as the flying wedge had made the game extremely dangerous. Despite restrictions on the flying wedge and other precautions, in 1905 eighteen players were killed in games. President Theodore Roosevelt informed the universities that the game must be made safer. However, it was not until 1910, and after further deaths, that interlocking formations were outlawed.

The forward pass was introduced in 1906. In 1912 the field was changed to its current size, the value of a touchdown was increased to 6 points, and a fourth down was added. The game had achieved its modern form.

See also:

External Links

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American League

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The American League (or formally the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs) is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States of America. It developed from a minor league, the Western League, that aspired to major league status, was formed on January 29, 1900, expanded in 1900-1901 into major cities, and changed its name.

The older National League at first refused to recognize the new league and it was only after much contention that an agreement (the National Agreement) was signed that produced an acceptance of each league by the other as an equal partner in major league baseball.

Teams

Starting in 1901, the eight charter teams were the following:

The Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit franchises exist today in their same cities. The Boston Americans later became the Red Sox, and the Cleveland Blues later became the Indians.

The Baltimore Orioles moved to New York in 1903 and are today known as the New York Yankees. The Milwaukee Brewers became the St. Louis Browns in 1902 and became today's Baltimore Orioles in 1953. The Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955 and then to Oakland in 1968. The Washington Senators relocated in 1961, becoming the Minnesota Twins.

Expansion and relocation

The American League has expanded four times. The first occurred in 1961, when the Los Angeles Angels and the Washington Senators joined the league, the latter replacing the previous Washington franchise, which had just relocated to Minnesota. The Los Angeles Angels are today known as the Anaheim Angels. The second Washington franchise moved to Texas in 1972 and became the Texas Rangers.

The second expansion occurred in 1969 when the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots joined the league. The Pilots stayed just one season in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee and becoming today's Milwaukee Brewers. In 1977, the third expansion occurred adding the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners. A fourth expansion took place in 1998 when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays joined, and in a reorganization, the Milwaukee Brewers moved to the National League.

See Major League Baseball for a complete listing to today's American League teams.

Other leagues

Several other sports have had leagues called "American League", usually with the sport name as a qualifier, such as the "American Football League" (which eventually merged with the National Football League, adopting the latter's name for the combination).

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American League."

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American Revolution

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The American Revolution refers to the events and ideas that resulted in the separation of thirteen North American colonies from Great Britain and their transformation into the United States of America.

The revolution included the direct military struggles known as the American Revolutionary War. The War itself is started with the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

The broader sense of revolution began much earlier, continued after the peace treaty, and had a much greater impact on the human experience than simply colonial independence. The process created a new view of government and its organization that the world hadn't seen before. The terms republic and democracy had been used in histories of ancient Greece and Rome, but now they was implemented in a government whose authority was based on individual rights rather than on church or king. While earlier historic trends affected it, the revolution itself had its active roots in the Albany Congress of 1754 and ended when George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States in 1789.

Before the revolution most people in the British North American Colonies considered themselves loyal subjects of the British Crown, with the same rights and obligations as people in Britain. However, under the doctrine of mercantilism the British considered the Colonies more as a resource to be utilized for the benefit of their own economy and had little respect for the Colonists. This difference in perception led to a vicious cycle of Colonists acting against what they saw as unfair policies, harsh British reaction, followed by stronger Colonial reaction, leading to even harsher British reaction -- all of this spiraling into the revolution.

As the Colonists started rejecting the Crown they also started becoming more radicalized in other ways, paying more attention to the idea of a broad democracy, and people like Thomas Paine who not long before this would have been condemned as a Leveller. Thomas Paine, produced a pamphlet entitled Common Sense arguing that the only solution to the problems with Britain would be Independence.

See also: American exceptionalism, Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, British North America, The Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Proclamation of 1763, Stamp Congress, Thirteen colonies, Thomas Paine

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American Revolution."

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American River

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The American River in California is known for its whitewater rapids, and as the location of Sutter's Mill (where gold was found, leading to the California Gold Rush). It runs from the Sierra Nevada mountains through Sacramento and flows into the Sacramento River on its way to San Francisco Bay.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American River."

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Cuisine of the United States

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)


Corn
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Buffalo burger
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The Cuisine of the United States is characterized by the broad diversity of the possible foods, but more importantly the willingness of the country as a whole to integrate widely divergent foods.

Groups of American Cuisine:

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Know-Nothing movement

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Know-Nothing movement was a nativist American political movement of the 1850s. It grew up as a popular reaction to the large numbers of immigrants -- mostly Irish Roman Catholics -- entering the United States starting in the late 1840s, and was characterized by calls for a number of measures to maintain the United States as a nation of Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

Causes of the Movement

Distrust of the Pope

The fact that many of the new immigrants were Roman Catholic sat poorly with much of the United States's largely-Protestant population. In particular, many Protestants viewed with distrust the strong allegiance of Roman Catholics to the Pope; many Protestants saw this allegiance to the Pope as an allegiance to a foreign prince (especially since the Pope is also head of state of The Vatican), and thus dangerous to American independence and possibly even treasonous.

These concerns spawned widely-held conspiracy theories regarding the Pope's purported plans to subjugate the United States through a continuing influx of his followers. The fact that Popes in the past had in fact wielded significant power and entangled themselves in wars and political disputes was frequently pointed to as evidence that the Pope was simply waiting for the right time to regain his lost temporal power, and served to further cement this notion in the minds of many Americans.

Culture Clash

While significant in their own right, the concerns about the Pope largely exacerbated already-present anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feelings held by many Americans. The newcomers differed culturally from most Americans, so their influx was seen as a threat to maintaining American culture. The immigrants brought with them their strong accents, Irish traditions and culture, and Roman Catholicism, and didn't seem likely to become "Americanized" anytime soon. A vocal minority of American Puritans also protested against the immigrants' alcohol consumption. While alcohol consumption already quite popular among the general public in the United States (even George Washington had run a distillery), the Puritan elements managed to promulgate a caricature of the Irish as drunkards, and thus gained some support for their anti-alcohol crusade by painting drinking as foreign and un-American.

The Political Movement

History

The growing anti-immigrant sentiment led to a dissatisfaction with the major parties -- the Democrats were seen as too dependent on the votes of immigrants, and the Whigs were seen as ineffectual, and were largely in decline in any case. Thus anti-immigrant activists began splitting off from the major parties and forming secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight en masse behind candidates sympathetic to their cause (regardless of political party). When asked about these secret organizations, members would reply "I know nothing," which led to them popularly being called Know-Nothings. The Know-Nothings in effect gained control of a large number of local offices, especially in the North, through the early 1850s ("in effect" because the officeholders were still technically either Democrats or Republicans, as the Know-Nothings were not yet an actual party).

In 1854 they won significant victories in Congress and at the State level, again as an unofficial party driven by coordinated votes for sympathetic candidates; the secret societies themselves supplemented by supporting votes from the population at large, once it was made known who was sympathetic to the Know-Nothings' cause. The results of this election were so favorable to the Know-Nothings that they formed officially as a political party, called the American Party, and swallowed many members of the now nearly-defunct Whig party, as well as a significant number of Democrats, especially Northern Democrats.

The height of their success came in the Election of 1856, in which they threw their weight behind Millard Fillmore (a Whig who had been president from 1850 to 1852). Fillmore lost, but won 22% of the popular vote and Maryland's 8 electoral votes. However, by this time the newly-formed party was beginning to be rent by differences over slavery, and greatly declined in strength. Know-Nothings remained strong on the local and state levels in many northern states, but by the Election of 1860, they were no longer a serious national political movement. Most of the anti-slavery Know-Nothings went on to join the new Republican Party.

Platform

The platform of the American Party called for, among other things:

See also: List of political parties in the United States

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Know-Nothing movement."

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Literature of the United States

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The literature of the United States may be considered as belonging to English literature or as a distinct body of literature.

Much early American literature is derivative: European forms and styles transferred to new locales. For example, Wieland and other novels by Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) are energetic imitations of the Gothic novels then being written in England. Even the well-wrought tales of Washington Irving (1783-1859), notably Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, seem comfortably European despite their New World settings.

Perhaps the first American writer to produce boldly new fiction and poetry was Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). In 1835, Poe began writing short stories -- including The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue -- that explore previously hidden levels of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction toward mystery and fantasy.

Meanwhile, in 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) collected some of his stories as Twice-Told Tales, a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances," quasi-allegorical novels that explore such themes as guilt, pride, and emotional repression in his native New England. His masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, is the stark drama of a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery.

Hawthorne's fiction had a profound impact on his friend Herman Melville (1819-1891), who first made a name for himself by turning material from his seafaring days into exotic novels. Inspired by Hawthorne's example, Melville went on to write novels rich in philosophical speculation. In Moby Dick, an adventurous whaling voyage becomes the vehicle for examining such themes as obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. In another fine work, the short novel Billy Budd, Melville dramatizes the conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the early decades of the 20th century.

In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), an ex-minister, published a startling nonfiction work called Nature, in which he claimed it was possible to dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and responding to the natural world. His work influenced not only the writers who gathered around him, forming a movement known as Transcendentalism, but also the public, who heard him lecture.

Emerson's most gifted fellow-thinker was Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), a resolute nonconformist. After living mostly by himself for two years in a cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote Walden, a book-length memoir that urges resistance to the meddlesome dictates of organized society. His radical writings express a deep-rooted tendency toward individualism in the American character.

Mark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens, 1835-1910) was the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast -- in the border state of Missouri. His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain's style -- influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently funny -- changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents.

Henry James (1843-1916) confronted the Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although born in New York City, he spent most of his adult years in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate, highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional nuance, James's fiction can be daunting. Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller, about an enchanting American girl in Europe, and The Turn of the Screw, an enigmatic ghost story.

America's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been more different in temperament and style. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the American Civil War (1861-1865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus was Leaves of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy. Taking that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast range of American experience with himself -- and manages not to sound like a crass egotist. For example, in Song of Myself, the long, central poem in Leaves of Grass, Whitman writes: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me...."

Whitman was also a poet of the body -- "the body electric," as he called it. In Studies in Classic American Literature, the English novelist D.H. Lawrence wrote that Whitman "was the first to smash the old moral conception that the soul of man is something `superior' and `above' the flesh."

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-town Massachusetts. Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psychologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime.

Many of her poems dwell on death, often with a mischievous twist. "Because I could not stop for Death," one begins, "He kindly stopped for me." The opening of another Dickinson poem toys with her position as a woman in a male-dominated society and an unrecognized poet: "I'm nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody too?"

At the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists were expanding fiction's social spectrum to encompass both high and low life. In her stories and novels, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) scrutinized the upper-class, Eastern-seaboard society in which she had grown up. One of her finest books, The Age of Innocence, centers on a man who chooses to marry a conventional, socially acceptable woman rather than a fascinating outsider. At about the same time, Stephen Crane (1871-1900), best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, depicted the life of New York City prostitutes in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. And in Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman.

Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new freedom in subject matter. In 1909, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), by then an expatriate in Paris, published Three Lives, an innovative work of fiction influenced by her familiarity with cubism, jazz, and other movements in contemporary art and music.

The poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was born in Idaho but spent much of his adult life in Europe. His work is complex, sometimes obscure, with multiple references to other art forms and to a vast range of literature, both Western and Eastern. He influenced many other poets, notably T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), another expatriate. Eliot wrote spare, cerebral poetry, carried by a dense structure of symbols. In "The Waste Land" he embodied a jaundiced vision of post-World War I society in fragmented, haunted images. Like Pound's, Eliot's poetry could be highly allusive, and some editions of The Waste Land come with footnotes supplied by the poet. In 1948, Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

American writers also expressed the disillusionment following upon the war. The stories and novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) capture the restless, pleasure-hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s. Fitzgerald's characteristic theme, expressed poignantly in The Great Gatsby, is the tendency of youth's golden dreams to dissolve in failure and disappointment.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) saw violence and death first-hand as an ambulance driver in World War I, and the senseless carnage persuaded him that abstract language was mostly empty and misleading. He cut out unnecessary words from his writing, simplified the sentence structure, and concentrated on concrete objects and actions. He adhered to a moral code that emphasized courage under pressure, and his protagonists were strong, silent men who often dealt awkwardly with women. The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms are generally considered his best novels; in 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In addition to fiction, the 1920s were a rich period for drama. There had not been an important American dramatist until Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) began to write his plays. The 1936 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, O'Neill drew upon classical mythology, the Bible, and the new science of psychology to explore inner life. He wrote frankly about sex and family quarrels, but his preoccupation was with the individual's search for identity. One of his greatest works is Long Day's Journey Into Night, a harrowing drama, small in scale but large in theme, based largely on his own family.

Another strikingly original American playwright was Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), who expressed his southern heritage in poetic yet sensational plays, usually about a sensitive woman trapped in a brutish environment. Several of his plays have been made into films, including A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Five years before Hemingway, another American novelist had won the Nobel Prize: William Faulkner (1897-1962). Faulkner managed to encompass an enormous range of humanity in Yoknapatawpha, a Mississippi county of his own invention. He recorded his characters' seemingly unedited ramblings in order to represent their inner states -- a technique called "stream of consciousness." (In fact, these passages are carefully crafted, and their seeming randomness is an illusion.) He also jumbled time sequences to show how the past -- especially the slave-holding era of the South -- endures in the present. Among his great works are The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom, Go Down, Moses, and The Unvanquished.

Faulkner was part of a southern literary renaissance that also included such figures as Truman Capote (1924-1984) and Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). Although Capote wrote short stories and novels, fiction and nonfiction, his masterpiece was In Cold Blood, a factual account of a multiple murder and its aftermath, which fused dogged reporting with a novelist's penetrating psychology and crystalline prose. Other practitioners of the "nonfiction novel" have included Norman Mailer (1923- ), who wrote about an antiwar march on The Pentagon in Armies of the Night, and Tom Wolfe (1931- ), who wrote about American astronauts in The Right Stuff.

Flannery O'Connor was a Catholic -- and thus an outsider in the heavily Protestant South in which she grew up. Her characters are Protestant fundamentalists obsessed with both God and Satan. She is best known for her tragicomic short stories.

The 1920s had seen the rise of an artistic black community in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. The period called the Harlem Renaissance produced such gifted poets as Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Countee Cullen (1903-1946), and Claude McKay (1889-1948). The novelist Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960) combined a gift for storytelling with the study of anthropology to write vivid stories from the African-American oral tradition. Through such books as the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God -- about the life and marriages of a light-skinned African-American woman -- Hurston influenced a later generation of black women novelists.

After World War II, a new receptivity to diverse voices brought black writers into the mainstream of American literature. James Baldwin (1924-1987) expressed his disdain for racism and his celebration of sexuality in Giovanni's Room. In \Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) linked the plight of African Americans, whose race can render them all but invisible to the majority white culture, with the larger theme of the human search for identity in the modern world.

In the 1950s the West Coast spawned a literary movement, the poetry and fiction of the "Beat Generation," a name that referred simultaneously to the rhythm of jazz music, to a sense that post-war society was worn out, and to an interest in new forms of experience through drugs, alcohol, and Eastern mysticism. Poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) set the tone of social protest and visionary ecstasy in Howl, a Whitmanesque work that begins with this powerful line: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) celebrated the Beats' carefree, hedonistic life-style in his episodic novel On the Road.

From Irving and Hawthorne to the present day, the short story has been a favorite American form. One of its 20th-century masters was John Cheever (1912-1982), who brought yet another facet of American life into the realm of literature: the affluent suburbs that have grown up around most major cities. Cheever was long associated with The New Yorker, a magazine noted for its wit and sophistication.

Although trend-spotting in literature that is still being written can be dangerous, the recent emergence of fiction by members of minority groups has been striking. Here are only a few examples. Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- ) uses colloquial language and traditional stories to fashion haunting, lyrical poems such as In Cold Storm Light. Amy Tan (1952- ), of Chinese descent, has described her parents' early struggles in California in The Joy Luck Club. Oscar Hijuelos (1951- ), a writer with roots in Cuba, won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. In a series of novels beginning with A Boy's Own Story, Edmund White (1940- ) has captured the anguish and comedy of growing up gay in America. Finally, African-American women have produced some of the most powerful fiction of recent decades. One of them, Toni Morrison (1931- ), author of Beloved and other works, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, only the second American woman to be so honored.

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Music of the United States

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The music of the United States includes forms derived from multiple ethnic groups. The original inhabitants of the United States included hundreds of Native American tribes, as well as native Hawaiians played the first music in the area, eventually augmented by immigrants from England, Spain, Sweden and France. Africans imported as slaves provided the musical underpinnings of much of modern American music, while other influences include Spanish-native mestizos from Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico, Cajuns, descended from French-Canadians and Eastern European Jews.

Information about the roots of modern American music can be found at American roots music. This article will discuss developments since approximately 1940, when folk-based styles like blues, jazz, gospel, Tejano, Cajun and Creole, klezmer and country music evolved into pop music.

1940s and 1950s

In the 1940s, the major strands of American music combined to form rock and roll. Based most strongly off an electric guitar-based version of the Chicago blues, rock also incorporated jazz, country, folk, swing and other types of music; in particular, bebop jazz and boogie woogie blues were in vogue and greatly influenced the music's style. It had developed by 1949, and quickly became popular among blacks nationwide (see 1949 in music). Mainstream success was slow to develop, though (in spite of early success with Bill Haley & the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock"), and didn't begin in earnest until Elvis Presley ("Hound Dog"), a white man, began singing rock, R&B and rockabilly songs in a devoted black style. He quickly became the most famous and best-selling artist in American history, and a watershed point in the development of music.

Country, bluegrass and folk music

In 1938, Bill Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys (named after his native state of Kentucky, the blue grass state) and combined diverse influences into Appalachian folk music. These include Scottish, Irish and Eastern European folk, as well as blues, jazz and gospel. Monroe became the father of bluegrass music, and his band was a training ground for most of bluegrass' future stars, especially Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Scruggs and Flatt popularized bluegrass as part of the Foggy Mountain Boys, which they formed in 1948. Though bluegrass never quite achieved mainstream status, it did become well-known through its use in several soundtracks, including the T.V. theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies and the movies Bonnie and Clyde and Deliverance. In the 1950s, bluegrass artists included Stanley Brothers, Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys.

Close harmony duets had grown popular in the 1940s, and were made mainstream in the mid-1950s by the Louvin Brothers. This inspired Pete Seeger's brother, Mike Seeker, who formed the New Lost City Ramblers who played traditional Appalachian folk music and helped popularize it. This became known as old-time music, and paralleled the rise of "folk singers", singer-songwriters who played updated versions of the same music. The old-time phenomenon also led to the rediscovery of musicians like Doc Watson, Dock Boggs, Roscoe Holcomb and Clarence Ashley. Some, including Watson, got their career revitalized after the 1961 Newport Folk Festival.

The 1950s also saw the popular dominance of the Nashville sound in country music, and the beginning of popular folk music with groups like The Weavers. Country's Nashville sound was slick and soulful, and a movement of rough honky tonk developed in a reaction against the mainstream orientation of Nashville. This movement was centered in Bakersfield, California with musicians like Buck Owens ("Act Naturally"), Merle Haggard ("Sing a Sad Song") and Wynn Stewart ("It's Such a Pretty World Today") helping to define the sound among the community, made up primarily of Oklahoman immigrants to California, who had fled unemployment and drought. A similarly hard-edged sound also arose in Lubbock, Texas (Lubbock sound).

By the late 1950s, a revival of Appalachian folk music was taking place across the country, and bands like The Weavers were paving the way for future mainstream stars like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Bluegrass was similarly revitalized and updated by artists including Tony Rice, Clarence White, Richard Green, Bill Keith and David Grisman. The Dillards, however, were the ones to break bluegrass into mainstream markets in the early 1960s.

Gospel and doo wop

Following World War 2, gospel began its golden age. Artists like the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, The Swan Silvertones, Clara Ward Singers and Sensational Nightingales became stars across the country; other early artists like Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, Dinah Washington, Johnny Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and Wilson Pickett began their career in gospel quartets during this period, only to achieve even greater fame in the 60s as the pioneers of soul music, itself a secularized, R&B-influenced form of gospel. Mahalia Jackson and The Staple Singers were undoubtedly the most successful of the golden age gospel artists.

In addition, doo wop achieved widespread popularity in the 1950s. Doo wop was a harmonically complex style of choral singing that developed in cities like Chicago, New York, and, most importantly, Baltimore. Groups like The Crows ("Gee"), The Ventures ("Walk-Don't Run"), The Orioles ("It's Too Soon to Know") and Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers ("Why Do Fools Fall in Love") had a string of hit songs that brought the genre to chart domination by 1958 (see [1958 in music]]).

Latin music

Cuban mambo, chachachá and charanga bands enjoyed brief periods of popularity, and helped establish a viable Latin-American music industry, which led the way to the invention of salsa music among Cubans and Puerto Ricans in New York City in the 1970s. The 50s also saw success for Mexican ranchera divas, while a Mexican-American mariachi scene was developing on the West Coast], and Puerto Rican plena, Brazilian bossa nova and other Latin genres became popular.

Mexican-Texans had been playing conjunto music for decades by the end of World War 2, female duos created the first popular style of Mexican-American music, música norteña. Mexican romantic ballads called bolero were also popular, especially singers like the Queen of the Bolero, Chelo Silva. In the mid-1950s, when Mexican ranchera was used in Hollywood film soundtracks and the upper-class enjoyed stately orquestas Tejanas and conjunto evolved into a distinctively Mexican-American genre called Tejano. Artists of this era include Esteban Jordan, Tony de la Rosa and El Conjunto Bernal.

Cajun and Creole music

The 1940s saw a return to the roots of Cajun music, led by Irvy LeJeune, Nathan Abshire and other artists, alongside musicians who incorporated rock and roll, including Laurence Walker and Aldus Roger. In the late 1940s, Clifton Chenier, a Creole, began playing an updated form of la la called zydeco. Zydeco was briefly popular among some mainstream listeners during the 1950s. Artists like Boozoo Chavis, Queen Ida, Rockin' Dopsie and Rockin' Sidney have continued to bring zydeco to national audiences in the following decades. Zydeco shows major influences from rock, and artists lke Beau Jocque have combined other influences, including hip hop.

Diversification of pop music

In the early to mid-1960s, soul music and R&B dominated American audiences. Girl groups (The Angels ("My Boyfriend's Back"), The Shirelles ("Dedicated to the One I Love")) and blue eyed soul (The Righteous Brothers ("You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"), Mitch Ryder ("Devil With a Blue Dress On")) helped to popularize the music as mainstream, as well as polishing it and removing the grit of gospel. With the popularity of Elvis and other white singers (like Gene Vincent ("Be-Bop-A-Lula"), Roy Acuff ("The Wreck on the Highway"), Jerry Lee Lewis ("Great Balls of Fire") and Chet Atkins ("Mr. Sandman")), as well as black vocalists like Little Richard ("Tutti Frutti"), Chuck Berry ("Johnny B. Goode"), Fats Domino ("The Fat Man") and Chubby Checker ("The Twist"), a new generation of teens began playing in their own rock bands. The 60s also saw the arrival of Mexican-American pop, rock and soul acts that drew upon Tejano and other influences. These include Sunny Ozuna ("Talk to Me", "Reina de mi Amor"), Roberto Pulido y Los Clasicos and Latin Breed.

White rock music developed primarily in two places: southern California, where musicians like Dick Dale (Let's Go Surfing) invented surf rock, and Britain, where mod and merseybeat bands (such as The Who (The Who Sings My Generation) and The Rolling Stones) (The Rolling Stones (England's Newest Hitmakers)) began playing their own version of rock that drew more heavily upon American blues pioneers like Howlin' Wolf ("Evil"), Muddy Waters ("I Be's Troubled") and Jimmy Yancey ("The Fives") than their American counterparts, who mostly played a polished form of pop.

The early 1960s saw four centers of American musical innovation

Invention of psychedelia

In addition, Britain's new generation of blues rock gained popularity in parts of their homeland, especially cities like Liverpool, and cult fame in the States. The popularity of folk singers like Peter, Paul & Mary ("Puff the Magic Dragon") and Bob Dylan (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) influenced all of these groups as they became more closely aligned with the counterculture and drugs. The national sound was moving towards an electric, psychedelic version of rock. In 1962 (see 1962 in music), The Beatles (Please Please Me) emerged from England and popularized British rock, while The Beach Boys' success brought harmony-laden surf music to the forefront of the American scene. With country and soul musicians unable to maintain their hipness, both faded from mass consciousness. The mid-1960s saw the collapse of The Beach Boys as a result of singer and songwriter Brian Wilson's mental problems after releasing one of the most influential rock albums in history, Pet Sounds. The Beatles went on to lead the psychedelic revolution of the end of the decade, with few Americans able to challenge them, exceptions including The Mamas & the Papas ("California Dreaming") and Jimi Hendrix (Are You Experienced). The most hard-edged psychedelic bands, like Americans Jefferson Airplane (Surrealistic Pillow) and The Grateful Dead (American Beauty), achieved limited success; the Grateful Dead, the first jam band, could also be considered the first cult act.

In the late 1960s, popular music underwent a sea change. Psychedelia-inflected rock dominated black and white audiences. During this period, most of American musical styles for the next forty years began in one form or another, including heavy metal, punk rock, electronic music and hip hop. Perhaps most importantly were two developments. First was the popularization of the LP as a distinct artistic statement. Prior to the early 1960s (and later in most cases), an LP was nothing more than a collection of singles bound together with filler. As the psychedelic revolution progressed, however, lyrics grew more complex and LPs developed to enable the artists to make a more in depth statement than a single song could allow. In addition, rules as to what could be allowed in popular music were lessened -- singles lasted longer than three minutes (Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was the first of these); singing could be gruff, guttural and not classically beautiful and lyrics could focus on more than simple tales of youth, love songs and ballads to include politically and socially aware lyrics. The idea that popular music could and should change the way one feels and lead social change largely developed during this period, though it was certainly not unheard of before.

Funk, gospel and album-oriented soul

Black music in the late 1960s diversified. Soul music had arisen as a secularized form of gospel music. With the rise of psychedelia and folk, however, artists that had previously been best-sellers found themselves unpopular with the new sound. Many, such as The Temptations and The Supremes, never fully recovered, unable to adjust to the changes in music. Soul music, led at the time by singers like James Brown ("Sex Machine"), developed into psychedelia-influenced funk. Bands like Parliament (The Mothership Connection), War (All Day Music) and Funkadelic (One Nation Under a Groove) merged soul with psychedelic rock to cult acclaim but little popular success. Meanwhile, Sly Stone (Stand) and other similar artists achieved popular success with their mixture of soul and psychedelia. Pure soul adapted to the new face of popular music by expanding beyond the simple lyricism of singles to more cohesive and socially-aware, album-oriented soul. This is usually said to have begun with the success of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Curtis Mayfield's Superfly. They both described the gritty realities of ghetto life with funky, danceable beats and led to the dominant sounds of soul in the 1970s, such as Philadelphia soul.

Nonsecularized gospel was still popular, though not near the levels of the 1950s boom. Reverend James Cleveland was the most influential artist of the period; he introduced choirs to gospel with 1962's Peace Be Still, recorded with the Angelic Choir of Nutley from New Jersey. Six years later he founded the annual Gospel Music Workshop of America, which have spread across the world. Edwin Hawkins ("Oh Happy Day") was another major artist of the period. Beginning with artists like Ray Repp in 1964, a slick soft rock and gospel fusion called Christian Contemporary Music (or CCM) became popular, which helped lead the way for future rock Christian artists including light country star Amy Grant and Christian heavy metal pioneers Stryper.

Progressive, punk and heavy metal

A few bands popular among only a small crowd of devoted followers emerged in the late 1960s. The Nice (The Nice) and The Moody Blues (Days of Future Passed) (both British) began releasing a series of complex, classical tinged concept albums that began a sound known as progressive rock. Other British bands like Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin I) and Black Sabbath (Paranoid) emerged with a form of hard-edged electric blues that came to be known as heavy metal music. American bands like the Velvet Underground (White Light/White Heat), Blue Cheer (Vincebus Eruptum) and The Stooges (Raw Power) also emerged with fatalistic, artsy lyrics and a fast-driving energetic sound; this was the beginning of punk rock.

Country and newgrass

In the 1960s, the Bakersfield Sound began its rise to mainstream, led by Merle Haggard. Bands like Muleskinner and Old And In the Way invented a progressive form of bluegrass that came to be known as newgrass. Though this never achieved much mainstream success, newgrass has become a major part of the American country scene. New forms, incuding spacegrass and supergrass, arose in the 80s, and remained low-key. Other artists, including Alison Krauss, achieved some mainstream success and helped pave the way for the surprise success of the traditional old-time music soundtrack O Brother, Where Are Thou.

The rise of the Bakersfield Sound was a popular example of a roots revival in folk music, in which artists and audiences revitalize the traditional music forms of their ancestors, generally as a reaction against dilution of the original culture for mainstream acceptance. In the 1960s and 70s, roots revivals occurred across the globe. The United States saw Appalachian folk music, blues and jazz adapt to rock and roll, forming heavy metal, psychedelia and progressive rock. Other folk forms were also popularized as part of a 1960s roots revival, including Cajun and Hawaiian folk. Cajun music entered the national mainstream for the first time (mostly in the form of cover songs called swamp pop), becoming a fixture at the influential Newport Folk Festival. CoDoFiL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana), founded in 1968, helped to lead this trend, establishing the Festivals Acadiens and Zydeco Festival, for example. Cajun artists during this period included the Balfa Brothers, D. L. Menard, Eddie LeJeune, Michael Doucet's Beausoleil and Barry Ancelet.

1970s

In the early 1970s, singer-songwriters like James Taylor ("Fire and Rain") and Carol King (Tapestry) topped the charts while prog rock, heavy metal and punk began to differentiate themselves from mainstream music. While most singer-songwriters drew on Anglo folk roots, some, like XIT (Plight of the Redman) drew on their Native American origins, following in the path of pioneers like Buffy Sainte-Marie ("Now That the Buffalo's Gone"); other Native American bands like Redbone fused Native American and rock influences. The mid-1970s saw the development of power pop, the marriage of glam and heavy metal to form hair metal and the emergence of disco. By the late 1970s, disco, an electronically-based dance music, dominated the sound of the US, aided by the breakthrough success of Saturday Night Fever. Originally associated with urban blacks and gay white males, disco spent a few years at the top of the charts just as country rock and prog rock achieved their greatest mainstream success. Country rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd (Second Helping) and pop-prog bands like Chicago (Chicago II) and Styx (Kilroy Was Here) dominated the portion of the market not listening to disco with long, bizarre progressive pieces and electric blues based southern rock. Country rock had developed primarily from British blues, and added an element of popular country. At the time, outlaw country artists like Willie Nelson (The Red Headed Stranger) and David Allan Coe ("You Never Even Called Me By Name") dominated the country music charts with tales of cowboys and rebels.

Underground trends

Heavy metal bands like Blue Oyster Cult (Agents of Fortune) began to attract some mainstream attention, while punk influenced the developing glam rock scene. Taking its cue from the energetic, dirty psychedelia of The Doors, glam musicians like David Bowie (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars) rose to prominence among segments of the population in the early 1970s.

Jamaican immigrants, most notably including DJ Kool Herc, moved to New York City and brought with them the practice of speaking over isolated percussion breaks from popular songs during long dance parties called block parties; this was the beginning of hip hop. Meanwhile, Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians drew on mambo and other Cuban genres to form salsa music. Early artists included Hector Lavoe and Willie Colón.

Jewish-American musicians launched a revival of klezmer music in the mid-1970s, led by Berkeley, California's The Klezmorim, whose frontman, Henry Sapoznik, formed the Archive of Recorded Sound at the Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. This led to the founding of the KlezKamp festival, where stars like Howie Lees, Max Epstein and Sid Beckerman.

The roots of world music, a fusion of rock, pop and other Western music with traditional folk from around the world, arose in the 1970s. Taj Mahal's Happy to Be Just Like I Am (1972), Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) and Ry Cooder's 1976 Chicken Skin Music (with Flaco Jiménez and Gabby Pahinui) helped to launch the genre, which was solidified in 1981 with David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

The late 1970s also saw the coalescence of what eventually became known as punk music. Arty singers like Patti Smith (Horses) and grungy bands like The Ramones (The Ramones) emerged from New York, based out of the popular club CBGB's. Just as The Clash (The Clash) and the Sex Pistols (Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols) defined and popularized the sound of punk in the UK, a similar scene was developing throughout the US. In the early 1980s, disco died a quick death. The popular reaction against disco was swift and final, and the music had ended its reign of commercial influence by 1982 (see 1982 in music). New Wave filled in as the dominant American sound. It had developed out of arty punk bands like the Talking Heads (More Songs About Buildings and Food), and was popularized by Depeche Mode (Speak and Spell), Duran Duran (Rio) and others.

1980s

New Wave's mainstream popularity was brief. By 1984 (1984 in music), hair metal, long a dormant part of the Los Angeles music scene, started its reign on the charts. Led by hypermasculine bands like Quiet Riot (Metal Health), Van Halen (Van Halen) and Mötley Crüe (Shout at the Devil), hair metal reached its popular peak in the late 1980s with Guns 'n' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and Def Leppard's Pyromania.

Black music in the 1980s focused on two developments. A smooth, ballad-oriented pop-soul evolved and dominated the pop charts, especially in the early part of the decade. Lionel Richie (Can't Slow Down), Michael Jackson (Thriller), Whitney Houston (Whitney Houston) and Prince (Purple Rain) exemplified this field. The other major development in black music was the rise of hip hop as a commercial force.

Hip hop

Hip hop began its course to mainstream popularity with occasional fringe success in the early 80s -- Kurtis Blow (Kurtis Blow) and LL Cool J (Radio) introduced the sound to white listeners, while Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force ("Planet Rock") and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five ("The Message") innovated new methods in MCing and DJing. Distinct regional variations including Miami bass, LA electro hop, DC go go and Chicago hip house became popular locally and influenced later artists. Of these, bass artists like 2 Live Crew (2 Live Crew Is What We Are) became most famous for sexually explicit lyrics and controversy, while hip house has proven enormously influential on the then developing house music scene and would go on to influence much of electronica and techno.

Punk rock

In the 1980s, punk music began incorporating reggae, ska and other international influences, while heavy metal diversified in the wake of the success of hair metal. Thrash, death and power metal emerged. Pop bands like U2 (The Joshua Tree) and R.E.M (Murmur) also led an interest in the alternative rock scene. All around the country, pop- and hard rock-oriented bands evolving in a state of popular dismissal but critical acclaim had developed a unique sound. Bands like the Pixies (Doolittle) and Hüsker Dü (New Day Rising) made only minor waves on the charts, but fomented a serious revolution in music. A new generation of listeners hated the bombastic, corporate sterility of formulaic hair metal bands, and reacted against them.

Other genres

The 1980s also saw intense diversification in salsa music, which added Latin rap, jazz and other influences. Cuban songo influenced the form, and helped lead to a period of Cuban salsa dominating the genre. Popular salsa from the United States during the 80s including salsa romantica and Miami Sound performers.

1980s gospel was marked by a slick, pop form of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), most influentially performed by artists like Amy Grant, as well as both traditional and radical singers and choirs, including Kirk Franklin and the Sounds of Blackness. The Detroit Sound of gospel arose during the 80s and remained current in the 90s, dominated by The Winans and The Clarks.

Klezmer music took two different directions during the 1980s. Perennial favorites The Klezmatics, alongside artists like the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and Brave Old World, radically reinvented the genre, adding influences from around the world. Another movement, based primarily in Europe, brought klezmer back to its traditional roots.

In 1983, R. Carlos Nakai, a Navajo-Ute, released Changes, a multi-platinum album that launched a revival in the Native American flute. Combined with sounds of nature and ambient electronics, this set the stage for the modern incarnation of New Age music. Three years later, a tradition of Navajo spoken word poetry began with John Trudell's Aka Graffiti Man.

In 1981, David Byrne and Brian Eno released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which defined what came to be known as world music by fusing African and Arab vocals over trance-like dance beats. A year later, Peter Gabriel launched WOMAD in Britain; the festival has since become a world music showcase and launched the careers of artists like Youssou N'Dour. In 1986, Paul Simon's blockbuster Graceland made world music briefly mainstream, bringing in South African artists like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens. In 1989, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel founded record labels (Luaka Bop and RealWorld, respectively) that soon dominated the field.

1990s

The result was the grunge explosion in the early 1990s. By 1992 (1992 in music), hair metal bands were massively unpopular as grunge groups like Nirvana (Nevermind), Pearl Jam (Ten) and Alice in Chains (Dirt) dominated the charts. Their success lasted only a few years, however, as bands found it difficult to maintain their "alternative" sound after going mainstream. In addition, former N.W.A member Dr. Dre (The Chronic) brought gangsta rap to pop audiences. By the mid-90s, alternative rock groups had died out among mainstream listeners, and gangsta rap took over. The middle of the decade also saw a boom in techno music's popularity. Developed primarily in Britain (though Detroit and Chicago were also influential), techno's many permutations achieved some mainstream success throughout the last half of the decade. Bubblegum pop like the Spice Girls also returned after a decade of more-or-less dormancy during the period of hair metal and grunge, both highly opposed to clean, slick and shiny content.

Gangsta rap in the 1980s had focused on the two coasts originally, with West Coast pioneers like Ice-T ("6 N Da Mornin'") and Too $hort (Born to Mack) and East Coast artists like Schoolly D (Saturday Night - The Album) achieving fame among blacks and mainstream success being limited to hardcore groups like N.W.A (Straight Outta Compton), politically controversial groups like Public Enemy (It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back) and fledgling alternative hip hop groups like De La Soul (3 Feet High and Rising). East Coast rappers like Slick Rick (The Great Adventures of Slick Rick) had defined that coast's sound in the late 80s, and it had been far and away the center for hip hop until Dr. Dre's The Chronic put the West Coast on the hip hop map. Boasting a radio-friendly G funk sound, based primarily off funk samples, West Coast rap soon became the dominant sound among pop audiences with rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg (Doggystyle) and Tupac Shakur (Me Against the World) achieving mainstream success. East Coast rappers like Notorious B.I.G (Ready to Die) and Nas (Illmatic) tended to be more well-received critically, but were consistently unable to match the West Coast in pop sales. The rivalry between the two coasts came to a head by 1996 (1996 in music), when the deaths of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur rocked the world of hip hop. With West Coast head Suge Knight imprisoned (unrelated to the murders) and East Coast quickly becoming dominated by Puff Daddy's releases aimed at purely pop audiences, rap music splintered. A new generation of southern rappers like OutKast (ATLiens) and Goodie Mob (Soul Food) emerged from Atlanta, as well as vibrant scenes in St. Louis and New Orleans. The Fugees (The Score) also fused hip hop sounds with dub, dancehall and reggae, popular Jamaican forms, to great mainstream success. East Coast rap's reputation among critics during its popular domination by watered-down pop acts like Puff Daddy (No Way Out) and Mase (Harlem World) was saved by the Wu Tang Clan (Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)), DMX (And Then There Was X), Busta Rhymes (The Coming) and other rappers that used a distinctively East Coast sound without catering to mainstream markets. On the West Coast, a period of relatively poor sales for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg and the imprisonment of Suge Knight, led to the subsequent collapse of Death Row Records and a drought in mainstream popularity. In the late part of the decade, Eminem (The Marshall Mathers LP) emerged as one of the country's biggest stars. The Detroit-born rapper achieved success early in his career with radio-friendly hooks and funky beats; he quickly became the first white rapper to cross over to mainstream audiences without losing his critical viability.

Other 90s trends

Power pop bands like Weezer (The Blue Album), jam bands like Phish (A Picture of Nectar) and punk-pop and skacore groups like Green Day (Dookie) and Sublime (Sublime) rose to some prominence, with late punk and ska bands achieving the most mainstream success. No Doubt (Tragic Kingdom), Rancid (...And Out Come the Wolves) and similar bands released blockbuster albums in the middle of the decade.

Soul music, languishing since the popular demise of Michael Jackson and Prince some ten years earlier, re-emerged with a return to the sounds of early 70s soul; Lauryn Hill (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill), Erykah Badu (Baduizm) and D'Angelo (Voodoo) spearheaded this movement. In hard rock, multiple trends developed.

Thrash metal, invented in the late 80s by bands like Metallica (Kill 'Em All), achieved some mainstream success before mutating into nu metal (such as System of a Down (Toxicity)) in the middle of the decade. Rapcore bands (that mix hip hop and metal) also emerged; Limp Bizkit (Significant Other) and Korn (Peachy) were the most popular, drawing heavily upon early pioneers in the field like Pantera (A Vulgar Display of Power), Faith No More (Angel Dust) and Anthrax (Among the Living). The 1990s also saw a boom in funk metal bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers (Californication) and female singer-songwriters like Tori Amos (Boys for Pele), relying on late 80s pioneers like Tracy Chapman (Tracy Chapman) and P.J. Harvey (Rid of Me).

Another major musical style of the 1990s was pop-country groups, beginning with honky tonk crooners like Clint Black (Killin' Time), Alan Jackson (A Lot About Livin' (And a Little 'Bout Love)) and Garth Brooks (Ropin' the Wind), the sound exploded into mainstream audiences with the crossover success of Shania Twain (Come on Over), the Dixie Chicks (Fly), Faith Hill (Breathe) and other female singers in the middle of the decade.

Verdell Primeaux and Johnny Mike released Sacred Path: Healing Songs of the Native American Church, an influential album that fused Peyote Songs with electronic backwashes and other modern flourishes. In 1994, part Mohawk Robbie Robertson (of The Band) put together the soundtrack for a documentary as part of an exploration of his Native American heritage. The resulting album, Music for the Native Americans, was extremely popular and has proven itself influential, bringing Native American artists to some segments of mainstream audiences.

2000s

Since the turn of the millennium, two major developments in American popular music have occurred. The dominance of bubblegum pop like 'N Sync (No Strings Attached) and Backstreet Boys (Backstreets Back) continued from the 90s, and also grew to include Latin stars like Shakira (Laundy Service), Ricky Martin (Sound Loaded) and Christina Aguilera (Christina Aguilera). In addition to these slick sounds, a growing number of domestic and foreign garage rock bands have achieved notable success, including The Strokes (Is This It), The Hives (Veni Vidi Vicious) and the Stone Roses (Stone Roses).

Related topics

State-specific music:

References

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Native American

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Native Americans (American Indians, Amerindians, or Red Indians) are indigenous peoples, who lived in the Americas prior to the European colonization; some of these ethnic groups still exist. The name "Indians" was bestowed by Christopher Columbus, who mistakenly believed that the places he found them were among the islands to the southeast of Asia known to Europeans as the Indies. (See further discussion below).

Canadians now generally use the term First Nations to refer to Native Americans. In Alaska, because of legal use in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANSCA) and because of the presence of the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut peoples, the term Alaskan Native predominates. (See further discussion below.)

Native Americans officially make up the majority of the population in Bolivia, Peru and Guatemala and are significant in most other former Spanish colonies, with the exception of Costa Rica, Cuba, Argentina, Dominican Republic and Uruguay.

History

The Native Americans are widely believed to have come to the Americas via the prehistoric Bering Land Bridge. However, this is not the only theory. Some archaeologists believe that the migration consisted of seafaring tribes that moved along the coast, avoiding mountainous inland terrain and highly variable terrestrial ecosystems. Other researchers have postulated an original settlement by skilled navigators from Oceania, though these American Aborigine people are believed to be nearly extinct. Yet another theory claims an early crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by people originating in Europe. Many native peoples do not believe the migration theory at all. The creation stories of many tribes place the people in North America from the beginning of time. Mormon tradition holds that some Native Americans are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.

Based on anthropological evidence, at least three distinct migrations from Siberia occurred. The first wave of migration came into a land populated by the large mammals of the late Pleistocene epoch, including mammoths, horses, giant sloths, and wooly rhinoceroses. The Clovis culture provides one example of such immigrants. Later the Folsom culture developed, based on the hunting of bison.

The second immigration wave comprised the Athabascan people, including the ancestors of the Apachess and Navajos; the third wave consisted of the Inuits, the Yupiks, and the Aleuts, who may have come by sea over the Bering Strait. The Athabascan peoples generally lived in Alaska and western Canada but some Athabascans migrated south as far as California and the American Southwest, and became the ancestors of tribes now there.

The descendants of the third wave are so ethnically distinct from the remainder of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas that they are not usually included in the terms "American Indian" or "First Nations".

In recent years, anthropological evidence of migration has been supplemented by studies based on molecular genetics. The provisional results from this field suggest that four distinct migrations from Asia occurred; and, most surprisingly, provide evidence of smaller-scale, contemporaneous human migration from Europe. This suggests that the migrant population, living in Europe at the time of the most recent ice age, adopted a life-style resembling that lived by Inuits and Yupiks in recent centuries.

In the Mississippi valley of the United States, in Mexico and Central America, and in the Andes of South America Native American civilizations arose with farming cultures and city-states.

See archeology of the Americas.

The Arrival of Europeans

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the Native Americans. In the 15th to 19th centuries, their populations were decimated, by the privations of displacement, by disease, and in many cases by warfare with European groups and enslavement by them. The first Native American group encountered by Columbus, the 250,000 Arawaks of Haiti, were violently enslaved. Only 500 survived by the year 1550, and the group was totally extinct before 1650. Over the next 400 years, the experiences of other Native Americans with Europeans would not always amount to genocide, but they would typically be disastrous for the Native Americans.

In the 15th century Spaniardss and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped their owners and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. Ironically, the horse had originally evolved in the Americas, but the last American horses died out at the end of the last ice age. The re-introduction of the horse, however, had a profound impact on Native American cultures in the Great Plains of North America. This new mode of travel made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange goods with neighboring tribes and to more easily capture game.

Europeans also brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no immunity. Sometimes they did this intentionally, but often it was unintentional. Ailments such as chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to Native Americans. More deadly diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to Native American populations. It is difficult to estimate the percentage of the total Native American population killed by these diseases, since waves of disease oftentimes preceded White scouts and often destroyed entire villages. Some historians have argued that more than 80% of some Indian populations may have died due to European-derived diseases. [See Jeffrey Amherst]

The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans took place in New Hampshire colony on February 20, 1725, though it is thought that Indians learned scalping from Americans who, at times, collected them for bounties.

Four Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy sided with the British and the Tories of the American Revolutionary War. The colonists were especially outraged at the Wyoming Massacre and the Cherry Valley Massacre, which occurred in 1788. In 1799 Congress sent Major General John Sullivan on what has become known as the Sullivan Expedition to neutralize the Iroquois threat to the American side. The two allied nations were rewarded, at least temporarily by keeping title to their lands after the Revolution. The title was later purchased very cheaply by Massachussets and sold off in the Phelps and Gorham Purchase and the Holland Purchase, after which by treaty, it became a part of New York State. The tribes were moved to reservations or sent westward. Part of the Cayuga Nation was granted a reservation in British Canada See also History of New York.

In the 19th century the United States forced Native Americans onto marginal lands in areas farther and farther west as white settlement of the young nation expanded in that direction. Numerous Indian Wars broke out between US forces and many different tribes. Authorities drafted countless treaties during this period and then later nullified them for various reasons. Well-known battles include the untypical Native American victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, and the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890. On January 31, 1876 the United States government ordered all Native Americans to move into reservations or reserves. This spelled the end of the Prairie Culture that developed around the use of the horse for hunting, travel and trading.

American policy toward Native Americans has been an evolving process. In the late nineteenth century reformers in efforts to civilize Indians adapted the practice of educating native children in boarding schoolss. The experience in the boarding schools which existed from 1875 to 1928 was difficult for Indian children who were forbidden to speak their native languages and in numerous other ways forced to adopt white cultural practices.

Military defeat, cultural pressure, confinement on reservations, forced cultural assimilation, the outlawing of native languages and culture, forced sterilizations, termination policies of the 50's and 60's, and (especially) slavery have had deleterious effects on Native Americans' mental and ultimately physical health. Contemporary problems include poverty, alcoholism, heart disease, and diabetes: see New World Syndrome.

Classification

Ethnographers commonly classify the native peoples of the United States into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits. The following list groups peoples by their region of origin, followed by the current location. See the individual article on each tribe for a history of their movements. The regions are:

Indians of Central and South America are generally classified by language, environment, and cultural similarities. The preferred term in Latin America is "Indigenous peoples."

Languages

For a general discussion, see Language families and languages See also: Native American mythology

External Resources

Further Reading
See European colonization of the Americas, Indian Territory, The Indian Trade, Indian Massacres, and Indian Removal.

What name best identifies this group of people?

The term "Native American" originated with anthropologists who preferred it to the former appelations of "Indian" or "American Indian", which they considered inaccurate, as these terms bear no relationship to the actual origins of Aboriginal Americans (or American Aborigines), and were born of the misapprehension on the part of Christopher Columbus, arriving at islands off the east coast of the North American continent, that he had reached the East Indies. The words "Indian" and "American Indian" continue in widespread use in North America, even amongst Native Americans themselves, many of whom do not feel offended by the terms.[1] But the appropriateness of this usage has become controversial since the late 20th century; many feel that the term "Indian" is undesirable as it is symbolic of the domination of these peoples by the European colonists. Others, in turn, resent criticism of their traditional way of speaking. "Red Indian" is a common British term, useful in differentiating this group from a distinct group of people referred to as East Indians. In the French language, the term Amérindien has been coined.

One minority view has advocated the name "Asiatic Americans" as a more accurate term because of the popular theory that such peoples migrated to the Americas from Asia across an ice bridge covering the Bering Straits some 20,000 years ago. Competent fossil evidence supports the case for such a migration. However, this term is considered offensive by many American Indians because most native religions state that American Indians have been in the Western Hemisphere since the dawn of time. Furthermore, the strong tradition among archaeologists and anthropologists, is to indicate the geographic origins of a people as relating to the region where researchers first encountered them or their remains.

One difficulty with the term "Native American" as a substitute for "American Indian" lies in the fact that there exist several groups of people indisputably indigenous to the Americas, but who fall outside the classification of "American Indians", for example the Innu people of the Labrador/Quebec peninsula and the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut peoples of the far north of the continent. Another argument is that any person born in America is native to it.

Another difficulty is that many Native American groups migrated (or were displaced) to their current locations after the start of European colonization, and therefore it can be argued that they have no more "native" ties to their current locations than do the Europeans. However, as they were moving within America, they remained native to the America.

Generally, peoples wish that others use the name they give themselves.

See also List of Native Americans, First Nations of Canada, Native American fighting styles

External Links:

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Native American."

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North America

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

simple:North America

North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere of Earth, located to the east of the Pacific Ocean, the west of the Atlantic Ocean, the south of the Arctic Ocean, and the north of South America. It is the north part of The Americas.

On the main continent itself can be found three large and relatively populous countries:

At the extreme southern end of the continent, in a relatively small area (smaller than an average Canadian province) called Central America are:

At the extreme southeastern end of the continent, lies a chain of islands territories called the Antilles, the Caribbean or the West Indies. They include:

In the Atlantic Ocean:
country pop. dens. area population
  (/km²) (km²) (2002-07-01 est.)
Bermuda (UK) 1,200 53 63,960
Barbados 642 431 276,607
Puerto Rico (US) 435 9,104 3,957,988
Martinique (Fr.) 384 1,100 422,277
Aruba (Neth.) 365 193 70,441
U.S. Virgin Islands (US) 351 352 123,498
El Salvador 302 21,040 6,353,681
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 299 389 116,394
Saint Lucia 260 616 160,145
Grenada 259 344 89,211
Haiti 255 27,750 7,063,722
Guadeloupe (Fr.) 245 1,780 435,739
Jamaica 244 10,991 2,680,029
Trinidad and Tobago 227 5,128 1,163,724
Netherlands Antilles (Neth.) 223 960 214,258
Dominican Republic 179 48,730 8,721,594
Antigua and Barbuda 152 443 67,448
Saint Kitts and Nevis 148 261 38,736
British Virgin Islands (UK) 139 153 21,272
Cayman Islands (UK) 138 262 36,273
Guatemala 122 108,890 13,314,079
Anguilla (UK) 122 102 12,446
Cuba 101 110,860 11,224,321
Dominica 93 754 70,158
Montserrat (UK) 83 102 8,437
Costa Rica 75 51,100 3,834,934
Honduras 59 112,090 6,560,608
Mexico 52 1,972,550 103,400,165
Turks and Caicos Islands (UK) 44 430 18,738
Nicaragua 39 129,494 5,023,818
Panama 37 78,200 2,882,329
United States 29 9,629,091 280,562,489
Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Fr.) 29 242 6,954
Bahamas 22 13,940 300,529
Belize 11 22,966 262,999
Canada 3.2 9,976,140 31,902,268
Greenland (Denm.) 0.03 2,166,086 56,376
 

Satellite image - Large version

See also: History of North America

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "North America."

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Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Sault Ste. Marie is a city located in Chippewa County, Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 16,542. It is the county seat of Chippewa County6. It is on the Canadian border, separated by the St. Mary's River from the town of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The city is the site of the Sault locks which let ships travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 52.3 km² (20.2 mi²). 38.4 km² (14.8 mi²) of it is land and 13.9 km² (5.4 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 26.63% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 16,542 people, 5,742 households, and 3,301 families residing in the city. The population density is 431.0/km² (1,116.3/mi²). There are 6,237 housing units at an average density of 162.5/km² (420.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 73.99% White, 6.51% African American, 13.72% Native American, 0.65% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.47% from other races, and 4.61% from two or more races. 1.86% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 5,742 households out of which 28.8% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.9% are married couples living together, 13.2% have a female householder with no husband present, and 42.5% are non-families. 33.8% of all households are made up of individuals and 13.3% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.28 and the average family size is 2.92.

In the city the population is spread out with 19.4% under the age of 18, 18.1% from 18 to 24, 31.9% from 25 to 44, 18.2% from 45 to 64, and 12.5% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 33 years. For every 100 females there are 122.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 128.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $29,652, and the median income for a family is $40,333. Males have a median income of $29,656 versus $21,889 for females. The per capita income for the city is $14,460. 17.5% of the population and 12.7% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 19.6% are under the age of 18 and 12.5% are 65 or older.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan."

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The Americas

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Americas (sometimes referred to as America) is the area including the land mass located between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, namely North America and South America. The term also usually includes the Caribbean, the islands in and around the Caribbean Sea, and Greenland, though not Iceland, for cultural and historical reasons. The isthmus of Central America is usually considered geographically part of North America. The Americas are often also described collectively as the Western Hemisphere or the New World.

Most references consider there to be two continents, North America and South America. However, most Spanish language references consider the two to be a single continent, "America". Even so, many Spanish speakers consider América del norte and América del sur to be separate continents. The use of America to refer to the New World as a whole is also sometimes used in English, such as in the common phrase "Christopher Columbus discovered America".

People who live in the Americas are sometimes referred to as being American, although the word "American" is more commonly used to refer only to a citizen of the United States of America. (See also Alternate words for American)

See naming of America for a discussion of how the Americas were named.

See also Latin America.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "The Americas."

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U.S. customary units

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The U.S. customary units is the non-metric system of units of measurement that is presently used in the United States, alongside the metric system. It is similar to the Imperial system once used in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, but has some differences. Both systems derive from the units which developed over the centuries in England. U.S. customary units are defined in terms of SI units.

The official policy of the United States government is to designate the metric system of measurement as the preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce. This process known is known as metrication. In practice, this process in the United States is not very far advanced. The United Kingdom is more advanced in the process than the United States, and in most Commonwealth countries (such as Australia and New Zealand) the process is largely completed, although some informal usage of non-metric units remains.

Historically a wide range of non-metric units have been used in the US and UK, and in England before that, but many of these have fallen into disuse. This article will mainly deal with those commonly used or officially defined in the US.

See also: SI, Imperial units, History of Weights and Measures, conversion of units, Informal conversion of common units.

Units of Length

The system for measuring length in the U.S. customary system is based on the inch, foot, yard and mile. However, for each of these units there exist two slightly different definitions, yielding two different systems of measure - international measure, and U.S. survey measure. The relationships between the different units within each measure is the same, but each measure has a slightly different definition in terms of metric units.

One inch international measure is exactly 25.4 mm, while one inch U.S. survey measure is defined so that 39.37 inches is exactly one metre. For most applications, the difference is insignificant (about 3 millimetres per mile). International measure is used for everyday use, engineering, and commerce in the United States, while survey measure is only used for surveying.

International measure uses the same definition of the units involved as is used in the UK and other Commonwealth countries. U.S. survey measure uses an older definition of these units which the United States used prior to adopting international measure.

Sometimes, for surveying purposes, units known as Gunther's Chain Measure (or equivalently Surveyor's Chain Measure) are used. These units are defined as follows: To measure depths at sea, fathoms are used:

Units of area

The units of area in the U.S. customary system are based on the square inch (sq in). Since the U.S. customary system has two differing definitions of the inch, there are also two differing definitions for the square inch. But presuming international measure is used, 1 square inch is exactly 645.16 mm2.

Units of mass

There have historically been four different English systems of mass: Tower weight, Troy weight, avoirdupois weight, and apothecaries weight. Tower weight fell out of use (due to legal prohibition) centuries ago, and was never used in the United States. Troy weight is still used to weigh precious metals. Apothecaries weight, once used in pharmacy, has been largely replaced by metric measurements. Avoirdupois weight is the primary system of mass in the U.S. customary system.

There is some confusion as to whether these are units of mass, or of force. The pound avoirdupois is legally defined as a unit of mass, though in physics the term "pound" can represent "pound-force" (a unit of force properly abbreviated as "lbf").

Troy weight, avoirdupois weight and apothecaries weight are all defined in terms of the same basic unit, the grain. However, they consist of various units (pounds, ounces, etc.) with the same name but different definitions in terms of the grain and in terms of each other. The pound and ounce in apothecaries and troy weight are the same, but each system has different subdivisions.

The pound avoirdupois, which forms the basis of the U.S. customary system of mass, is defined as exactly 0.453 592 37 kg. All the other units of mass are defined in terms of it.

For the pound and smaller units, the U.S. customary system and the British Imperial system are identical. However, they differ when dealing with units larger than the pound. The definition of the pound avoirdupois in the British Imperial system is identical to that in the U.S. customary system.

Avoirdupois weight

There ton and hundredweight above are sometimes referred to as the "short" ton, and the "short" hundredweight, to distinguish them from the British Imperial ton and hundredweight, which are larger and hence are referred to as the "long" ton and "long" hundredweight. The long ton and hundredweight have limited use in the United States, although they are officially recognized as units. Any unqualified reference in the U.S. to "ton" or "hundredweight" means the short ton and hundredweight mentioned above. Sometimes the terms "net" and "gross" are used instead of "short" and "long", respectively.

Apothecaries weight

The grain has the same definition as for Avoirdupois weight

The pound and ounce apothecaries are identical to the pound and ounce Troy.

Troy weight

The grain has the same definition as for Avoirdupois weight

Units of capacity and volume

The cubic inch, cubic foot and cubic yard are commonly used for measuring volume. In addition, there is one group of units for measuring volumes of liquids, and one for measuring volumes of dry material.

Other than the cubic foot, cubic inch and cubic yard, these units are differently sized from the units in the Imperial system, although the names of the units are similar. Also, while the U.S. has separate systems for measuring the volumes of liquids and dry material, the Imperial system has one set of units for both.

Technically speaking, since these units are defined in terms of the inch, it would make a difference whether international or survey measure was used. However, in practice, the difference between the two definitions would be imperceptible, and in any case in defining volumes international measure is used.

Volume in general

Liquid Volume

Dry Volume

Cooking Measures

Measures of volume used in cooking. Note that differing cooking measures are used in other countries; see cooking measures for more information.

Grain Measures

These are derived from the volume measures.

Units of Temperature

Other Units

Source: Appendix C, NIST Handbook 44, 2002 edition. http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/230/235/h442002.htm

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "U.S. customary units."

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United States

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The United States of America (U.S.A.), also referred to as the United States (U.S.), America, or the States, is a federal republic in North America and the Pacific Ocean. Founded along the Atlantic coast, it spread westward to the Pacific Ocean. It shares land borders with Canada in the north and Mexico in the south, shares a marine border with Russia in the west, and has a collection of districts, territories, and possessions around the globe. The country has 50 states, which have a level of local autonomy.

The United States traces its national origin to the declaration by 13 British colonies in 1776 that they were free and independent states. Since the mid-20th century it has eclipsed every other nation in terms of economic, political, military, and cultural influence.

United States of America
(In Detail) Great Seal
National mottos
(1776 - ): E Pluribus Unum
(Latin: "Out of many, one")
(1956 - ): In God We Trust
Official language None at federal level,
some states specify
English de facto
Capital Washington, DC
Largest City New York City
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Area
 - Total
 - % water 		Ranked 3rd
9,372,610 km²
2.198%
Population
 - Total (2000)
 - Density 		Ranked 3rd
281,421,906
31/km²
Independence
 - Declared
 - Recognized 		Revolutionary War
July 4, 1776
September 3, 1783
GDP (base PPP)
 - Total (2002)
 - GDP/head 		Ranked 1st
10,40 trillions $
37,600 $
Currency US dollar ($)
Time zone UTC -5 to UTC -10
National anthem The Star-Spangled Banner
Internet TLD.US .EDU .GOV .MIL
Calling Code1

History

Main article: History of the United States

Following the European colonization of the Americas, the United States became the world's first modern democracy after its break with Great Britain, with a Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution of a more centralized federal government in 1789. During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original thirteen as the nation expanded across the North American continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions. Two of the major traumatic experiences in the nation's history were the American Civil War (1861-65) and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Buoyed by victories in World War I and World War II and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. remains the world's most powerful nation-state.

See also: Military History of the United States, Timeline of United States history

Politics

Main article: Politics of the United States

The United States of America consists of 50 states with limited autonomy in which federal law takes precedence over state law. In general, matters that lie entirely within state borders are the exclusive concern of state governments. These include internal communications; regulations relating to property, industry, business, and public utilities; the state criminal code; and working conditions within the state. Many state laws are quite similar from state to state. Finally, there are many areas of overlap between state and federal jurisdictions.

In recent years, the federal government has assumed broader responsibility in such matters as health, education, welfare, transportation, and housing and urban development. The constitutions of the various states differ in some details but generally follow a pattern similar to that of the federal Constitution, including a statement of the rights of the people and a plan for organizing the government. On such matters as the operation of businesses, banks, public utilities, and charitable institutions, state constitutions are often more detailed and explicit than the federal constitution.

The federal government itself consists of three branches: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. The head of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The legislative branch consists of the United States Congress, while the Supreme Court of the United States is the head of the judicial branch. The President is elected to a four year term by the U.S. Electoral College. The various electors are in turn chosen primarily by the popular votes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Members of Congress are elected at varying dates, as are state Governors and state legislatures.

The federal and state government is dominated by two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. The dominant political culture in the United States is, as a whole, somewhat to the right of the dominant political culture in European democracies. Given their complex support bases it is difficult to specifically categorise the two major parties' appeal. Within the US political culture, the Republican Party is described as center-right and the Democratic Party is described as center-left. Minor party and independent candidates are very occasionally elected, usually to local or state office, but the United States political system has historically supported catch all parties rather than coalition governments. The ideology and policies of the sitting President of the United States commonly play a large role in determining the direction of his political party, as well as the platform of the opposition.

The two parties exist on both the state and federal level, although the parties' organization, platform, and ideologies are not necessarily uniform across all levels of government.

Both major parties draw some support from all the diverse socio-economic classes which compose the mature multi-ethnic capitalist society which makes up the United States. Business interests provide the major funding and support to the Republican Party while labor unions and minority ethnic groups provide major support to the Democrats. Access to funds is vital in the political system due to the financial costs of mounting political campaigns. Thus, through lobbying, corporations, unions, and other organized groups that provide funds and political support to parties and politicians can play a large role in determining the political agendas and government decision-making.

Political divisions

Main article: United States territory

States

Main article: States of the United States

At the Declaration of Independence, the United States consisted of 13 states. In the following years, this number has grown steadily due to expansion to the west, conquest and purchase of lands by the American government, and division of existing states to the current number of 50 :

  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • North Dakota
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Oregon
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • South Carolina
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Vermont
  • Virginia
  • Washington
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin
  • Wyoming

The contiguous part of the US (i.e. without Hawaii and Alaska) is called continental United States.

The states are divided into smaller administrative regions, called counties in most states--exceptions being Alaska (boroughs) and Louisiana (parishes). Counties can include a number of cities and towns, or sometimes just a part of a city. See County (United States).

Federal district

The District of Columbia is a separate federal district not part of any state and is under the direct authority of Congress. It is there that the nation's capital city—the seat of the federal government—resides.

Dependent areas

Several islands in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea are dependent territories of the United States:

  • American Samoa
  • Baker Island (uninhabited)
  • Guam
  • Howland Island (uninhabited)
  • Jarvis Island (uninhabited)
  • Johnston Atoll (uninhabited)
  • Kingman Reef (uninhabited)
  • Midway Islands
  • Navassa Island (uninhabited)
  • Northern Mariana Islands
  • Palmyra Atoll (uninhabited)
  • Puerto Rico
  • U.S. Virgin Islands
  • Wake Island (uninhabited)

Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas are commonwealths of the United States.

US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased from Cuba and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease.

The US has made no territorial claim in Antarctica but has reserved the right to do so.

From July 18, 1947 until October 1, 1994, the US administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, but recently entered into a new political relationship with all four political units.

Occupying Power

The United States is currently an occupying power of the following countries:

Geography

Main article: Geography of the United States

As the world's third largest nation (land area), the United States landscape varies greatly: temperate forestland on the East coast, mangrove forests in Florida, the Great Plains in the centre of the country, the Mississippi-Missouri river system, the Rocky Mountains west of the plains, deserts and temperate coastal zones west of the Rocky Mountains and temperate rainforests in the Pacific Northwest. The arctic regions of Alaska and the volcanic islands of Hawaii only increase the geographic and climactic diversity.

The climate varies along with the landscape, from sub-tropic in Florida to tundra in Alaska. Large parts of the country have a continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Some parts of the United States, particularly parts of California, have a Mediterranean climate.

Economy

Main article: Economy of the United States

The economy of the United States is organized on the capitalist model and is marked by steady growth, low unemployment and inflation, a large trade deficit, and rapid advances in technology. The American economy can be regarded as the most important in the world. Several countries have coupled their currency with the dollar, or even use it as a currency, and the American stock markets are globally seen as an indicator of world economy.

The country has rich mineral resources, with extensive gold, oil, coal and uranium deposits. Agriculture brings the country among the top producers of, among others, maize, wheat, sugar and tobacco. American industry produces cars, airplanes and electronics. The biggest sector is however service industries; about three-quarters of Americans are employed in that sector.

The largest trading partner of the USA is its northern neighbor, Canada. Other major partners are Mexico, the European Union and the industrialized nations in the Far East, such as Japan and South Korea. Trade with China is also significant.

See also: List of American companies

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of the United States

Most of the 280 million people currently living in the United States descend from European immigrants that have arrived since the establishment of the first colonies. Major components of the European segment of the United States population are descended from immigrants from Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland and Italy with many immigrants also from Scandinavian countries and the Slavic and other populations of eastern and southern Europe and French Canada; few immigrants came directly from France. Likewise, while there were few immigrants directly from Spain, Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are considered the largest minority group in the country, comprising 13.4% of the population (38.6 million people) in 2002. This has brought increasing use of the Spanish language in the United States (see Languages in the United States). About 12% (2000 census) of the people are African Americans who largely descend from the African slaves that were brought to America. A third significant minority is the Asian American population (3.6%), who are most concentrated on the West Coast. The native population of Native Americans, such as American Indians and Inuit make up less than 1% of the population.

The level of Christian religious devotion in the US is showing a gradual decline, from 86.2% calling themselves Christian in 1990 to 76.5% doing so in 2001 (ARIS 2001). The religious affiliations in 2001 were Protestant 52%, Catholic 24.5%, none 13.2%, Jewish 1.3% and 0.5-0.3% for Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, Hindu and Unitarian Universalist. There is a significant difference between those who declare themselves to be of a religion and those who are members of a church of that religion. Census Bureau figures (PDF file) show that church membership in 2001 was 53% Christian, 2.3% Jewish and 0.1% Muslim, others lower.

The social structure of the United States, a capitalist country, is highly stratified, with a large proportion of the wealth of the country controlled by a small fraction of the population which exerts disproportionate cultural and political influence. However, in terms of relative wealth, most Americans enjoy a standard of personal economic wealth that is far greater than that known in the majority of the world. For example, 51% of all households have access to a computer and 41% had access to the Internet in 2000. Furthermore, 67.9% of US households owned their dwellings in 2002.

Culture

Main article: Culture of the United States

American culture has a large influence on the rest of the world, especially the Western world. American music is heard all over the world, and American movies and television shows can be seen almost anywhere. This is in stark contrast to the early days of the American republic, when the country was generally seen as an agricultural backwater with little to offer the culturally advanced world centers of Asia and Europe. Nearing the end of its third century, nearly every major American city offers classical and popular music; historical, scientific and art research centers and museums; dance performances, musicals and plays; outdoor art projects and internationally significant architecture. This development is a result of both contributions by private philanthropists and government funding.

The United States is also a great center of higher education, boasting more than 1,500 universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning, the top tier of which include schools considered to be among the most prestigious and advanced in the world. Among these are the eight Ivy League Universities, elite private universities, numerous private colleges, which provide primarily undergraduate education, and an extensive system of public universities and colleges.

Holidays
Date Name Remarks
January 1 New Year's Day celebrates beginning of year, marks traditional end of "holiday season"
January, third Monday Martin Luther King, Jr Day honors King, Civil Rights leader
February, third Monday Presidents' Day honors former American Presidents, especially Washington and Lincoln
May, last Monday Memorial Day honors service men and women who died in service, marks traditional beginning of summer
July 4 Independence Day celebrates Declaration of Independence, usually called "The Fourth of July"
September, first Monday Labor Day celebrate achievements of workers, marks traditional end of summer
October, second Monday Columbus Day honors Christopher Columbus, traditional discover of the Americas
November 11 Veteran's Day traditional observation of a moment of silence at 11 AM remembering those who fought for peace
November, fourth Thursday Thanksgiving give thanks for autumn harvest, marks traditional beginning of "holiday season"
December 25 Christmas celebrates the nativity of Jesus Christ, also celebrated as secular winter holiday

Related Topics

Main article: List of United States of America-related topics

External links

United States government

Other

Countries of the world  |  North America
simple:United States Of America zh-cn:%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD zh-tw:美國

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "United States."

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United States armed forces

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

United States armed forces
Military manpower
Military age18 years of age
Availabilitymales age 15-49: 70,819,436 (2001 est.)
Reaching military age annuallymales: 2,039,414 (2001 est.)
Military expenditures
Dollar figure$329.15 billion (FY2002 est.)
Percent of GDP3.2% (FY1999 est.)

The armed forces of the United States of America consist of the

Note: The United States Coast Guard is a quasi-military organization that operates naval craft for coastal defense and customs purposes. In peacetime it is normally subordinate to the United States Department of Homeland Security, but in wartime reports to the Department of the Navy.

The combined United States armed forces consists of 1.4 million active duty personnel along with several hundred thousands each in the Reserves and National Guard.

On July 26, 1948 U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 which desegregated the military of the United States.

Organization

Under the United States Constitution, the President of the United States is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is responsible for ordering the armed forces through the Secretary of Defense to perform an objective. To coordinate military action with diplomatic action, the President has an advisory National Security Council.

During and immediately after World War II, the United States military was organized along lines of command that reported to their respective service chiefs (i.e. General of the Army, Admiral of the Navy). These chiefs in turn reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Joint Chiefs of Staff was a body formed by high-level representatives of each service, who elected a Chairman to communicate with the civilian government. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in turn reported to the Secretary of Defense, the civilian head of the military. Both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense reported to the President of the United States, who simultaneously holds the military rank of commander-in-chief.

This system lead to serious counter productive inter-service rivalry. Peacetime activities (such as procurement and creation of doctrine, etc.) were tailored for each service in isolation. Just as seriously, wartime activities of each service were planned, executed, and evaluated independently. These practices resulted in division of effort, the inability to profit from economies of scale, and inhibited the development of modern warfare doctrine.

The inability to work with other service branches was made apparent with the formulation of AirLand battle doctrine in the late 1970s and early 1980s. AirLand battle was an attempt to synthesize into a single doctrine all of the capabilities of the service arms of the military. This system envisioned ground, naval, air, and space based systems acting in concert to attack and defeat an opponent in depth. Realization of this ideal was impossible due to these structural factors.

To rectify these significant problems, the Goldwater-Nichols act of 1986 provided for the complete reorganization of the United States military command structure. It was the most far-reaching organizational change since the creation of the Air Force as a separate entity in 1947.

Goldwater-Nichols changed the way each service interacted with each other. Rather than reporting to a service chief, each service reported to a commander responsible for a specific function (Transportation, Space, Special Operations), or a geographic region of the globe (Europe, Middle East, etc.), known as the commander-in-chief (CINC) (pronounced "sink"). This combined arms commander would be responsible for fielding a force capable of employing AirLand battle doctrine (or its successors), with all assets available to the military. This allowed combination of effort, integrated planning, shared procurement, and a reduction or elimination in inter-service rivalry between commanders. This addressed a major conflict with Military Science, the rule of unity of command. Individual services changed from war fighting entities into organizational and training units, responsible for readiness. Thus CENTCOM (Central Command) for example, would be assigned air, ground, and naval assets in order to achieve its objective, not the inefficient method of individual services planning, supporting, and fighting the same war.

Shared procurement caused the most notable change in the peacetime military. This allowed technological advances to be quickly suffused throughout the military, and provided other ancillary benefits (such as the interoperability of radios between services, heretofore unknown in the military). Additionally, major technological advances, such as stealth and smart weapons were shared between services without duplication of effort, and joint implementation of new technology allowed for joint development of supporting doctrine.

United States military organization now flows from service arm generals (such as the commander of an Army division or corps), to the appropriate regional or functional CINC. The CINC reports to the Secretary of Defense. Both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense report to the president, the national CINC. This profoundly changes the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It now acts as a military advisory body for the President, without operational control of any regional command. In practice, the CINC advises both the Chairman and the Secretary as to conditions in his area of responsibility. Of course, the Secretary can deputize the Chairman to supervise the CINC, as happened in the Gulf War when Richard Cheney ordered Colin Powell to command Norman Schwarzkopf.

On October 29, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered the use of the term CINC to be changed to the term "combatant commander" and immediately be used when referring to regional organizations (i.e. USCENTCOM) or "commander" when talking about a specified unit such as the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). Rumsfeld's reason was his belief that the use of the term drew unfavorable comparisons to the President of the United States, enshrined in the Constitution as the only Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Changing the title was felt to properly clarify the military's role vis a vis the civilian government.

National Command Organizational Chart

                  ----------------President-----------------
                  |           |              |             |
                              |              |             |
                  |           |              |             |
                            SECDEF ----------|             |
                  |           |              |             |
                              |              |             |
                  |           |         Chairman JCOS     NSC
                              |              | 
                  |           |              | 
                              |             JCOS
                  |           |
                              |
                  |           |
 Regional Combatant Commander or Commander (specific command,e.g. STRATCOM)
                              |
                              |
                Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine 
                Responsible commanding General

The United States is a party to the Australia, New Zealand, United States security treaty and the NATO treaty.

AORs for regional Unified Commands
Each service is responsible for providing military units to the commanders of the various Unified Commands. As of January 2003, the nine Unified Commands and their commanders are:

External Links

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: American

The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted.
EntrySourceExpressionField
AMEnglishAmerican MotorsTransportation

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Synonyms: American

Synonyms: American English (n), American language (n). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: American

ContextSynonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).

Amusement

Billiards, pool, pingpong, pyramids, bagatelle; bowls, skittles, ninepins, kain, American bowls; tenpins, tivoli.

Inhabitant

Adjective: indigenous; native, natal; autochthonal, autochthonous; British; English; American; Canadian, Irish, Scotch, Scottish, Welsh; domestic; domiciliated, domiciled; naturalized, vernacular, domesticated; domiciliary.

Aboriginal, American, Caledonian, Cambrian, Canadian, Canuck, downeaster, Scot, Scotchman, Hibernian, Irishman, Welshman, Uncle Sam, Yankee, Brother Jonathan.

Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: American

English words defined with "American": American agave, American aloe, American antelope, American basswood, American beech, American bison, American black bear, American buffalo, American calumba, American chameleon, American coot, American cranberry bush, American creeper, American dewberry, American dogwood, American eagle, American egret, American elk, American Federation of Labor, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, American fly honeysuckle, American foxhound, American frogbit, American gallinule, American ginseng, American hellebore, American hop, American ivy, American kestrel, American laurel, American leishmaniasis, American licorice, American lime, American liquorice, American maidenhair fern, American mastodon, American mastodont, American merganser, American oriole, American pennyroyal, American pit bull terrier, American plaice, American rattlebox, American red elder, American Revolution, American Revolutionary leader, American robin, American Staffordshire terrier, American sweet gum, American War of Independence, American white birch, American widgeon, American woodcock, American wormseed ♦ Central American ♦ German American ♦ Hispanic American ♦ native American, Native American party, North American country, North American nation ♦ Pam American Union, Pan American Day ♦ South American country, South American nation, South American poison toad, Spanish American ♦ The American Board ♦ War of American Independence. (references)
Specialty definitions using "American": American Community Survey, American FactFinder, American Indian area, American Indian Area, Alaska Native Area, Hawaiian Home Land, American Indian area/Alaska Native area/Hawaiian home land, American Indian off-reservation trust land, American Indian reservation, American Indian Reservation - federal, American Indian Reservation - state, American Indian Tribal Subdivision, American Indian tribe/Selected American Indian categories, American Indian trust land, American Indian/Alaska Native area, American land snails, American National Standard, American National Standards Institute, American Peculiaritie, American Samoan, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American States, American Telephone and Telegraph, Inc., American Wire Gauge, Association of American Publishers ♦ Hemorrhagic Fever, American ♦ North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, North American Industry Classification System, North American Waterfowl Management Plan ♦ State Designated American Indian Statistical Area. (references)
Etymologies containing "American": Yoncopin. (references)
Non-English Usage: "American" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

French (American), German (American), Italian (American), Romanian (american, yankee), Spanish (American), Tagalog (American).

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Modern Usage: American

DomainUsage

Screenplays

Can you help a fellow American down on his luck (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; writing credit: B. Traven; John Huston)

I'm married to an American agent (Notorious; writing credit: Ben Hecht)

One of the great American actors of the 20th century (Being John Malkovich; writing credit: Charlie Kaufman)

Kindly send 300,000 American dollars immediately, as we are in dire straits (Coming to America; writing credit: David Sheffield)

I'm here to fight for truth, justice, and the American way. (Superman; writing credit: Jerry Siegel; Joe Shuster)

Lyrics

Hey miss American girl (American Girls; performing artist: Counting Crows)

We're an American band (We're An American Band; performing artist: Grand Funk Railroad)

American woman, get away from me (American Woman; performing artist: Lenny Kravitz)

Voila! An American Dream (American Dream; performing artist: The Dirt Band)

Knockin' me out with those American thighs (YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG; performing artist: AC/DC)

Clever

By his father he is English, by his mother he is American -- to my mind the blend which makes the perfect man. (references; author: Mark Twain)

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. (references; author: Mark Twain)

On an American Airlines packet of nuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts. (references; author: unknown)

On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag. (references; author: unknown)

Movie/TV Titles

The Great American Songbook (2003)

American Roots Music (2001)

All American Girl (2003)

American Gothic (1988)

The Great American Cowboy (1973)

Song Titles

South American Way (performing artist: The Andrews Sisters)

American Patrol (performing artist: The Glenn Miller Orchestra)

We're an American Band (performing artist: Grand Funk Railroad)

WE'RE AN AMERICAN BAND  (performing artist: Grand Funk )

Theme From "Greatest American Hero" (Believe It Or Not) (performing artist: Joey Scarbury)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: American

DomainTitle

References

  • The 2001 American Samoa Economic and Product Market Databook (reference)

  • American Biomed, Inc.: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (reference)

  • American Card Technology, Inc.: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (reference)

  • American Dental Partners, Inc.: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (reference)

  • American Eco Corporation: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (reference)

    (more reference examples)

  

Books

  • The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone (reference)

  • George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage (reference)

  • Medicine and Surgery of South American Camelids: Llama, Alpaca, Vicuna, Guanaco (reference)

  • American Alpine Journal 2002 (American Alpine Journal, 2002) (reference)

  • Alsea Texts And Myths (Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletins) (reference)

    (more book examples)

  

Periodicals

  

Theater & Movies

  

Music

  

High Tech

  

Consumer Goods

  • American Woods 2090M Maple Kitchen Center (reference)

  • Nesco American Harvest FD-1010 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator (reference)

  • American Lighting 9268BS-99 Halogen Black Torchiere Lamp (reference)

  • American Tool 64001 Strait-Line Laser Line Generator (reference)

    (more baby examples; more wireless phone examples; more garden examples; more kitchen examples; more tool examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: American

Photos:
American

More pictures...

Illustrations:
American

More pictures...

Computer Images:
American

More pictures...

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Photo Album: American

ThumbnailDescription & CreditThumbnailDescription & Credit

Group photograph of the american association for cancer research (aacr) presidents in 1968. Credit: Unknown photographer/artist.

Shows photo of male scientist working in anti-cancer chemical library at the Lederle Laboratories, a division of American Cyanamid in 1961. Lederle developed methotrexate (and thio-tepa?). Credit: Unknown photographer/artist.

Skin ulcer due to leishmaniasis, hand of Central American adult. Credit: CDC.

Native American child riding bicycle at Taos Pueblo, Taos, New Mexico. Credit: CDC.

North American YF-86D. Credit: NASA.

North American F-100. Credit: NASA.

Central American Fires Viewed by Two Goddard Spacecraft. Credit: NASA.

Certificate Signing of First American & Russian Docking. Credit: NASA.

Ed White First American Spacewalker. Credit: NASA.

Coral reef on south shore of American Samoa. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection.

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: American
 

"American Drain" by Paul Marengo
Commentary: "Bathroom drain with years of grime."		"American Crow" by Sam Segar
Commentary: "American Crow, Florida."

Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Sounds Captioned with "American".

PlayCaptionPlayCaption
West African percussion style with South American melodic material played on a synthesizer.A typical closing section to an American popular musical theater work.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Familiar Quotations: American

AuthorQuotation

Author Unknown.

Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

Grover Cleveland

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor.

H. Rap Brown

Violence is as American as cherry pie.

John A. Dix

If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.

President Calvin Coolidge

After all, the chief business of the American people is business.

Samuel Johnson

I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.

Theodore Roosevelt

The American people abhor a vacuum.

William Ewart Gladstone

The American Revolution. . . was a conservative revolution.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Historic Usage: American

AuthorDateQuotation

John Locke

1690

The destruction of a year's product or two (for it seldom reaches four or five) is the utmost spoil that usually can be done: for as to money, and such riches and treasure taken away, these are none of nature's goods, they have but a fantastical imaginary value: nature has put no such upon them: they are of no more account by her standard, than the wampompeke of the Americans to an European prince, or the silver money of Europe would have been formerly to an American. (Second Treatise of Government)

Marbury v. Madison

1803

That the people have an original right to establish, for their future govern-ment, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. (reference)

Winston S. Churchill

1946

It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. ("Iron Curtain" Speech)

Brown v. Board of Education

1954

American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. (reference)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1963

It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. (Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1914)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Use in Literature: American

TitleAuthorQuote

Les Miserables

Hugo, Victor

It was the time of the war of the South American Republics against the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Joyce, James

An American captain made me a present of them last night in Queenstown

Grapes of Wrath

Steinbeck, John

They wore trench helmets and some American Legion caps

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Non-Fiction Usage: American

SubjectTopicQuote

Health

American Journal of Human Genetics. (references)

American Academy of Ophthalmology P. (references)

Journal of the American Medical Association. (references)

Business

It is an excellent showcase for American products. (references)

This makes American vehicles tremendously expensive. (references)

They offer lower prices than American manufacturers. (references)

Children

Nicaragua

OAS personnel in the country also noted an increase in prostitution among girls as young as 10 years of age; in rural areas, their clients are often truck drivers and other travelers, including foreigners, who patronize prostitutes in towns along the Pan American Highway. (references)

Peru

The 1993 census counted 288,526 persons with disabilities, or 1.3 percent of the population; however, during the year, the Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization estimated that the actual number of persons with disabilities could be as high as 3 million, or 13.8 percent of the population. (references)

Civil Liberties

Samoa

Television from American Samoa is readily available. (references)

Discrimination

Belize

Discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds is illegal and rare, although ethnic tension, particularly resentment of recently arrived Central American and Asian immigrants, continued to be a problem. (references)

Economic History

Seychelles

Of those, about 35 are American. (references)

Armenia

Both were purchased by American companies. (references)

Human Rights

Belize

Both Governments asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to investigate the killings. (references)

Honduras

Membership in both the National Congress and the Central American Parliament confers legal immunity from prosecution. (references)

Ecuador

A survey during the year by the Latin American Corporation for Development revealed that 54 percent of judges believed that other judges were corrupt. (references)

Minorities

Russia

An interpreter and the leader of the group who was an African American, were targeted in particular. (references)

Argentina

Individuals of indigenous descent from the northern part of the country, as well as from Bolivia, Peru, and other Latin American countries, reportedly are also frequently subject to verbal insults because of their dark skin. (references)

Slovak Republic

There was no progress during the year in a number of 2000 cases of violence against Roma, and others including, an August case in which Rom Jan Sudman was shot and injured while doing clean-up work in the public works program; a July case in which a group of 50 Roman armed with machetes, knives, axes, and iron rods allegedly forced a moving car to stop and attacked one of its occupants; a March case in which approximately 20 supporters of the skinhead movement attacked 2 Brazilians and 2 Angolans in Bratislava; and a January case in which a group of skinheads beat an African American citizen. (references)

Political Economy

Costa Rica

Many Costa Rican speak excellent American English. (references)

EL SALVADOR

This rating is ahead of many other Latin American countries. (references)

Zambia

The political system is a hybrid of the British and American systems. (references)

Political Rights

Honduras

In the November elections, voters elected women to 5 seats in the National Congress and 3 seats in the Central American Parliament. (references)

Venezuela

On July 30, 2000, in voting that observers from the Organization of American States and various countries judged to be generally free and fair, voters elected President Chavez again, with 59 percent of the vote. (references)

Peru

The democracy dialog sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS), which began in response to these elections and intensified after former President Fujimori's resignation, officially ended in January when OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria dissolved the talks. (references)

Trade

Cape Verde

In the U.S. it corresponds with American Express and Citibank. (references)

Spain

Numerous financial organizations exist to assist American exporters. (references)

Mexico

Most loans are actually made by American banks with EXIM's guarantee. (references)

Travel

Trinidad

Dress is basically American in style. (references)

Kuwait

Crime against the American community is low. (references)

Ghana

This is the spot for American fast food and good milkshakes. (references)

Women

Nicaragua

In towns along the Pan American Highway, women and girls sell sexual services to truck drivers and other travelers, who are often foreigners driving north from Costa Rica. (references)

Brazil

An offender accused of domestic violence in a case that does not involve a serious offense and carries penalties of less than 1 year's imprisonment may receive alternative sentencing with no jail term, according to the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights. (references)

Worker Rights

Guatemala

Trafficked persons come mainly from other Central American countries including El Salvador and Ecuador. (references)

Lexicography

Devil's Dictionary

YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Spoken Usage: American

SpeakerPhrase(s)

David Letterman

I will do this show on CBS for as long as I want to, for as long as the network wants me to and for as long as the vast North American viewing public will stand for it.

Dennis Miller

I've noticed that in the Middle East when they burn the American Flag, they aren't even using real flags.

Don Hewitt

Yeah, but I got to tell you, in a nutshell, that night of the presidential debate was the worst night that ever happened in American politics.

Gerald Ford

That's why I tried so hard to convince the American people that they should have had a different result, and I think a few of them regret.

Lynne Cheney

Well, I have a Vietnamese soldier in the book on the V is for valor page. And for a little kid, it's American soldiers fought bravely in Vietnam.

Robert Novak

President Bush this weekend reaffirmed that he considers Saddam Hussein in Iraq an enemy of the American people.

Rush Limbaugh

Of course Daschle wants Bush to forget the polls, because they show that the American people support the president!

Walter Cronkite

I'm just back from the biggest assignment that any American reporter could have so far in this war. And when we were permitted to write, there was plenty to report.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Speeches: American

SpeakerTermPhrase(s)

Abraham Lincoln

1861-1865Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary.

Harry S. Truman

1945-1953Events have brought our American democracy to new influence and new responsibilities.

John F. Kennedy

1961-1963We are all trustees for the American people, custodians of the American heritage.

Lyndon B. Johnson

1963-1969Last fall I asked the American people to choose that course.

Richard Nixon

1969-1974Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam.

Jimmy Carter

1977-1981It's an achievement that belongs to every individual American.

Ronald Reagan

1981-1989Family and community are the co-stars of this Great American Comeback.

George Bush

1989-1993Tell the American farmer who feeds his country and the world.

Bill Clinton

1993-2001Bill for American workers.

George W. Bush

2001-2005Deep in the American character, there is honor, and it is stronger than cynicism.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Usage Frequency: American

"American" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 97.35% of the time. "American" is used about 15,022 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)
Parts of SpeechPercentUsage per
100 Million Words		Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)97.35%14,623633
Noun (singular)1.76%26518,112
Noun (proper)0.89%13427,488
                    Total100.00%15,022N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Name Usage Frequency: American

The following table summarizes the usage of "American" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified.
NameUsage/GenderUsage per 100
million Persons		Rank in USA
AmericanLast name10088,555
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Usage in Company Names: American

CountryNameCountryName
Argentina

American Plast S.A.

Australia

British American Tobacco (Australia) Ltd

Canada

American Bullion Minerals Ltd.

Egypt

Egyptian American Bank S.A.E.

Hungary

North American Bus Industries Rt

Israel

American Israeli Paper Mills Limited

Malaysia

British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Berhad

Norway

Nordic American Tanker Shipping Ltd.

Singapore

British American Tobacco Company (Singapore) Limited

South Africa

Anglo American Platinum Corporation Limited

 (more examples...)  

Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.

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Expressions: American

Expressions using "American": American Academy of Asian Studies ♦ american agave ♦ american alligator ♦ American aloe ♦ american angelica tree ♦ american antelope ♦ american arborvitae ♦ american arrowroot ♦ american aspen ♦ American Association for the Advancement of Science ♦ american badger ♦ american Baptist Convention ♦ american barberry ♦ american basswood ♦ american beech ♦ American Bell Inc. ♦ american bison ♦ american bittern ♦ american bittersweet ♦ american black bear ♦ american blight ♦ american bluefish ♦ american bog asphodel ♦ American Braille ♦ american brooklime ♦ american buffalo ♦ american bugbane ♦ american bureau of shipping ♦ American Business Conference ♦ American caisson ♦ American calumba ♦ American Cancer Society ♦ american Canyon ♦ american capital ♦ american centaury ♦ american chameleon ♦ american cheese ♦ american chestnut ♦ american citizen ♦ american civil war ♦ american cloth ♦ american cockroach ♦ american columbo ♦ american coot ♦ american copper ♦ American cowslip ♦ american crab apple ♦ american cranberry ♦ american cranberry bush ♦ american crayfish ♦ american creeper ♦ american cress ♦ american crow ♦ American Dental Association ♦ American depositary receipt ♦ american dewberry ♦ american dog tick ♦ american dog violet ♦ american dogwood ♦ american dollar ♦ american dream ♦ american dwarf birch ♦ american eagle ♦ American Economic Association ♦ american egret ♦ american elder ♦ american elk ♦ american elm ♦ american english ♦ american express ♦ american express office ♦ american Falls ♦ american featherfoil ♦ american Federalist Party ♦ american Federation of Labor ♦ american Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations ♦ american feverfew ♦ american flag ♦ american flag ship ♦ american flagfish ♦ american fly honeysuckle ♦ american flying squirrel ♦ american football ♦ American forge ♦ american Fork ♦ American foul brood ♦ American foulbrood ♦ American foulbrood of bees ♦ american foxhound ♦ american frogbit ♦ american gallinule ♦ American General ♦ American gentian ♦ American germander ♦ American Ginseng ♦ american gray birch ♦ american green toad ♦ american hackberry ♦ american harvest mouse ♦ american hazel ♦ American Heart Association. Additional references.

Hyphenated Usage

Beginning with "American": american-accented, American-atlantic, american-backed, american-based, american-born, american-brazilian, american-bred, american-british, american-british-dominions, american-built, american-checked, american-chinese, american-cloth, american-controlled, American-de, american-designed, american-devised, american-dominated, american-dutch-british, american-equity, american-european-british, american-football, american-funded, american-grown, american-imported, American-Indian, American-Indian language, american-influenced, american-inspired, american-iraqi, american-irish, american-israeli, american-italian, american-japanese, american-led, american-made, american-manufactured, american-naturalized, american-owned, american-palestinian, american-registered, american-run, american-russian, american-selected, american-sounding, American-south, american-soviet, american-sponsored, american-style, american-trained, american-type, american-zionist-atlantic.

Ending with "American": all-american, arab-american, asian-american, british-american, cuban-american, euro-american, european-american, fellow-american, hispanic-american, ibero-american, japanese-american, middle-american, non-american, north-american, pro-american, russian-american, sino-american, soviet-american, spanish-american, trans-american, un-american.

Containing "American": African-American music, afro-american music, Fki-american-biased, latin-american country, Pan-American Congress, pan-american highway, Spanish-American War, un-american activities.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: American

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day		ExpressionFrequency
per Day

american airline

61,545

american indian

3,532

american business list

27,471

austin american statesman

3,149

american express

25,916

american girl

2,829

american idol

18,756

american racing

2,787

american single

14,815

american standard

2,771

american flag

12,171

the all american reject

2,736

native american

9,079

american west airline

2,727

american eagle

8,118

american art

2,708

american greeting

7,688

american funds

2,586

lake charles american press

7,229

american film institute

2,560

american university

6,415

american pie

2,510

american junior

6,334

african american art

2,444

reject all american

5,902

african american

2,400

american cancer society

4,733

american chopper

2,232

american heart association

4,489

american eagle outfitters

2,230

american

4,439

american diabetes association

2,218

american kennel club

4,335

american singles.com

2,160

american red cross

4,318

american greeting card

1,939

american medical association

3,984

american family insurance

1,891

native american art

3,708

the american west

1,856
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: American

Language Translations for "American"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.

Afrikaans

  

Amerikaner (US, US citizen), Amerikaans. (various references)

   

Albanian

  

amerikan. (various references)

   

Arabic 

  

‏هندي أحمر من أميركة الجنوبية, ‏الأميركي, ‏أمريكي. (various references)

   

Asturian

  

fúbol americanu (American football). (various references)

   

Breton

  

amerikan. (various references)

   

Bulgarian 

  

американски (columbian, transatlantic, yankee), американец (yank, yankee). (various references)

   

Catalan

  

americans. (various references)

   

Chinese 

  

美國 (America, United States, USA), 美国 (America, americana, US, USA). (various references)

   

Croatian

  

amerièke. (various references)

   

Czech

  

americký. (various references)

   

Danish

  

amerikaner (US citizen). (various references)

   

Dutch

  

Amerikaan (US citizen), Amerikaanse (American woman), Amerikaans. (various references)

   

Esperanto

  

amerikano, amerika, usonano (US citizen), usona. (various references)

   

Estonian

  

ameerika. (various references)

   

Faeroese

  

amerikanskur fótbóltur (American football). (various references)

   

Farsi 

  

ینگه دنیاءی , مربوطبامریکا, امریکاءی (Yank, Yankee). (various references)

   

Finnish

  

amerikkalainen (US citizen). (various references)

   

Flemish

  

amerikaanse. (various references)

   

French

  

américain. (various references)

   

French Canadian

  

américains. (various references)

   

Frisian

  

Amerikaan (US citizen). (various references)

   

Galician

  

americanos. (various references)

   

German

  

Amerikaner (US citizen), amerikanisch (u.s.), amerikanische, Amerikanerin (American woman). (various references)

   

Greek 

  

αμερικάνικοσ, αμερικανόσ (gringo, grins), Αμερικάνος, Αμερικανός (US citizen). (various references)

   

Haitian Creole

  

ameriken. (various references)

   

Hawaiian

  

amerikan. (various references)

   

Hebrew 

  

אמריקאי. (various references)

   

Hungarian

  

amerikai (stateside, US citizen, yankee). (various references)

   

Icelandic

  

amerískur, amerískum, ameríska, Ameríkani (US citizen), bandarískur, Bandaríkjamaður (US citizen). (various references)

   

Indonesian

  

orang amerika (yankee). (various references)

   

Inuktitut

  

aqitaqtuq assatut (American football). (various references)

   

Irish

  

mheiriceánacha, meiriceánach. (various references)

   

Italian

  

americano (US citizen, yankee). (various references)

   

Japanese Kanji 

  

米国民 , アメーバ赤痢 (AMeDAS, amenity, American casual, American coffee, American football, American Indian, American League, American plan, American rugby, American sign language, Americanism, Americanize, America's Cup race, Ameslan, amethyst, amoebic dysentery, Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System, crawfish, dogwood, puma, redwood). (various references)

   

Japanese Katakana 

  

べいこくみん, アメリカン . (various references)

   

Korean 

  

미국 (America, Columbian, US, USA). (various references)

   

Luxembourgish

  

amerikanesch. (various references)

   

Manx

  

Americaanagh (Yankee). (various references)

   

Norwegian

  

amerikanske, amerikansk, amerikaner (US citizen). (various references)

   

Papiamen

  

merikano (US citizen). (various references)

   

Pig Latin

  

americanay.(various references)

   

Polish

  

Amerykanin (US citizen). (various references)

   

Portuguese

  

americano (US citizen). (various references)

   

Portuguese Brazilian

  

americanos (Americans), americano. (various references)

   

Provencal

  

fotbòl american (American football). (various references)

   

Romanian

  

american (yankee). (various references)

   

Russian 

  

американский (stateside, yankee), американец (US citizen). (various references)

   

Samoan

  

lakapi Amerika (American football). (various references)

   

Serbo-Croatian

  

amerikanac (jonathan), američki (us, yankee). (various references)

   

Slovene

  

ameriških. (various references)

   

Somali

  

maraykan. (various references)

   

Spanish

  

americano (US citizen), norteamericano (north american), estadounidense (US citizen). (various references)

   

Sranan

  

panari (American Indian, Indian), ingi (American Indian, Indian, Red Indian). (various references)

   

Swahili

  

mwamerikani (US citizen). (various references)

   

Swedish

  

amerikansk (yankee), amerikan (US citizen, yank, yankee). (various references)

   

Tagalog

  

Amerikano (US citizen), american. (various references)

   

Tahitian

  

marite. (various references)

   

Turkish

  

amerikan (all-american). (various references)

   

Ukrainian

  

англійска мова в америці, американський (stateside, yankee), американка, американець (yankee). (various references)

   

Vietnamese 

  

người Mỹ (yankee), người Châu Mỹ. (various references)

   

Welsh

  

Americanwr, Americanaidd. (various references)

   

Yucatec

  

masewal (American Indian, Indian). (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Misspellings: American

Misspellings

"American" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: amerasian, amercian, americ, Americaine, americal, amer-ican, Americanly, Americo, Amerifax, Amerikay, Ameriyah, amnerican, armerian, armoricain, armorican. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: American

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-i-m-n-r"

-1 letter: acarine, anaemic, carinae, carmine.

-2 letters: acinar, airman, airmen, anemia, anemic, arcane, arnica, caiman, camera, carina, carman, carmen, carnie, cinema, crania, iceman, maniac, marina, marine, mincer, remain.

-3 letters: acari, aecia, aimer, amain, amice, amine, amnia, amnic, anear, anima, anime, areca, areic, arena, cairn, caner, ceria, crane, cream, crime, erica, inarm, macer, mania, manic, maria.

 Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-i-m-n-r"
 

+2 letters: affirmance, aldermanic, campaigner, chairmaned, macaronies, macerating, maceration, oceanarium, rampancies, unicameral.

 

+3 letters: aerodynamic, aeronomical, affirmances, campaigners, carminative, chairmanned, chamberlain, demarcating, demarcation, emancipator, macerations, microfaunae, micromanage, oceanariums, reclamation.

 

+4 letters: aerodynamics, aeromagnetic, alphanumeric, cabinetmaker, caramelising, caramelizing, carminatives, chamberlains, demarcations, emancipators, incomparable, microbalance, micromanaged, micromanager, micromanages, paramagnetic, racemization, reclamations, sectarianism, unicamerally.

 

+5 letters: aerodynamical, aeromechanics, alphanumerics, antirheumatic, archimandrite, arithmetician, ascertainment, cabinetmakers, cinematograph, craftsmanlike, disaffirmance, documentarian, galvanometric, jackhammering, lamellibranch, manufactories, microanalyses, microbalances, micromanagers, mineralogical, neuroanatomic, nonparametric, paramountcies, racemizations, recontaminate, rhabdomancies, sectarianisms, transmittance, unreclaimable, vernacularism.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Synonyms
3. Crosswords
4. Usage: Modern 		5. Usage: Commercial
6. Images: Slideshow
7. Images: Photo Album
8. Images: Digital Art 		9. Sounds
10. Quotations: Familiar
11. Quotations: Historic
12. Quotations: Fiction 		13. Quotations: Non-fiction
14. Quotations: Spoken
15. Quotations: Speeches
16. Usage Frequency 		17. Names: Frequency
18. Names: Company Usage
19. Expressions
20. Expressions: Internet 		21. Translations: Modern
22. Abbreviations
23. Acronyms
24. Derivations 		25. Anagrams
26. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.