Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 18:09, 26 December 2024

United States of America
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "In God We Trust" Other traditional mottos: "E pluribus unum" (Latin) "Out of many, one" "Annuit cœptis" (Latin) "Providence favors our undertakings" "Novus ordo seclorum" (Latin) "New order of the ages"
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Show globe (states and D.C. only)Show the U.S. and its territoriesShow territories with their exclusive economic zone
Capital	Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°1′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W / 38.883; -77.017
Largest city	New York City 40°43′N 74°0′W / 40.717°N 74.000°W / 40.717; -74.000
Official languages	None at the federal level
National language	English
Ethnic groups (2020)	By race: 61.6% White 12.4% Black 6% Asian 1.1% Native American 0.2% Pacific Islander 10.2% two or more races 8.4% other By origin: 81.3% non-Hispanic or Latino 18.7% Hispanic or Latino
Religion (2023)	67% Christianity 33% Protestantism 22% Catholicism 1% Mormonism 11% other Christian 22% unaffiliated 2% Judaism 6% other religion 3% unanswered
Demonym(s)	American
Government	Federal presidential republic
• President	Joe Biden
• Vice President	Kamala Harris
• House Speaker	Mike Johnson
• Chief Justice	John Roberts
Legislature	Congress
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	House of Representatives
Independence from Great Britain
• Declaration	July 4, 1776 (1776-07-04)
• Confederation	March 1, 1781 (1781-03-01)
• Recognized	September 3, 1783 (1783-09-03)
• Constitution	June 21, 1788 (1788-06-21)
Area
• Total area	3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,520 km) (3rd)
• Water (%)	7.0 (2010)
• Land area	3,531,905 sq mi (9,147,590 km) (3rd)
Population
• 2024 estimate	340,110,988
• 2020 census	331,449,281 (3rd)
• Density	87/sq mi (33.6/km) (185th)
GDP (PPP)	2024 estimate
• Total	$29.168 trillion (2nd)
• Per capita	$86,601 (8th)
GDP (nominal)	2024 estimate
• Total	$29.168 trillion (1st)
• Per capita	$86,601 (6th)
Gini (2023)	41.6 medium inequality
HDI (2022)	0.927 very high (20th)
Currency	U.S. dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone	UTC−4 to −12, +10, +11
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 to −10
Date format	mm/dd/yyyy
Drives on	Right
Calling code	+1
ISO 3166 code	US
Internet TLD	.us

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the states of Alaska to the northwest and the archipelagic Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands. The country has the world's third-largest land area, largest exclusive economic zone, and third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and its three most populous states are California, Texas, and Florida.

Paleo-Indians migrated across the Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies. British colonization led to the first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607, with the beginning of the forced migration of enslaved Africans following soon after. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution, with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War, the country continued to expand westward across North America, resulting in the dispossession of native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought states remaining in the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the victory and preservation of the United States, slavery was abolished nationally. By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement in World War I. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War, during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence. Following the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower, wielding significant geopolitical influence globally.

The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives, a lower house based on population, and the Senate, an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while American values are based on a democratic political tradition that draws its inspiration from the European Enlightenment movement.

One of the world's most developed countries, the United States has had the largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of the global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and has the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness, productivity, innovation, human rights, and higher education. Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach. The U.S. is a founding member of the World Bank, the Organization of American States, NATO, and the United Nations, as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Etymology

The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette, on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence. The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government, with prescribed rules. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to the United States, despite the usage of "the Americas" as the totality of North and South America. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb.

"America" is the feminine form of the first name of Americus Vesputius, the Latinized name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512). He first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass and not among the Indies at the eastern limit of Asia.

History

Indigenous peoples

The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. In the post-archaic period, the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern, eastern, and southern regions, and the Algonquian in the Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard, while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest. Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million.

European settlement and conflict (1607–1765)

Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California. France established its own settlements along the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through the Atlantic slave trade.

The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain, and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners. The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for the development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals, fueled colonial interest in religious liberty.

For a century, the American colonists had been providing their own troops and materiel in conflicts with indigenous peoples allied with Britain's colonial rivals, especially France, and the Americans had begun to develop a sense of self-defense and self-reliance separate from Britain. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) took on new significance for all North American colonists after Parliament under William Pitt the Elder concluded that major military resources needed to be devoted to North America to win the war against France. The British colonies' position as an integral part of the British Empire became more apparent during the war, with British military and civilian officials becoming a more significant presence in American life.

American Revolution and the early republic (1765–1800)

Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance; one of the primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen, particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them. To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association, a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty, inalienable individual rights; and the sovereignty of the people; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and all hereditary political power; civic virtue; and vilification of political corruption. The Founding Fathers of the United States, who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas.

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were ratified in 1781 and established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which the country's territory would expand with the admission of new states, rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances. George Washington was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in the United States and the peaceful transfer of power.

Westward expansion and Civil War (1800–1865)

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward, many with a sense of manifest destiny. The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel. As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation. The Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest. The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of the most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created.

During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies, though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. States in the North enacted abolition laws, though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states, as inventions such as the cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites. This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, while the other states remained in the Union. War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter. After the January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, many freed slaves joined the Union army. The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House. The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect the rights of African Americans. National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads, spurred growth in the American frontier.

Post–Civil War era (1865–1917)

From 1865 through 1917, an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City, and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England. During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867.

The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics. African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations. A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson, emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country, which would be reinforced by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation.

An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by a few prominent industrialists, largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry. These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest, creating the environment for labor unions to begin to flourish. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant reforms.

Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in the Spanish–American War. (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War. The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.

Rise as a superpower (1917–1945)

The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage. During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with the New Deal, a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations. All were intended to protect against future economic depressions.

Initially neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the "Four Policemen" who met to plan the post-war world, alongside the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence.

Cold War (1945–1991)

After World War II, the United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs. The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race, which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II. The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism. The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality. It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower.

Contemporary (1991–present)

The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history, a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates, and advances in technology. Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web, the evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998.

In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait. The September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror, and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting.

The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in the 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack, when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état.

Geography

The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km). The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region.

The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi River System, the world's fourth-longest river system, runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.

The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona, carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon, a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape.

The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera, is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland.

Climate

With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid. Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon, Washington, and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii, the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical.

States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley. Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest, droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as the most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable.

Biodiversity and conservation

The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians, and around 91,000 insect species.

There are 63 national parks, and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas, managed by the National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States. Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes.

Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy, air and water pollution, biodiversity, logging and deforestation, and climate change. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues. The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 35th among 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index. The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016.

Government and politics

The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions. The U.S. is the world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization. It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document, also establishing the structure and responsibilities of the national federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest national constitution still in effect (from March 4, 1789).

National government

Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances.

• The U.S. Congress, a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment. The Senate has 100 members (2 from each state), elected for a six-year term. The House of Representatives has 435 members, each elected for a two-year term; all representatives serve one congressional district of equivalent population. Congressional districts are drawn by each state legislature and are contiguous within the state. The Congress also organizes a collection of committees, each of which handles a specific task or duty. One of Congress's foremost non-legislative functions is the power to investigate and oversee the executive branch. Congressional oversight is usually delegated to committees and is facilitated by Congress's subpoena power. Appointment to a committee enables a member to develop specialized knowledge of the matters under its purview. The various committees monitor ongoing governmental operations, identify issues suitable for legislative review, gather and evaluate information, and recommend courses of action to the U.S. Congress, including but not limited to new legislation. The two major political parties have appointment power in deciding each committee's membership. Committee chairs are assigned to a member of the majority party.
• The U.S. president is the head of state, commander-in-chief of the military, chief executive of the federal government, and has the ability to veto legislative bills from the U.S. Congress before they become law. However, presidential vetoes can be overridden by a two-thirds supermajority vote in both chambers of Congress. The president appoints the members of the Cabinet, subject to Senate approval, and names other officials who administer and enforce federal laws through their respective agencies. The president also has clemency power for federal crimes and can issue pardons. Finally, the president has the right to issue expansive "executive orders", subject to judicial review, in a number of policy areas. Candidates for president campaign with a vice-presidential running mate. Both candidates are elected together, or defeated together, in a presidential election. Unlike other votes in American politics, this is technically an indirect election in which the winner will be determined by the U.S. Electoral College. There, votes are officially cast by individual electors selected by their state legislature. In practice, however, each of the 50 states chooses a group of presidential electors who are required to confirm the winner of their state's popular vote. Each state is allocated two electors plus one additional elector for each congressional district, which in effect combines to equal the number of elected officials that state sends to Congress. The District of Columbia, with no representatives or senators, is allocated three electoral votes. Both the president and the vice president serve a four-year term, and the president may be reelected to the office only once, for one additional four-year term.
• The U.S. federal judiciary, whose judges are all appointed for life by the president with Senate approval, consists primarily of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. courts of appeals, and the U.S. district courts. The U.S. Supreme Court interprets laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has nine members led by the Chief Justice of the United States. The members are appointed by the sitting president when a vacancy becomes available. In a number of ways the federal court system operates differently than state courts. For civil cases that is apparent in the types of cases that can be heard in the federal system. Their limited jurisdiction restricts them to cases authorized by the United States Constitution or federal statutes. In criminal cases, states may only bring criminal prosecutions in state courts, and the federal government may only bring criminal prosecutions in federal court. The first level in the federal courts is federal district court for any case under "original jurisdiction", such as federal statutes, the Constitution, or treaties. There are twelve federal circuits that divide the country into different regions for federal appeals courts. After a federal district court has decided a case, it can then be appealed to a United States court of appeal. The next and highest court in the system is the Supreme Court of the United States. It has the power to decide appeals on all cases brought in federal court or those brought in state court but dealing with federal law. Unlike circuit court appeals, however, the Supreme Court is usually not required to hear the appeal. A "petition for writ of certiorari" may be submitted to the court, asking it to hear the case. If it is granted, the Supreme Court will take briefs and conduct oral arguments. If it is not granted, the opinion of the lower court stands. Certiorari is not often granted, and less than 1% of appeals to the Supreme Court are actually heard by it. Usually, the Court only hears cases when there are conflicting decisions across the nation on a particular issue, or when there is an obvious error in a case.

The three-branch system is known as the presidential system, in contrast to the parliamentary system, where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States, especially in the Americas.

Political parties

The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then, the United States has operated as a de facto two-party system, though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican. The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative.

Subdivisions

In the American federal system, sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in the states are also represented by local elected governments, which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and further divided into municipalities. The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations.

Foreign relations

The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has the world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and home to the United Nations headquarters. The United States is a member of the G7, G20, and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with the United States, except Iran, North Korea, and Bhutan. Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan.

The United States has a "Special Relationship" with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and several European Union countries (France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement. In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau through the Compact of Free Association. It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India, but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014, the U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion.

Military

The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense, which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of the six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime.

The United States spent $916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country, making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of the country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons—the second-largest share after Russia.

The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces. The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.

State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor. They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933, which created the Guard and provides for the integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force.

Law enforcement and criminal justice

There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions.

There is no unified "criminal justice system" in the United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities. Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under a year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined.

As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in the world, with almost 2 million people incarcerated. An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher".

Economy

The U.S. has been the world's largest economy nominally since about 1890. The 2023 nominal U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $27 trillion was the highest in the world, constituting over 25% of the global economy or 15% at purchasing power parity (PPP). From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7. The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP, second when adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPP), and ninth by PPP-adjusted GDP per capita. It possesses the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. As of February 2024, the total U.S. federal government debt was $34.4 trillion.

Of the world's 500 largest companies by revenue, 136 are headquartered in the U.S. as of 2023, which is the highest number of any country. The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and is the world's foremost reserve currency, backed by the country's dominant economy, its military, the petrodollar system, and its linked eurodollar and large U.S. treasuries market. Several countries use it as their official currency, and in others it is the de facto currency. It has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA. The U.S. ranked second in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2019, after Singapore. Although the United States has reached a post-industrial level of development and is often described as having a service economy, it remains a major industrial power. As of 2021, the U.S. is the second-largest manufacturing country after China.

New York City is the world's principal financial center and the epicenter of the world's largest metropolitan economy. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, both located in New York City, are the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume. The United States is at or near the forefront of technological advancement and innovation in many economic fields, especially in artificial intelligence; electronics and computers; pharmaceuticals; and medical, aerospace and military equipment. The country's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. The largest trading partners of the United States are the European Union, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second-largest exporter. It is by far the world's largest exporter of services.

Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states, and the fourth-highest median household income as of 2023, up from sixth-highest in 2013. With personal consumption expenditures of over $18.5 trillion in 2023, the U.S. has a heavily consumer-driven economy and is by far the world's largest consumer market. Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated; the richest 10% of the adult population own 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom 50% own just 2%. Income inequality in the U.S. remains at record highs, with the top fifth of earners taking home more than half of all income and giving the U.S. one of the widest income distributions among OECD members. The U.S. ranks first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires, with 735 billionaires and nearly 22 million millionaires as of 2023. There were about 582,500 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in 2022, with 60% staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. In 2022, 6.4 million children experienced food insecurity. Feeding America estimates that around one in five, or approximately 13 million, children experience hunger in the U.S. and do not know where they will get their next meal or when. As of 2022, 37.9 million people, or 11.5% of the U.S. population, were living in poverty.

The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high-income countries. It is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation nationally and is one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right. The United States has a higher percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed country, largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at-risk workers.

Science, technology, spaceflight and energy

The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid-20th century. Methods for producing interchangeable parts and the establishment of a machine tool industry enabled the large-scale manufacturing of U.S. consumer products in the late 19th century. By the early 20th century, factory electrification, the introduction of the assembly line, and other labor-saving techniques created the system of mass production. The United States is widely considered to be the leading country in the development of artificial intelligence technology. In 2022, the United States was (after China) the country with the second-highest number of published scientific papers. In 2021, the U.S. ranked second (also after China) by the number of patent applications, and third by trademark and industrial design applications (after China and Germany), according to World Intellectual Property Indicators. In 2023 and 2024, the United States ranked third (after Switzerland and Sweden) in the Global Innovation Index. The U.S. has the highest total research and development expenditure of any country and ranks ninth as a percentage of GDP. In 2023, the United States was ranked the second most technologically advanced country in the world (after South Korea) by Global Finance magazine.

The United States has maintained a space program since the late 1950s, beginning with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. NASA's Apollo program (1961–1972) achieved the first crewed Moon landing with the 1969 Apollo 11 mission; it remains one of the agency's most significant milestones. Other major endeavors by NASA include the Space Shuttle program (1981–2011), the Voyager program (1972–present), the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes (launched in 1990 and 2021, respectively), and the multi-mission Mars Exploration Program (Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance). NASA is one of five agencies collaborating on the International Space Station (ISS); U.S. contributions to the ISS include several modules, including Destiny (2001), Harmony (2007), and Tranquility (2010), as well as ongoing logistical and operational support. The United States private sector dominates the global commercial spaceflight industry. Prominent American spaceflight contractors include Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX. NASA programs such as the Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Resupply Services, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and NextSTEP have facilitated growing private-sector involvement in American spaceflight.

As of 2023, the United States receives approximately 84% of its energy from fossil fuel, and the largest source of the country's energy came from petroleum (38%), followed by natural gas (36%), renewable sources (9%), coal (9%), and nuclear power (9%). The United States constitutes less than 4% of the world's population, but consumes around 16% of the world's energy. The U.S. ranks as the second-highest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Transportation

The U.S. Department of Transportation and its divisions provide regulation, supervision, and funding for all aspects of transportation except for customs, immigration, and security. (The latter remain the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.) Each U.S. state has its own department of transportation, which builds and maintains state highways. Depending upon the state, this department might also directly operate or supervise other modes of transportation.

Aviation law is almost entirely the jurisdiction of the federal government; the Federal Aviation Administration regulates all aspects of civil aviation, air traffic management, certification and compliance, and aviation safety. Vehicle traffic laws, however, are enacted and enforced by state and local authorities, with the exception of roads located on federal property (national parks, military bases) or in the unorganized U.S. territories. The United States Coast Guard is the primary enforcer of law and security on U.S. waterways, inland as well as coastal, but economic jurisdiction over coastal tidelands is shared between state and federal governments. The country's inland waterways are the world's fifth-longest, totaling 41,009 km (25,482 mi).

Passenger and freight rail systems, bus systems, water ferries, and dams may be under either public or private ownership and operation. U.S. civilian airlines are all privately owned. Most U.S. airports are owned and operated by local government authorities, and there are also some private airports. The Transportation Security Administration has provided security at most major airports since 2001.

Commercial railroads and trains were the dominant mode of transportation in the U.S. until the mid-twentieth century. The introduction of jet airplanes and airports serving the same major routes accelerated a decline in demand for interstate and intercity rail passenger service by the 1960s. The completion of the Interstate Highway System also hastened the sharp curtailment of passenger service by the railroads. These significant developments led to the creation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, now called Amtrak, by the U.S. federal government in 1971. Amtrak helps to maintain limited intercity rail passenger service in most parts of the country. It serves most major U.S. cities, but outside the Northeast, California, and Illinois it typically runs only a few trains per day. More frequent Amtrak service is available in regional corridors between certain major cities, particularly the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston; between New York City and Albany; in metropolitan Chicago; and in parts of California and the Pacific Northwest. Amtrak does not serve several major U.S. destinations, including Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona.

The American civil airline industry is entirely owned by corporations and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by US Airways. Of the world's 50 busiest passenger airports, 16 are in the United States, including the top five and the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As of 2022, there are 19,969 airports in the U.S., of which 5,193 are designated as "public use", including for general aviation and other activities.

The overwhelming majority of roads in the United States are owned and maintained by state and local governments. Roads maintained only by the U.S. federal government are generally only found on federal lands (such as national parks) or at federal facilities (like military bases). The Interstate Highway System, with its large, open freeways linking the states, is partly funded by the federal government but owned and maintained by the state government hosting its section of the interstate. Some states fund and build their own large expressways—often called "parkways" or "turnpikes"—that generally use tolls to pay for construction and maintenance. Likewise, some privately owned roads may use tolls for this purpose.

Public transportation in the United States includes bus, commuter rail, ferry, and sometimes airline service. Public transit systems serve areas of higher population density where demand is greatest. Many U.S. cities, towns, and suburbs are car-dependent, however, and suburban public transit is less common and service far less frequent. Most U.S. urban areas have some form of public transit, notably city buses, while the largest (e.g. New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon) operate extensive systems that also include subways or light rail. Most public transit service in the United States is run by local governments, but national and regional commuter lines serve major U.S. urban corridors.

Personal transportation in the United States is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of public roads, making it the longest in the world. The country's rail transport network, also the longest in the world at 182,412.3 mi (293,564.2 km), handles mostly freight. Of the world's 50 busiest container ports, four are located in the United States, with the busiest in the U.S. being the Port of Los Angeles.

The Oldsmobile Curved Dash and the Ford Model T, both American cars, are considered the first mass-produced and mass-affordable cars, respectively. As of 2023, the United States is the second-largest manufacturer of motor vehicles and is home to Tesla, the world's most valuable car company. American automotive company General Motors held the title of the world's best-selling automaker from 1931 to 2008. The American automotive industry is the world's second-largest automobile market by sales, having been overtaken by China in 2010, and the U.S. has the highest vehicle ownership per capita in the world, with 910 vehicles per 1000 people. By value, the U.S. was the world's largest importer and third-largest exporter of cars in 2022.

Demographics

Population

The U.S. Census Bureau reported 331,449,281 residents as of April 1, 2020, making the United States the third-most-populous country in the world, after China and India. The Census Bureau's official 2024 population estimate was 340,110,988, an increase of 2.6% since the 2020 census. According to the Bureau's U.S. Population Clock, on July 1, 2024, the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 16 seconds, or about 5400 people per day. In 2023, 51% of Americans age 15 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 34% had never been married. In 2023, the total fertility rate for the U.S. stood at 1.6 children per woman, and, at 23%, it had the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households in 2019.

The United States has a diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members. White Americans with ancestry from Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57.8% of the United States population. Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government. In 2022, the median age of the United States population was 38.9 years.

Language

While many languages are spoken in the United States, English is by far the most commonly spoken and written. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws, such as U.S. naturalization requirements, standardize English, and most states have declared it the official language. Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English, including Hawaii (Hawaiian), Alaska (twenty Native languages), South Dakota (Sioux), American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In total, 169 Native American languages are spoken in the United States. In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English.

According to the American Community Survey (2020), some 245.4 million people out of the total U.S. population of 334 million spoke only English at home. About 41.2 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (3.40 million), Tagalog (1.71 million), Vietnamese (1.52 million), Arabic (1.39 million), French (1.18 million), Korean (1.07 million), and Russian (1.04 million). German, spoken by 1 million people at home in 2010, fell to 857,000 total speakers in 2020.

Immigration

America's immigrant population is by far the world's largest in absolute terms. In 2022, there were 87.7 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for nearly 27% of the overall U.S. population. In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents, 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants. In 2019, the top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (24% of immigrants), India (6%), China (5%), the Philippines (4.5%), and El Salvador (3%). In fiscal year 2022, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence. The United States led the world in refugee resettlement for decades, admitting more refugees than the rest of the world combined.

Religion

Religious affiliation in the U.S., according to a 2023 Gallup poll:

The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion in the country and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. Religious practice is widespread, among the most diverse in the world, and profoundly vibrant. The country has the world's largest Christian population. Other notable faiths include Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, many New Age movements, and Native American religions. Religious practice varies significantly by region. "Ceremonial deism" is common in American culture.

The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power or spiritual force, engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, and consider themselves religious or spiritual. In the "Bible Belt", located within the Southern United States, evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally, whereas New England and the Western United States tend to be more secular. Mormonism—a Restorationist movement, whose members migrated westward from Missouri and Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young in 1847 after the assassination of Joseph Smith—remains the predominant religion in Utah to this day.

Urbanization

About 82% of Americans live in urban areas, including suburbs; about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. In 2022, 333 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four cities—New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—had populations exceeding two million. Many U.S. metropolitan populations are growing rapidly, particularly in the South and West.

v t e Largest metropolitan areas in the United States 2023 MSA population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau
	Rank	Name	Region	Pop.	Rank	Name	Region	Pop.
New York Los Angeles	1	New York	Northeast	19,498,249	11	Boston	Northeast	4,919,179	Chicago Dallas–Fort Worth
	2	Los Angeles	West	12,799,100	12	Riverside–San Bernardino	West	4,688,053
	3	Chicago	Midwest	9,262,825	13	San Francisco	West	4,566,961
	4	Dallas–Fort Worth	South	8,100,037	14	Detroit	Midwest	4,342,304
	5	Houston	South	7,510,253	15	Seattle	West	4,044,837
	6	Atlanta	South	6,307,261	16	Minneapolis–Saint Paul	Midwest	3,712,020
	7	Washington, D.C.	South	6,304,975	17	Tampa–St. Petersburg	South	3,342,963
	8	Philadelphia	Northeast	6,246,160	18	San Diego	West	3,269,973
	9	Miami	South	6,183,199	19	Denver	West	3,005,131
	10	Phoenix	West	5,070,110	20	Baltimore	South	2,834,316

Health

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), average American life expectancy at birth was 77.5 years in 2022 (74.8 years for men and 80.2 years for women). This was a gain of 1.1 years from 76.4 years in 2021, but the CDC noted that the new average "didn't fully offset the loss of 2.4 years between 2019 and 2021". Higher overall mortality due especially to the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as opioid overdoses and suicides were held mostly responsible for the previous drop in life expectancy. The same report stated that the 2022 gains in average U.S. life expectancy were especially significant for men, Hispanics, and American Indian–Alaskan Native people (AIAN). Starting in 1998, the life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans' "health disadvantage" gap has been increasing ever since. The U.S. has one of the highest suicide rates among high-income countries. Approximately one-third of the U.S. adult population is obese and another third is overweight. The U.S. healthcare system far outspends that of any other country, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP, but attains worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer countries for reasons that are debated. The United States is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance. Government-funded healthcare coverage for the poor (Medicaid) and for those age 65 and older (Medicare) is available to Americans who meet the programs' income or age qualifications. In 2010, former President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Abortion in the United States is not federally protected, and is illegal or restricted in 17 states.

Education

American primary and secondary education (known in the U.S. as K-12, "kindergarten through 12th grade") is decentralized. School systems are operated by state, territorial, and sometimes municipal governments and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. In general, children are required to attend school or an approved homeschool from the age of five or six (kindergarten or first grade) until they are 18 years old. This often brings students through the 12th grade, the final year of a U.S. high school, but some states and territories allow them to leave school earlier, at age 16 or 17. The U.S. spends more on education per student than any country in the world, an average of $18,614 per year per public elementary and secondary school student in 2020–2021. Among Americans age 25 and older, 92.2% graduated from high school, 62.7% attended some college, 37.7% earned a bachelor's degree, and 14.2% earned a graduate degree. The U.S. literacy rate is near-universal. The country has the most Nobel Prize winners of any country, with 411 (having won 413 awards).

U.S. tertiary or higher education has earned a global reputation. Many of the world's top universities, as listed by various ranking organizations, are in the United States, including 19 of the top 25. American higher education is dominated by state university systems, although the country's many private universities and colleges enroll about 20% of all American students. Local community colleges generally offer coursework and degree programs covering the first two years of college study. They often have more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition.

As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. spends more per student than the OECD average, and Americans spend more than all nations in combined public and private spending. Colleges and universities directly funded by the federal government do not charge tuition and are limited to military personnel and government employees, including: the U.S. service academies, the Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges. Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place, student loan debt increased by 102% between 2010 and 2020, and exceeded $1.7 trillion as of 2022.

Culture and society

Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying political belief in an "American Creed" emphasizing consent of the governed, liberty, equality under the law, democracy, social equality, property rights, and a preference for limited government. Culturally, the country has been described as having the values of individualism and personal autonomy, as well as having a strong work ethic, competitiveness, and voluntary altruism towards others. According to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans donated 1.44% of total GDP to charity—the highest rate in the world by a large margin. The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. It has acquired significant cultural and economic soft power.

Nearly all present Americans or their ancestors came from Europe, Africa, or Asia (the "Old World") within the past five centuries. Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl, with immigrants contributing to, and often assimilating into, mainstream American culture. The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants. Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate. While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition as well.

The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities is an agency of the United States federal government that was established in 1965 with the purpose to "develop and promote a broadly conceived national policy of support for the humanities and the arts in the United States, and for institutions which preserve the cultural heritage of the United States." It is composed of four sub-agencies:

• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities

The United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country under the First Amendment, which protects flag desecration, hate speech, blasphemy, and lese-majesty as forms of protected expression. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured. They are the "most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the Internet without government censorship." The U.S. is a socially progressive country with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality. LGBT rights in the United States are advanced by global standards.

Literature

Colonial American authors were influenced by John Locke and various other Enlightenment philosophers. The American Revolutionary Period (1765–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. Shortly before and after the Revolutionary War, the newspaper rose to prominence, filling a demand for anti-British national literature. An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy, published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture by criticizing predecessors such as Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts, and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the nineteenth century American Renaissance include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson. Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). As literacy rates rose, periodicals published more stories centered around industrial workers, women, and the rural poor. Naturalism, regionalism, and realism were the major literary movements of the period.

While modernism generally took on an international character, modernist authors working within the United States more often rooted their work in specific regions, peoples, and cultures. Following the Great Migration to northern cities, African-American and black West Indian authors of the Harlem Renaissance developed an independent tradition of literature that rebuked a history of inequality and celebrated black culture. An important cultural export during the Jazz Age, these writings were a key influence on Négritude, a philosophy emerging in the 1930s among francophone writers of the African diaspora. In the 1950s, an ideal of homogeneity led many authors to attempt to write the Great American Novel, while the Beat Generation rejected this conformity, using styles that elevated the impact of the spoken word over mechanics to describe drug use, sexuality, and the failings of society. Contemporary literature is more pluralistic than in previous eras, with the closest thing to a unifying feature being a trend toward self-conscious experiments with language. As of 2024, there have been 12 American laureates for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mass media

Media is broadly uncensored, with the First Amendment providing significant protections, as reiterated in New York Times Co. v. United States. The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX). The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. Cable television offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches. As of 2021, about 83% of Americans over age 12 listen to broadcast radio, while about 40% listen to podcasts. As of 2020, there were 15,460 licensed full-power radio stations in the U.S. according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Much of the public radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR, incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

U.S. newspapers with a global reach and reputation include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. About 800 publications are produced in Spanish. With few exceptions, newspapers are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or, in an increasingly rare situation, by individuals or families. Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers, such as The Village Voice in New York City and LA Weekly in Los Angeles. The five most popular websites used in the U.S. are Google, YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo, and Facebook—all of them American-owned.

As of 2022, the video game market of the United States is the world's largest by revenue. There are 444 publishers, developers, and hardware companies in California alone.

Theater

The United States is well known for its theater. Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater. By the middle of the 19th century America had created new distinct dramatic forms in the Tom Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel show. The central hub of the American theater scene is the Theater District in Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway.

Many movie and television celebrities have gotten their big break working in New York productions. Outside New York City, many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons. The biggest-budget theatrical productions are musicals. U.S. theater has an active community theater culture.

The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theater. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award.

Visual arts

Folk art in colonial America grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves. It was distinct from Europe's tradition of high art, which was less accessible and generally less relevant to early American settlers. Cultural movements in art and craftsmanship in colonial America generally lagged behind those of Western Europe. For example, the prevailing medieval style of woodworking and primitive sculpture became integral to early American folk art, despite the emergence of Renaissance styles in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The new English styles would have been early enough to make a considerable impact on American folk art, but American styles and forms had already been firmly adopted. Not only did styles change slowly in early America, but there was a tendency for rural artisans there to continue their traditional forms longer than their urban counterparts did—and far longer than those in Western Europe.

The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the visual arts tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new and individualistic styles, which would become known as American modernism. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, James Van Der Zee, Ansel Adams, and Gordon Parks.

The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is the largest art museum in the United States and the fourth-largest in the world.

Music

American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, mainland Europe, or Africa. The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music in particular have influenced American music. Banjos were brought to America through the slave trade. Minstrel shows incorporating the instrument into their acts led to its increased popularity and widespread production in the 19th century. The electric guitar, first invented in the 1930s, and mass-produced by the 1940s, had an enormous influence on popular music, in particular due to the development of rock and roll.

Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz grew from blues and ragtime in the early 20th century, developing from the innovations and recordings of composers such as W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington increased its popularity early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, rock and roll in the 1930s, and bluegrass and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of the country's most celebrated songwriters. The musical forms of punk and hip hop both originated in the United States in the 1970s.

The United States has the world's largest music market with a total retail value of $15.9 billion in 2022. Most of the world's major record companies are based in the U.S.; they are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Mid-20th-century American pop stars, such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, became global celebrities and best-selling music artists, as have artists of the late 20th century, such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Prince, and the early 21st century, such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

Fashion

The United States is the world's largest apparel market by revenue. Apart from professional business attire, American fashion is eclectic and predominantly informal. Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing; however, sneakers, jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps are emblematic of American styles. New York, with its fashion week, is considered to be one of the "Big Four" global fashion capitals, along with Paris, Milan, and London. A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan's Garment District has been synonymous with American fashion since its inception in the early 20th century.

The headquarters of many designer labels reside in Manhattan. Labels cater to niche markets, such as preteens. New York Fashion Week is one of the most influential fashion weeks in the world, and occurs twice a year; while the annual Met Gala in Manhattan is commonly known as the fashion world's "biggest night".

Cinema

The U.S. film industry has a worldwide influence and following. Hollywood, a district in northern Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city, is also metonymous for the American filmmaking industry. The major film studios of the United States are the primary source of the most commercially successful and most ticket-selling movies in the world. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, although in the 21st century an increasing number of films are not made there, and film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization. The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929, and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944.

The industry peaked in what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s, with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures. In the 1970s, "New Hollywood", or the "Hollywood Renaissance", was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period. The 21st century has been marked by the rise of American streaming platforms, which came to rival traditional cinema.

Cuisine

Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup. Of the most enduring and pervasive examples are variations of the native dish called succotash. Early settlers and later immigrants combined these with foods they were familiar with, such as wheat flour, beef, and milk, to create a distinctive American cuisine. New World crops, especially pumpkin, corn, potatoes, and turkey as the main course are part of a shared national menu on Thanksgiving, when many Americans prepare or purchase traditional dishes to celebrate the occasion.

Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, doughnuts, french fries, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs, and American pizza derive from the recipes of various immigrant groups. Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos preexisted the United States in areas later annexed from Mexico, and adaptations of Chinese cuisine as well as pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are all widely consumed. American chefs have had a significant impact on society both domestically and internationally. In 1946, the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angell and Frances Roth. This would become the United States' most prestigious culinary school, where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers.

The United States restaurant industry was projected at $899 billion in sales for 2020, and employed more than 15 million people, representing 10% of the nation's workforce directly. It is the country's second-largest private employer and the third-largest employer overall. The United States is home to over 220 Michelin star-rated restaurants, 70 of which are in New York City alone. Wine has been produced in what is now the United States since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in what is now New Mexico in 1628. In the modern U.S., wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84 percent of all U.S. wine. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.

The American fast-food industry developed alongside the nation's car culture. American restaurants developed the drive-in format in the 1920s, which they began to replace with the drive-through format by the 1940s. American fast-food restaurant chains, such as McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts and many others, have numerous outlets around the world.

Sports

The most popular spectator sports in the U.S. are American football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. While most major U.S. sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, many of which have become popular worldwide. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact. The market for professional sports in the United States was approximately $69 billion in July 2013, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.

American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States; the National Football League has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world, and the Super Bowl is watched by tens of millions globally. However, baseball has been regarded as the U.S. "national sport" since the late 19th century. After American football, the next four most popular professional team sports are basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. Their premier leagues are, respectively, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and the National Hockey League. The most-watched individual sports in the U.S. are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR and IndyCar.

On the collegiate level, earnings for the member institutions exceed $1 billion annually, and college football and basketball attract large audiences, as the NCAA March Madness tournament and the College Football Playoff are some of the most watched national sporting events. In the U.S., the intercollegiate sports level serves as a feeder system for professional sports. This differs greatly from practices in nearly all other countries, where publicly and privately funded sports organizations serve this function.

Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were the first-ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe. The Olympic Games will be held in the U.S. for a ninth time when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,968 medals (1,179 gold) at the Olympic Games, the most of any country.

In international professional competition, the U.S. men's national soccer team has qualified for eleven World Cups, while the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament four times each. The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will co-host, along with Canada and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was also hosted by the United States. Its final match was watched by 90,185, setting the world record for most-attended women's sporting event at the time.

See also

• Lists of U.S. state topics
• Outline of the United States

Notes

1. Twenty-eight of the 50 states recognize only English as an official language. The State of Hawaii recognizes both Hawaiian and English as official languages, the State of Alaska officially recognizes 20 Alaska Native languages alongside English, and the State of South Dakota recognizes English and all Sioux dialects as official languages. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have no official language.
2. English is the de facto language. For more information, see Languages of the United States.
3. The historical and informal demonym Yankee has been applied to Americans, New Englanders, or northeasterners since the 18th century.
4. ^ At 3,531,900 sq mi (9,147,590 km), the United States is the third-largest country in the world by land area, behind Russia and China. By total area (land and water), it is the third-largest, behind Russia and Canada, if its coastal and territorial water areas are included. However, if only its internal waters are included (bays, sounds, rivers, lakes, and the Great Lakes), the U.S. is the fourth-largest, after Russia, Canada, and China.
   Coastal/territorial waters included: 3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,517 km)
   Only internal waters included: 3,696,100 sq mi (9,572,900 km)
5. Excludes Puerto Rico and the other unincorporated islands because they are counted separately in U.S. census statistics
6. After adjustment for taxes and transfers
7. See Time in the United States for details about laws governing time zones in the United States.
8. See Date and time notation in the United States.
9. The U.S. Virgin Islands use left-hand traffic.
10. The five major territories outside the union of states are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The seven undisputed island areas without permanent populations are Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll. U.S. sovereignty over the unpopulated Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island, Serranilla Bank, and Wake Island is disputed.
11. The U.S. Census Bureau's latest official population estimate of 340,110,988 residents (2024) is for the 50 states and the District of Columbia; it excludes the 3.6 million residents of the five major U.S. territories and outlying islands. The Census Bureau also provides a continuously updated but unofficial population clock: www.census.gov/popclock
12. Based on purchasing power
13. Including agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization
14. The official U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual has prescribed specific usages for "U.S." and "United States" as part of official names. In "formal writing (treaties, Executive orders, proclamations, etc.); congressional bills; legal citations and courtwork; and covers and title pages", "United States" is always used. In a sentence containing the name of another country, "United States" must be used. Otherwise, "U.S." is used preceding a government organization or as an adjective, but "United States" is used as an adjective preceding non-governmental organizations (e.g. United States Steel Corporation).
15. From the late 15th century, the Columbian exchange had been catastrophic for native populations throughout the Americas. It is estimated that up to 95 percent of the indigenous populations, especially in the Caribbean, perished from infectious diseases during the years following European colonization; remaining populations were often displaced by European expansion.
16. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
17. Per the U.S. Constitution, Amendment Twenty-three, proposed by the U.S. Congress on June 16, 1960, and ratified by the States on March 29, 1961
18. A country's total exports are usually understood to be goods and services. Based on this, the U.S. is the world's second-largest exporter, after China. However, if primary income is included, the U.S. is the world's largest exporter.
19. These population figures are official 2024 annual estimates (rounded off) from the U.S. Census Bureau.
20. This figure, like most official data for the United States as a whole, excludes the five unincorporated territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands) and minor island possessions.
21. Inupiaq, Siberian Yupik, Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Alutiiq, Unanga (Aleut), Denaʼina, Deg Xinag, Holikachuk, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Gwichʼin, Tanana, Upper Tanana, Tanacross, Hän, Ahtna, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian
22. Also known less formally as Obamacare

References

1. 36 U.S.C. § 302
2. "The Great Seal of the United States" (PDF). U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. 2003. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
3. An Act To make The Star-Spangled Banner the national anthem of the United States of America (H.R. 14). 71st United States Congress. March 3, 1931.
4. "2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country". United States Census. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
5. "Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census". United States Census. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
6. "A Breakdown of 2020 Census Demographic Data". NPR. August 13, 2021.
7. ^ Staff (June 8, 2007). "In Depth: Topics A to Z (Religion)". Gallup, Inc. Retrieved July 1, 2024.
8. Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia and Fact-index: Ohio. 1963. p. 336.
9. "The Water Area of Each State". United States Geological Survey. 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
10. ^ Areas of the 50 states and the District of Columbia but not Puerto Rico nor other island territories per "State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates". Census.gov. August 2010. Retrieved March 31, 2020. reflect base feature updates made in the MAF/TIGER database through August, 2010.
11. "National Population Totals and Components of Change: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2024". www.census.gov. United States Census Bureau (USCB). Retrieved December 20, 2024.
12. "U.S. Census Bureau Today Delivers State Population Totals for Congressional Apportionment". United States Census. Retrieved April 26, 2021. The 2020 census is as of April 1, 2020.
13. ^ "World Economic Outlook Database, October 2024 Edition. (United States)". www.imf.org. International Monetary Fund. October 22, 2024. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
14. "Income in the United States: 2023". Census.gov. p. 53. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
15. "Human Development Report 2023/24" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. March 13, 2024. Retrieved March 13, 2024.
16. "The Difference Between .us vs .com". Cozab. January 3, 2022. Archived from the original on April 16, 2023. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
17. ^
    • "Common Core Document to U.N. Committee on Human Rights". U.S. State Department. December 30, 2011. Item 22, 27, 80. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
    • "U.S. Insular Areas: application of the U.S. Constitution" (PDF). U.S. General Accounting Office Report. November 1997. pp. 1, 6, 39n. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 3, 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
18. "China". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
19. "United States". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on December 19, 2013. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
20. ^ DeLear, Byron (July 4, 2013). "Who coined 'United States of America'? Mystery might have intriguing answer". The Christian Science Monitor. Boston, Massachusetts.
21. Fay, John (July 15, 2016). "The forgotten Irishman who named the 'United States of America'". IrishCentral.com. According to the NY Historical Society, Stephen Moylan was the man responsible for the earliest documented use of the phrase 'United States of America'. But who was Stephen Moylan?
22. A PLANTER (April 6, 1776). "To the inhabitants of Virginia". The Virginia Gazette. Vol. 5, no. 1287. Williamsburg, Virginia: Dixon and Hunter's. Archived from the original on December 19, 2014.
23. "A Planter' s Address to the Inhabitants of Virginia". American Archives. Northern Illinois University. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
24. ^ Safire 2003, p. 199.
25. Mostert 2005, p. 18.
26. Davis 1996, p. 7.
27. "Is USA A Noun Or Adjective?". Dictionary.com. March 9, 2017.
28. ^ U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual. January 12, 2017. pp. 222–223. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
29. Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). The Columbia guide to standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-06989-2.
30. ""The States"". Longman dictionary. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
31. "Definition of STATESIDE". www.merriam-webster.com. September 27, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
32. Sider, Sandra (2007). Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-19-533084-7.
33. Szalay, Jessie (September 20, 2017). "Amerigo Vespucci: Facts, Biography & Naming of America". Live Science. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
34. Allen, Erin (July 4, 2016). "How Did America Get Its Name?". Library of Congress Blog. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
35. "Cliff Palace" at Colorado Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 31, 2024
36. Erlandson, Rick & Vellanoweth 2008, p. 19.
37. Savage 2011, p. 55.
38. Waters & Stafford 2007, pp. 1122–1126.
39. Flannery 2015, pp. 173–185.
40. Lockard 2010, p. 315.
41. Johansen, Bruce (2006). The Native Peoples of North America: A History, Volume 1. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-3899-0.
42. Thornton 1998, p. 34.
43. ^ Perdue & Green 2005, p. 40.
44. Haines, Haines & Steckel 2000, p. 12.
45. Davis, Frederick T. (1932). "The Record of Ponce de Leon's Discovery of Florida, 1513". The QUARTERLY Periodical of THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. XI (1): 5–6.
46. Florida Center for Instructional Technology (2002). "Pedro Menendez de Aviles Claims Florida for Spain". A Short History of Florida. University of South Florida.
47. "Not So Fast, Jamestown: St. Augustine Was Here First". NPR. February 28, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2021.
48. Petto, Christine Marie (2007). When France Was King of Cartography: The Patronage and Production of Maps in Early Modern France. Lexington Books. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-7391-6247-7.
49. Seelye, James E. Jr.; Selby, Shawn (2018). Shaping North America: From Exploration to the American Revolution [3 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 344. ISBN 978-1-4408-3669-5.
50. Bellah, Robert Neelly; Madsen, Richard; Sullivan, William M.; Swidler, Ann; Tipton, Steven M. (1985). Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. University of California Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-520-05388-5. OL 7708974M.
51. Remini 2007, pp. 2–3
52. Johnson 1997, pp. 26–30
53. Ripper, 2008, p. 6
54. Ehrenpreis, Jamie E.; Ehrenpreis, Eli D. (April 2022). "A Historical Perspective of Healthcare Disparity and Infectious Disease in the Native American Population". The American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 363 (4): 288–294. doi:10.1016/j.amjms.2022.01.005. ISSN 0002-9629. PMC 8785365. PMID 35085528.
55. Joseph 2016, p. 590.
56. Stannard, 1993 p. xii
57. Ripper, 2008 p. 5
58. Calloway, 1998, p. 55
59. Thomas, Hugh (1997). The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870. Simon and Schuster. pp. 516. ISBN 0-684-83565-7.
60. Bilhartz, Terry D.; Elliott, Alan C. (2007). Currents in American History: A Brief History of the United States. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-1817-7.
61. Wood, Gordon S. (1998). The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. UNC Press Books. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-8078-4723-7.
62. Ratcliffe, Donald (2013). "The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy, 1787–1828". Journal of the Early Republic. 33 (2): 220. doi:10.1353/jer.2013.0033. ISSN 0275-1275. S2CID 145135025.
63. Walton, 2009, pp. 38–39
64. Walton, 2009, p. 35
65. Otis, James (1763). The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. ISBN 978-0-665-52678-7.
66. Foner, Eric (1998). The Story of American Freedom (1st ed.). W.W. Norton. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-0-393-04665-6. story of American freedom.
67. ^ Fabian Young, Alfred; Nash, Gary B.; Raphael, Ray (2011). Revolutionary Founders: Rebels, Radicals, and Reformers in the Making of the Nation. Random House Digital. pp. 4–7. ISBN 978-0-307-27110-5.
68. Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370
69. Richard Buel, Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (1972)
70. Becker et al (2002), ch 1
71. "Republicanism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. June 19, 2006. Retrieved September 20, 2022.
72. Miller, Hunter (ed.). "British-American Diplomacy: The Paris Peace Treaty of September 30, 1783". The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
73. Shōsuke Satō, History of the land question in the United States, Johns Hopkins University, (1886), p. 352
74. Foner 2020, p. 524.
75. OpenStax 2014, § 8.1.
76. Foner 2020, pp. 538–540.
77. Boyer, 2007, pp. 192–193
78. OpenStax 2014, § 8.3.
79. "Louisiana Purchase" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved March 1, 2011.
80. Harriss, Joseph A. "How the Louisiana Purchase Changed the World". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
81. Wait, Eugene M. (1999). America and the War of 1812. Nova Publishers. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-56072-644-9.
82. "War of 1812". Naval History and Heritage Command. April 10, 2024. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
83. Klose, Nelson; Jones, Robert F. (1994). United States History to 1877. Barron's Educational Series. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8120-1834-9.
84. ^ Carlisle, Rodney P.; Golson, J. Geoffrey (2007). Manifest destiny and the expansion of America. Turning Points in History Series. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. p. 238. ISBN 978-1-85109-834-7. OCLC 659807062.
85. McPherson 1988, p. 41–46.
86. Hammond, John Craig (March 2019). "President, Planter, Politician: James Monroe, the Missouri Crisis, and the Politics of Slavery". Journal of American History. 105 (4): 843–867. doi:10.1093/jahist/jaz002.
87. Frymer, Paul (2017). Building an American empire : the era of territorial and political expansion. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-8535-0. OCLC 981954623.
88. Calloway, Colin G. (2019). First peoples : a documentary survey of American Indian history (6th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, Macmillan Learning. ISBN 978-1-319-10491-7. OCLC 1035393060.
89. McPherson 1988, p. 45.
90. Michno, Gregory (2003). Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850–1890. Mountain Press Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87842-468-9.
91. Billington, Ray Allen; Ridge, Martin (2001). Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier. UNM Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-8263-1981-4.
92. Morrison, Michael A. (April 28, 1997). Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 13–21. ISBN 978-0-8078-4796-1.
93. Kemp, Roger L. (2010). Documents of American Democracy: A Collection of Essential Works. McFarland. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-7864-4210-2. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
94. McIlwraith, Thomas F.; Muller, Edward K. (2001). North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7425-0019-8. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
95. • Meyer et al. 2001, From 1800 to 1900: "The discovery of gold in California in 1848 proved a momentous watershed for native people in the West. Hordes of single men stampeded to find fortune. Unrestrained by family, community, or church, they decimated the native population near the goldfields. California natives suffered the most complete genocide in U.S. history."
    • Wolf, Jessica. "Revealing the history of genocide against California's Native Americans". UCLA Newsroom. Retrieved July 8, 2018.
    • Madley, Benjamin (2016). An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300230697.
    • Smithers 2012, p. 339: "The genocidal intent of California settlers and government officials was acted out in numerous battles and massacres (and aided by technological advances in weaponry, especially after the Civil War), in the abduction and sexual abuse of Indian women, and in the economic exploitation of Indian child labourers"
    • Blackhawk 2023, p. 38: "With these works, a near consensus emerged. By most scholarly definitions and consistent with the UN Convention, these scholars all asserted that genocide against at least some Indigenous peoples had occurred in North America following colonisation, perpetuated first by colonial empires and then by independent nation-states"
96. Rawls, James J. (1999). A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California. University of California Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-520-21771-3.
97. Walker Howe 2007, p. 52–54; Wright 2022.
98. Walker Howe 2007, p. 52–54; Rodriguez 2015, p. XXXIV; Wright 2022.
99. Walton, 2009, p. 43
100. Gordon, 2004, pp. 27, 29
101. Walker Howe 2007, p. 478, 481–482, 587–588.
102. Murray, Stuart (2004). Atlas of American Military History. Infobase Publishing. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-4381-3025-5. Retrieved October 25, 2015. Lewis, Harold T. (2001). Christian Social Witness. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-56101-188-9.
103. Woods, Michael E. (2012). "What Twenty-First-Century Historians Have Said about the Causes of Disunion: A Civil War Sesquicentennial Review of the Recent Literature". The Journal of American History. 99 (2). : 415–439. doi:10.1093/jahist/jas272. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 44306803. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
104. Silkenat, D. (2019). Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War. Civil War America. University of North Carolina Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-4696-4973-3. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
105. McPherson 1988, p. 236.
106. Vinovskis, Maris (1990). Toward A Social History of the American Civil War: Exploratory Essays. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-521-39559-5.
107. McPherson 1988, pp. 273–274.
108. "The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War". U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. August 15, 2016. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy.
109. Davis, Jefferson. A Short History of the Confederate States of America, 1890, 2010. ISBN 978-1-175-82358-8. Available free online as an ebook. Chapter LXXXVIII, "Re-establishment of the Union by force", p. 503. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
110. Black, Jeremy (2011). Fighting for America: The Struggle for Mastery in North America, 1519–1871. Indiana University Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-253-35660-4.
111. Price, Marie; Benton-Short, Lisa (2008). Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities. Syracuse University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-8156-3186-6.
112. "Overview + History | Ellis Island". Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island. March 4, 2020. Retrieved September 10, 2021.
113. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States (1976) series C89–C119, pp. 105–109
114. Stephan Thernstrom, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) covers the history of all the main groups
115. "The Great Migration (1910–1970)". National Archives. May 20, 2021.
116. "Purchase of Alaska, 1867". Office of the Historian. U.S. Department of State. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
117. Woodward, C. Vann (1991). Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
118. Drew Gilpin Faust; Eric Foner; Clarence E. Walker. "White Southern Responses to Black Emancipation". American Experience.
119. Trelease, Allen W. (1979). White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-313-21168-X.
120. Shearer Davis Bowman (1993). Masters and Lords: Mid-19th-Century U.S. Planters and Prussian Junkers. Oxford UP. p. 221. ISBN 978-0-19-536394-4.
121. Ware, Leland (February 2021). "Plessy's Legacy: The Government's Role in the Development and Perpetuation of Segregated Neighborhoods". RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. 7 (1): 92–109. doi:10.7758/rsf.2021.7.1.06. S2CID 231929202.
122. Hirschman, Charles; Mogford, Elizabeth (December 1, 2009). "Immigration and the American Industrial Revolution From 1880 to 1920". Social Science Research. 38 (4): 897–920. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2009.04.001. ISSN 0049-089X. PMC 2760060. PMID 20160966.
123. Carson, Thomas; Bonk, Mary (1999). "Industrial Revolution". Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. Gale.
124. Riggs, Thomas (2015). Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History Vol. 3 (2 ed.). Gale. p. 1179.
125. Dole, Charles F. (1907). "The Ethics of Speculation". The Atlantic Monthly. C (December 1907): 812–818.
126. The Pit Boss (February 26, 2021). "The Pit Stop: The American Automotive Industry Is Packed With History". Rumble On. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
127. Tindall, George Brown and Shi, David E. (2012). America: A Narrative History (Brief Ninth Edition) (Vol. 2). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-91267-8, p. 589
128. Zinn, 2005, pp. 321–357
129. Fraser, Steve (2015). The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power. Little, Brown and Company. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-316-18543-1.
130. Aldrich, Mark. Safety First: Technology, Labor and Business in the Building of Work Safety, 1870-1939. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8018-5405-9
131. "Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved November 11, 2023.
132. "The Spanish–American War, 1898". Office of the Historian. U.S. Department of State. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
133. Ryden, George Herbert. The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa. New York: Octagon Books, 1975.
134. "Virgin Islands History". Vinow.com. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
135. McDuffie, Jerome; Piggrem, Gary Wayne; Woodworth, Steven E. (2005). U.S. History Super Review. Piscataway, NJ: Research & Education Association. p. 418. ISBN 978-0-7386-0070-3.
136. Larson, Elizabeth C.; Meltvedt, Kristi R. (2021). "Women's suffrage: fact sheet". CRS Reports (Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service). Report / Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
137. Winchester 2013, pp. 410–411.
138. Axinn, June; Stern, Mark J. (2007). Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need (7th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 978-0-205-52215-6.
139. James Noble Gregory (1991). American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507136-8. Retrieved October 25, 2015. "Mass Exodus From the Plains". American Experience. WGBH Educational Foundation. 2013. Retrieved October 5, 2014. Fanslow, Robin A. (April 6, 1997). "The Migrant Experience". American Folklore Center. Library of Congress. Retrieved October 5, 2014. Stein, Walter J. (1973). California and the Dust Bowl Migration. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-8371-6267-6. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
140. The official WRA record from 1946 states that it was 120,000 people. See War Relocation Authority (1946). The Evacuated People: A Quantitative Study. p. 8. This number does not include people held in other camps such as those run by the DoJ or U.S. Army. Other sources may give numbers slightly more or less than 120,000.
141. Yamasaki, Mitch. "Pearl Harbor and America's Entry into World War II: A Documentary History" (PDF). World War II Internment in Hawaii. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 13, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
142. "Why did Japan surrender in World War II?". The Japan Times. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
143. Pacific War Research Society (2006). Japan's Longest Day. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-4-7700-2887-7.
144. Hoopes & Brinkley 1997, p. 100.
145. Gaddis 1972, p. 25.
146. Kennedy, Paul (1989). The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage. p. 358. ISBN 978-0-679-72019-5
147. Blakemore, Erin (March 22, 2019). "What was the Cold War?". National Geographic. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved August 28, 2020.
148. Mark Kramer, "The Soviet Bloc and the Cold War in Europe," in Larresm, Klaus, ed. (2014). A Companion to Europe Since 1945. Wiley. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-118-89024-0.
149. Sempa, Francis (July 12, 2017). Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-51768-3.
150. Blakeley, 2009, p. 92
151. Collins, Michael (1988). Liftoff: The Story of America's Adventure in Space. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-1011-4.
152. Winchester 2013, pp. 305–308.
153. "The Civil Rights Movement". PBS. Retrieved January 5, 2019.
154. Brinkley, Alan (January 24, 1991). "Great Society". In Eric Foner; John Arthur Garraty (eds.). The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Books. p. 472. ISBN 0-395-51372-3.
155. "Playboy: American Magazine". Encyclopædia Britannica. August 25, 2022. Retrieved February 2, 2023. ...the so-called sexual revolution in the United States in the 1960s, marked by greatly more permissive attitudes toward sexual interest and activity than had been prevalent in earlier generations.
156. Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan (February 12, 2022). "The Sexual Revolution Origins and Impact". study.com. Retrieved April 27, 2023.
157. Levy, Daniel (January 19, 2018). "Behind the Protests Against the Vietnam War in 1968". Time. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
158. "Women in the Labor Force: A Databook" (PDF). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2013. p. 11. Retrieved March 21, 2014.
159. Gaĭdar, E.T. (2007). Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 190–205. ISBN 978-0-8157-3114-6.
160. Howell, Buddy Wayne (2006). The Rhetoric of Presidential Summit Diplomacy: Ronald Reagan and the U.S.-Soviet Summits, 1985–1988. Texas A&M University. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-549-41658-6.
161. Kissinger, Henry (2011). Diplomacy. Simon & Schuster. pp. 781–784. ISBN 978-1-4391-2631-8. Retrieved October 25, 2015. Mann, James (2009). The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War. Penguin. p. 432. ISBN 978-1-4406-8639-9.
162. Hayes, 2009
163. CFI Team. "NASDAQ". Corporate Finance Institute. Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. Retrieved December 11, 2023.
164. Holsti, Ole R. (November 7, 2011). "The United States and Iraq before the Iraq War". American Public Opinion on the Iraq War. University of Michigan Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-472-03480-2.
165. Walsh, Kenneth T. (December 9, 2008). "The 'War on Terror' Is Critical to President George W. Bush's Legacy". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved March 6, 2013. Atkins, Stephen E. (2011). The 9/11 Encyclopedia: Second Edition. ABC-CLIO. p. 872. ISBN 978-1-59884-921-9. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
166. Wong, Edward (February 15, 2008). "Overview: The Iraq War". The New York Times. Retrieved March 7, 2013. Johnson, James Turner (2005). The War to Oust Saddam Hussein: Just War and the New Face of Conflict. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-7425-4956-2. Retrieved October 25, 2015. Durando, Jessica; Green, Shannon Rae (December 21, 2011). "Timeline: Key moments in the Iraq War". USA Today. Associated Press. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved March 7, 2013.
167. Hilsenrath, Jon; Ng, Serena; Paletta, Damian (September 18, 2008). "Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 1042-9840. OCLC 781541372. Archived from the original on December 25, 2014. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
168. Geiger, Abigail (June 12, 2014). "Political Polarization in the American Public". Pew Research Center. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
169. Murray, Mark; Marquez, Alexandra (June 15, 2023). "Here's what's driving America's increasing political polarization". NBC News. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
170. Hamid, Shadi (January 8, 2022). "The Forever Culture War". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
171. Kleinfeld, Rachel (September 5, 2023). "Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved September 13, 2024.
172. Pape, Robert (January 5, 2022). "American Face of Insurrection: Analysis of Individuals Charged for Storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021". cpost.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago, Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Retrieved September 13, 2024.
173. Rutenberg, Jim; Becker, Jo; Lipton, Eric; Haberman, Maggie; Martin, Jonathan; Rosenberg, Matthew; Schmidt, Michael S. (January 31, 2021). "77 Days: Trump's Campaign to Subvert the Election". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022.
174. • Harvey, Michael (2022). "Introduction: History's Rhymes". In Harvey, Michael (ed.). Donald Trump in Historical Perspective. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003110361-1. ISBN 978-1-003-11036-1. As with the Beer Hall Putsch, a would-be leader tried to take advantage of an already scheduled event (in Hitler's case, Kahr's speech; in Trump's, Congress's tallying of the electoral votes) to create a dramatic moment with himself at the center of attention, calling for bold action to upend the political order. Unlike Hitler's coup attempt, Trump already held top of office, so he was attempting to hold onto power, not seize it (the precise term for Trump's intended action is a 'self-coup' or 'autogolpe'). Thus, Trump was able to plan for the event well in advance, and with much greater control, including developing the legal arguments that could be used to justify rejecting the election's results. (p. 3)
     • Pion-Berlin, David; Bruneau, Thomas; Goetze, Richard B. Jr. (April 7, 2022). "The Trump self-coup attempt: comparisons and civil–military relations". Government and Opposition. FirstView (4): 789–806. doi:10.1017/gov.2022.13. S2CID 248033246.
     • Castañeda, Ernesto; Jenks, Daniel (April 17, 2023). Costa, Bruno Ferreira; Parton, Nigel (eds.). "January 6th and De-Democratization in the United States". Social Sciences. 12 (4). MDPI: 238. doi:10.3390/socsci12040238. ISSN 2076-0760. What the United States went through on January 6th was an attempt at a self-coup, where Trump would use force to stay as head of state even if abandoning democratic practices in the U.S. Some advised Trump to declare martial law to create a state of emergency and use that as an excuse to stay in power.
     • Eisen, Norman; Ayer, Donald; Perry, Joshua; Bookbinder, Noah; Perry, E. Danya (June 6, 2022). Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality (Report). Brookings Institution. Retrieved December 16, 2023. tried to delegitimize the election results by disseminating a series of far fetched and evidence-free claims of fraud. Meanwhile, with a ring of close confidants, Trump conceived and implemented unprecedented schemes to – in his own words – "overturn" the election outcome. Among the results of this "Big Lie" campaign were the terrible events of January 6, 2021 – an inflection point in what we now understand was nothing less than an attempted coup.
     • Eastman v Thompson, et al., 8:22-cv-00099-DOC-DFM Document 260, 44 (S.D. Cal. May 28, 2022) ("Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower – it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation's government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process... If Dr. Eastman and President Trump's plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself.").
     • Graham, David A. (January 6, 2021). "This Is a Coup". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 6, 2021. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
     • Musgrave, Paul (January 6, 2021). "This Is a Coup. Why Were Experts So Reluctant to See It Coming?". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on January 6, 2021. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
     • Solnit, Rebecca (January 6, 2021). "Call it what it was: a coup attempt". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
     • Coleman, Justine (January 6, 2021). "GOP lawmaker on violence at Capitol: 'This is a coup attempt'". The Hill. Archived from the original on January 6, 2021. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
     • Jacobson, Louis (January 6, 2021). "Is this a coup? Here's some history and context to help you decide". PolitiFact. Retrieved January 7, 2021. A good case can be made that the storming of the Capitol qualifies as a coup. It's especially so because the rioters entered at precisely the moment when the incumbent's loss was to be formally sealed, and they succeeded in stopping the count.
     • Barry, Dan; Frenkel, Sheera (January 7, 2021). "'Be There. Will Be Wild!': Trump All but Circled the Date". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
     • Duignan, Brian (August 4, 2021). "January 6 U.S. Capitol attack". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on January 17, 2023. Retrieved September 22, 2021. Because its object was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attack was widely regarded as an insurrection or attempted coup d'état.
175. ^ "The World Factbook: United States". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved November 10, 2018.
176. "Area". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on January 31, 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
177. "Field Listing: Area". The World Factbook. cia.gov. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
178. "State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates—Geography—U.S. Census Bureau". State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
179. "Geographic Regions of Georgia". Georgia Info. Digital Library of Georgia. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
180. ^ Lew, Alan. "PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE US". GSP 220—Geography of the United States. North Arizona University. Archived from the original on April 9, 2016. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
181. Harms, Nicole. "Facts About the Rocky Mountain Range". USA Today. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
182. Tinkham, Ernest R. (March 1944). "Biological, Taxonomic and Faunistic Studies on the Shield-Back Katydids of the North American Deserts". The American Midland Naturalist. 31 (2). The University of Notre Dame: 257–328. doi:10.2307/2421073. JSTOR 2421073.
183. "Mount Whitney, California". Peakbagger. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
184. "Find Distance and Azimuths Between 2 Sets of Coordinates (Badwater 36-15-01-N, 116-49-33-W and Mount Whitney 36-34-43-N, 118-17-31-W)". Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
185. Poppick, Laura (August 28, 2013). "US Tallest Mountain's Surprising Location Explained". LiveScience. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
186. O'Hanlon, Larry (March 14, 2005). "America's Explosive Park". Discovery Channel. Archived from the original on March 14, 2005. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
187. World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2023. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2023. doi:10.4060/cc8166en. ISBN 978-92-5-138262-2. Retrieved December 13, 2023.
188. Boyden, Jennifer. "Climate Regions of the United States". USA Today. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
189. McGranahan, Devan Allen; Wonkka, Carissa L. (2024). "Pyrogeography of the Western Great Plains: A 40-Year History of Fire in Semi-Arid Rangelands". Fire. 7 (1): 32. Bibcode:2024Fire....7...32M. doi:10.3390/fire7010032.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
190. "World Map of Köppen–Geiger Climate Classification" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 26, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
191. Perkins, Sid (May 11, 2002). "Tornado Alley, USA". Science News. Archived from the original on July 1, 2007. Retrieved September 20, 2006.
192. Rice, Doyle. "USA has the world's most extreme weather". USA Today. Retrieved May 17, 2020.
193. Borenstein, Seth (April 2, 2023). "Why the U.S. is leading the world in extreme weather catastrophes". PBS News. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
194. US EPA, OAR (June 27, 2016). "Climate Change Indicators: Weather and Climate". Epa.gov. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
195. Waldron, Lucas; Lustgarten, Abrahm (November 10, 2020). "Climate Change Will Make Parts of the U.S. Uninhabitable. Americans Are Still Moving There". Propublica. Rhodium Group. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
196. Koch, Alexandra (December 25, 2024). "It's official: Biden signs new law, designates bald eagle as 'national bird'". FOX 13 Seattle. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
197. Morin, Nancy. "Vascular Plants of the United States" (PDF). Plants. National Biological Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2013. Retrieved October 27, 2008.
198. Osborn, Liz. "Number of Native Species in United States". Current Results Nexus. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
199. "Numbers of Insects (Species and Individuals)". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved January 20, 2009.
200. "National Park FAQ". nps. National Park Service. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
201. Lipton, Eric; Krauss, Clifford (August 23, 2012). "Giving Reins to the States Over Drilling". The New York Times. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
202. Vincent, Carol H.; Hanson, Laura A.; Argueta, Carla N. (March 3, 2017). Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (Report). Congressional Research Service. p. 2. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
203. Gorte, Ross W.; Vincent, Carol Hardy.; Hanson, Laura A.; Marc R., Rosenblum. "Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data" (PDF). fas.org. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
204. "Chapter 6: Federal Programs to Promote Resource Use, Extraction, and Development". doi.gov. U.S. Department of the Interior. Archived from the original on March 18, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
205. The National Atlas of the United States of America (January 14, 2013). "Forest Resources of the United States". Nationalatlas.gov. Archived from the original on May 7, 2009. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
206. "Land Use Changes Involving Forestry in the United States: 1952 to 1997, With Projections to 2050" (PDF). 2003. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
207. Daynes & Sussman, 2010, pp. 3, 72, 74–76, 78
208. Hays, Samuel P. (2000). A History of Environmental Politics since 1945.
209. Collin, Robert W. (2006). The Environmental Protection Agency: Cleaning Up America's Act. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-313-33341-5. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
210. Turner, James Morton (2012). The Promise of Wilderness, pp. 29–32
211. Endangered species Fish and Wildlife Service. General Accounting Office, Diane Publishing. 2003. pp. 1–3, 42. ISBN 978-1-4289-3997-4. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
212. "Environmental Performance Index". epi.yale.edu. July 10, 2024. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
213. "United Nations Treaty Collection-The Paris Agreement". Retrieved December 3, 2024.
214. Onuf 2010, p. xvii.
215. Desjardins, Jeff (August 8, 2019). "Mapped: The world's oldest democracies". World Economic Forum. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
216. Ryan, David (2000). Ryan, David; Pungong, Victor (eds.). The United States and Decolonization. Springer. doi:10.1057/9780333977958. hdl:1887/72726. ISBN 978-1-349-40644-9.
217. Scheb, John M.; Scheb, John M. II (2002). An Introduction to the American Legal System. Florence, Kentucky: Delmar, p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7668-2759-2.
218. Killian, Johnny H. Ed. "Constitution of the United States". The Office of the Secretary of the Senate. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
219. "The Legislative Branch". United States Diplomatic Mission to Germany. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
220. "The Process for impeachment". ThinkQuest. Archived from the original on April 8, 2013. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
221. "The Senate and the House of Representatives: lesson overview (article)". Khan Academy.
222. Broder, David S. (March 18, 2007). "Congress's Oversight Offensive". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 1, 2011. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
223. Ferraro, Thomas (April 25, 2007). "House committee subpoenas Rice on Iraq". Reuters. Archived from the original on January 14, 2021. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
224. "The Executive Branch". The White House. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
225. "Interpretation: Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3 | Constitution Center". National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org.
226. ^
     • Hall, Kermit L.; McGuire, Kevin T. (2005). Institutions of American Democracy: The Judicial Branch. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-988374-5.
     • U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (2013). Learn about the United States: Quick Civics Lessons for the Naturalization Test. Government Printing Office. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-16-091708-0.
     • Giddens-White, Bryon (2005). The Supreme Court and the Judicial Branch. Heinemann Library. ISBN 978-1-4034-6608-2.
     • Zelden, Charles L. (2007). The Judicial Branch of Federal Government: People, Process, and Politics. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-702-9. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
     • "Federal Courts". United States Courts. Retrieved October 19, 2014.
227. Cossack, Roger (July 13, 2000). "Beyond politics: Why Supreme Court justices are appointed for life". CNN. Archived from the original on July 12, 2012.
228. Sundquist, James L. (1997). "The U.S. Presidential System as a Model for the World". In Baaklini, Abdo I.; Desfosses, Helen (eds.). Designs for Democratic Stability: Studies in Viable Constitutionalism. Routledge. pp. 53–72. ISBN 0765600528.
229. Hofstadter, Richard (1969). The Idea of a Party System : The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840. University of California Press. p. iv. ISBN 9780520013896. Retrieved October 5, 2022.
230. Blake, Aaron (November 25, 2021). "Why are there only two parties in American politics?". Washington Post. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
231. Matthew Levendusky, The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans (U Chicago Press, 2009)
232. Levy, Robert A. (October 2011). "Rights, Powers, Dual Sovereignty, and Federalism". Cato Institute. Retrieved January 13, 2024.
233. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(36) and 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(38) U.S. Federal Code, Immigration and Nationality Act. 8 U.S.C. § 1101a
234. Feldstein, Martin (March 2017). "Why is Growth Better in the United States Than in Other Industrial Countries?". National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge, Massachusetts. doi:10.3386/w23221.
235. "What is a federal Indian reservation?". bia.gov. Bureau of Indian Affairs. August 19, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2023.
236. "Current Members". United Nations Security Council. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
237. "United Nations Headquarters Agreement". The American Journal of International Law. 42 (2). Cambridge University Press: 445–447. April 1948. doi:10.2307/2193692. JSTOR 2193692. S2CID 246008694.
238. "Where is the G7 Headed?". Council on Foreign Relations. New York City. June 28, 2022.
239. "The United States and G20: Building a More Peaceful, Stable, and Prosperous World Together". United States Department of State. July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
240. "Our global reach". OECD. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
241. Fialho, Livia Pontes; Wallin, Matthew (August 1, 2013). Reaching for an Audience: U.S. Public Diplomacy Towards Iran (Report). American Security Project. JSTOR resrep06070.
242. Oliver, Alex; Graham, Euan (December 19, 2017). "Which are the countries still talking to North Korea?". BBC News. London. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
243. Ferraro, Matthew F. (December 22, 2014). "The Case for Stronger Bhutanese-American Ties". The Diplomat. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
244. "US will continue to strengthen 'unofficial ties' with Taiwan, says Harris". South China Morning Post. September 28, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
245. Ruwitch, John (September 22, 2020). "Formal Ties With U.S.? Not For Now, Says Taiwan Foreign Minister". NPR. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
246. Kobara, Junnosuke; Moriyasu, Ken (March 27, 2021). "Japan will turn to Quad in 'nealsow Cold War': Defense Ministry think tank". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
247. Dumbrell, John; Schäfer, Axel (2009). America's 'Special Relationships': Foreign and Domestic Aspects of the Politics of Alliance. Taylor & Francis. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-203-87270-3. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
248. Ek, Carl & Fergusson, Ian F. (September 3, 2010). "Canada–U.S. Relations" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
249. Vaughn, Bruce (August 8, 2008). Australia: Background and U.S. Relations. Congressional Research Service. OCLC 70208969.
250. Vaughn, Bruce (May 27, 2011). "New Zealand: Background and Bilateral Relations with the United States" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
251. Lum, Thomas (January 3, 2011). "The Republic of the Philippines and U.S. Interests" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
252. Chanlett-Avery, Emma; et al. (June 8, 2011). "Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
253. Manyin, Mark E.; Chanlett-Avery, Emma; Nikitin, Mary Beth (July 8, 2011). "U.S.–South Korea Relations: Issues for Congress" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
254. Zanotti, Jim (July 31, 2014). "Israel: Background and U.S. Relations" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
255. "U.S. Relations With Poland". State.gov. January 20, 2021. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
256. Kimer, James (September 26, 2019). "The Untapped Potential of the US-Colombia Partnership". Atlantic Council. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
257. "INDO- PACIFIC STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES" (PDF). White House. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
258. Meidan, Michal (July 1, 2019). US-China: The Great Decoupling (Report). Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. JSTOR resrep33982.
259. Bala, Sumathi (March 28, 2023). "U.S.-China relations are going downhill with 'no trust' on either side, Stephen Roach says". CNBC. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
260. Rumer, Eugene; Sokolsky, Richard (June 20, 2019). "Thirty Years of U.S. Policy Toward Russia: Can the Vicious Circle Be Broken?". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Washington, D.C. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
261. Macias, Amanda (June 17, 2022). "Here's a look at the $5.6 billion in firepower the U.S. has committed to Ukraine in its fight against Russia". CNBC. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
262. "Our Forces". United States Department of Defense. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
263. Lindsay, James M. (August 4, 2021). "Happy 231st Birthday to the United States Coast Guard!". New York City: Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved July 16, 2022. During peacetime it is part of the Department of Homeland Security. During wartime, or when the president or Congress so direct, it becomes part of the Department of Defense and is included in the Department of the Navy.
264. "Trends in Military Expenditure 2023" (PDF). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. April 2024. Retrieved April 22, 2024.
265. "Data for all countries from 1988–2020 in constant (2019) USD (pdf)" (PDF). SIPRI. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
266. "Role of nuclear weapons grows as geopolitical relations deteriorate—new SIPRI Yearbook out now | SIPRI". Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. June 17, 2024. Retrieved June 18, 2024.
267. Hackett, James (2023). The military balance. 2023. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1032508955.
268. Harris, Johnny (May 18, 2015). "Why does the US have 800 military bases around the world?". Vox. Archived from the original on September 24, 2020. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
269. "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309A)" (PDF). Department of Defense. March 31, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2013. Retrieved October 7, 2010.
270. "StateDefenseForce.com". StateDefenseForce.com. September 17, 2024.
271. "State Guard Association of the United States – Supporting the State Defense Forces of the United States". sgaus.org.
272. "32 U.S. Code § 109 – Maintenance of other troops".
273. "Legal Basis of the National Guard". Army National Guard. 2013. Archived from the original on May 21, 2013. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
274. Banks, Duren; Hendrix, Joshua; Hickman, Mathhew (October 4, 2016). "National Sources of Law Enforcement Employment Data" (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice: 1.
275. "U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, Who Governs & What They Do". Chiff.com. Archived from the original on February 10, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
276. Manweller, Mathew (2006). "Chapter 2, The Roles, Functions, and Powers of State Courts". In Hogan, Sean O. (ed.). The Judicial Branch of State Government: People, Process, and Politics. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio. pp. 37–96. ISBN 978-1-85109-751-7. Retrieved October 5, 2020.
277. "Introduction To The Federal Court System". United States Attorney. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Justice. November 7, 2014. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
278. ^ Sawyer, Wendy; Wagner, Peter (July 6, 2023). "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved August 23, 2024.
279. ^ The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. April 24, 2014. doi:10.17226/18613. ISBN 978-0-309-29801-8.
280. Foundation, The Annie E. Casey (November 14, 2020). "Juvenile Detention Explained". The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
281. United States of America. World Prison Brief.
282. Highest to Lowest. World Prison Brief (WPB). Use the dropdown menu to choose lists of countries by region or the whole world. Use the menu to select highest-to-lowest lists of prison population totals, prison population rates, percentage of pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners, percentage of female prisoners, percentage of foreign prisoners, and occupancy rate. Column headings in WPB tables can be clicked to reorder columns lowest to highest, or alphabetically. For detailed information for each country click on any country name in lists. See the WPB main data page and click on the map links or the sidebar links to get to the region and country desired.
283. Grinshteyn, Erin; Hemenway, David (March 2016). "Violent Death Rates: The US Compared with Other High-income OECD Countries, 2010". The American Journal of Medicine. 129 (3): 226–273. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2015.10.025. PMID 26551975. Retrieved June 18, 2017.
284. ^ "The Implementation of Monetary Policy – The Federal Reserve in the International Sphere" (PDF). Retrieved August 24, 2010.
285. Fordham, Benjamin (October 2017). "Protectionist Empire: Trade, Tariffs, and United States Foreign Policy, 1890–1914". Studies in American Political Development. 31 (2): 170–192. doi:10.1017/s0898588x17000116. ISSN 0898-588X. S2CID 148917255.
286. "Report for Selected Countries and Subjects". Imf.org.
287. Hagopian, Kip; Ohanian, Lee (August 1, 2012). "The Mismeasure of Inequality". Policy Review (174). Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
288. "Gross Domestic Product, Fourth Quarter and Year 2022 (Third Estimate), GDP by Industry, and Corporate Profits". U.S. Department of Commerce.
289. "Household disposable income". OECD Data.
290. Fox, Michelle (March 1, 2024). "The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days". CNBC.
291. "Microsoft back as most valuable listed company as Nvidia slips". BBC. June 21, 2024. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
292. "Global 500". Fortune Global 500. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
293. Hyam, Benji (November 29, 2023). "Most Profitable Companies: U.S. vs. Rest of the World, 2023". www.growandconvert.com. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
294. Benjamin J. Cohen, The Future of Money, Princeton University Press, 2006, ISBN 0691116660; cf. "the dollar is the de facto currency in Cambodia", Charles Agar, Frommer's Vietnam, 2006, ISBN 0471798169, p. 17.
295. "US GDP Growth Rate by Year". multpl.com. US Bureau of Economic Analysis. March 31, 2014. Retrieved June 18, 2014.
296. "United States free trade agreements". Office of the United States Trade Representative. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
297. "Rankings: Global Competitiveness Report 2013–2014" (PDF). World Economic Forum. Retrieved June 1, 2014.
298. ^ Collins, Michael (August 11, 2023). "The Post-Industrial Service Economy Isn't Working for the Middle Class". IndustryWeek. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
299. "USA Economy in Brief". U.S. Dept. of State, International Information Programs. Archived from the original on March 12, 2008.
300. "The State of Manufacturing in the United States". International Trade Administration. July 2010. Archived from the original on February 26, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
301. "Manufacturing, Value Added (Current US$)". World Bank. Archived from the original on January 7, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2021.
302. Kat Tretina and Benjamin Curry (April 9, 2021). "NYSE: What Is The New York Stock Exchange". Forbes. Retrieved July 24, 2022.
303. Jones, Huw (March 24, 2022). "New York widens lead over London in top finance centres index". Reuters. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
304. "The Global Financial Centres Index 35". Long Finance. March 21, 2024. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
305. Ghosh, Iman (September 24, 2020). "This 3D map shows the U.S. cities with the highest economic output". World Economic Forum. Retrieved March 5, 2023. The New York metro area dwarfs all other cities for economic output by a large margin.
306. "Monthly Reports – World Federation of Exchanges". WFE.
307. Table A – Market Capitalization of the World's Top Stock Exchanges (As at end of June 2012). Securities and Exchange Commission (China).
308. WIPO (2022). Global Innovation Index 2022, 15th Edition. World Intellectual Property Organization. doi:10.34667/tind.46596. ISBN 9789280534320. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
309. Wright, Gavin, and Jesse Czelusta, "Resource-Based Growth Past and Present", in Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor Destiny, ed. Daniel Lederman and William Maloney (World Bank, 2007), p. 185. ISBN 0821365452.
310. "Top Trading Partners – October 2022". U.S. Census Bureau. October 2022. Retrieved May 12, 2023.
311. "World Trade Statistical Review 2019" (PDF). World Trade Organization. p. 100. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
312. "Exports of goods, services and primary income (BoP, current US$)". data.worldbank.org. Retrieved May 24, 2024.
313. "Service exports (BoP, current US$)". World Bank. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
314. "Income". Better Life Index. OECD. Retrieved September 28, 2019. In the United States, the average household net adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 45 284 a year, much higher than the OECD average of USD 33 604 and the highest figure in the OECD.
315. "Median Income by Country 2023". Wisevoter. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
316. "Society at a Glance 2014". Society at a Glance 2014: OECD Social Indicators. OECD Publishing. March 18, 2014. doi:10.1787/soc_glance-2014-en. ISBN 9789264200722. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
317. "Personal Consumption Expenditures". fred.stlouisfed.org. March 28, 2024. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
318. Rocha, Laura (August 18, 2023). "Playing To Win In The U.S. Market". Forbes. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
319. Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Belknap Press. p. 257. ISBN 978-0-674-43000-6
320. "Income inequality in America is the highest it's been since Census Bureau started tracking it, data shows". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
321. Long, Heather (September 12, 2017). "U.S. middle-class incomes reached highest-ever level in 2016, Census Bureau says". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
322. Smeeding, T. M. (2005). "Public Policy: Economic Inequality and Poverty: The United States in Comparative Perspective". Social Science Quarterly. 86: 955–983. doi:10.1111/j.0038-4941.2005.00331.x. S2CID 154642286.
323. Hopkin, Jonathan (2020). "American Nightmare: How Neoliberalism Broke US Democracy". Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies. Oxford University Press. pp. 87–88. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190699765.003.0004. ISBN 978-0190699765.
324. "Here's How Many Billionaires And Millionaires Live In The U.S. – Forbes Advisor". Forbes. October 20, 2023. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
325. "The 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress" (PDF). The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. December 2022. Retrieved June 16, 2023.
326. "USDA ERS – Key Statistics & Graphics". ers.usda.gov. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
327. "Facts About Child Hunger in America | Feeding America". feedingamerica.org. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
328. "National Poverty in America Awareness Month: January 2023". Census.gov.
329. Joumard, Isabelle; Pisu, Mauro; Bloch, Debbie (2012). "Tackling income inequality The role of taxes and transfers" (PDF). OECD. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
330. Rank, Mark Robert (2023). The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity. Oxford University Press. pp. 116–117. ISBN 978-0190212636.
331. Min, Sarah (May 24, 2019). "1 in 4 workers in U.S. don't get any paid vacation time or holidays". CBS News. Retrieved July 15, 2022. The United States is the only advanced economy that does not federally mandate any paid vacation days or holidays.
332. Bernard, Tara Siegel (February 22, 2013). "In Paid Family Leave, U.S. Trails Most of the Globe". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
333. Van Dam, Andrew (July 4, 2018). "Is it great to be a worker in the U.S.? Not compared with the rest of the developed world". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
334. Mowery, David. "Technological Change and the Evolution of the U.S. "National Innovation System", 1880-1990". OpenMind. Retrieved July 10, 2024.
335. Goodfriend, Marvin; McDermott, John (February 24, 2021). "The American System of economic growth". Journal of Economic Growth. 26 (1): 31–75. doi:10.1007/s10887-021-09186-x. ISSN 1573-7020. PMC 7902180. PMID 33642936.
336. Hounshell, David A. (1984), From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 978-0-8018-2975-8, LCCN 83016269, OCLC 1104810110
337. "Measuring trends in AI". Artificial Intelligence Index. Stanford University. 2021.
338. Espinel, Victoria. "America leads the world in AI–but we could fall behind on AI regulation by the end of 2023". Fortune Europe. Retrieved July 30, 2024.
339. Radu, Sintia (August 19, 2019). "Despite Chinese Efforts, the U.S. Still Leads in AI". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved July 30, 2024.
340. "SJR – International Science Ranking". Scimagojr.com. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
341. World Intellectual Property Organization. (2021). World Intellectual Property Indicators 2021. World IP Indicators (WIPI). World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). doi:10.34667/tind.44461. ISBN 9789280533293. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
342. "Global Innovation Index 2024 : Unlocking the Promise of Social Entrepreneurship". www.wipo.int. Retrieved November 29, 2024.
343. WIPO (December 28, 2023). Global Innovation Index 2023, 15th Edition. World Intellectual Property Organization. doi:10.34667/tind.46596. ISBN 9789280534320. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
344. Desjardins, Jeff (December 18, 2018). "Innovators wanted: these countries spend the most on R&D". www.weforum.org. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
345. Fleming, Sean (November 16, 2020). "These countries spend the most on research and development". www.weforum.org. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
346. Getzoff, Marc (December 1, 2023). "Most Technologically Advanced Countries In The World 2023". Global Finance Magazine. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
347. "65 Years Ago: The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 Creates NASA – NASA". July 26, 2023. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
348. "National Aeronautics and Space Administration | US Space Agency & Exploration Achievements | Britannica". www.britannica.com. September 4, 2024. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
349. "Apollo | History, Missions, Significance, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. August 29, 2024. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
350. "The Apollo Missions". The Apollo Missions. July 4, 2019. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
351. "Space Shuttle – NASA". Retrieved September 5, 2024.
352. "Quick Facts". HubbleSite. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
353. "Quick Facts". Webb. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
354. "Mars Exploration – NASA Science". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
355. "International Space Station Facts and Figures – NASA". Retrieved September 5, 2024.
356. Howell, Elizabeth (August 24, 2022). "International Space Station: Facts, History & Tracking". Space.com (updated, last ed.). Retrieved September 5, 2024.
357. "Analysis | Companies are commercializing outer space. Do government programs still matter?". Washington Post. January 11, 2022. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
358. "Commercial Space – NASA". Retrieved September 5, 2024.
359. "U.S. energy facts explained – consumption and production – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)". eia.gov. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
360. "Energy Flow Charts: Charting the Complex Relationships among Energy, Water, and Carbon". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. March 2022. Retrieved May 16, 2023.
361. "What is the United States' share of world energy consumption?". U.S. Energy Information Administration. November 5, 2021.
362. US Environmental Protection Agency, OAR (February 8, 2017). "Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks". US EPA. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
363. Hunter, Marnie (April 11, 2022). "This US airport has reclaimed its title as the world's busiest". CNN.
364. "Waterways – The World Factbook". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
365. Edwards, Chris (July 12, 2020). "Privatization". Downsizing the Federal Government. Cato Institute. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
366. "Scheduled Passengers Carried". International Air Transport Association (IATA). 2011. Archived from the original on January 2, 2015. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
367. "2021 Airport Traffic Report" (PDF). Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. April 2022. p. 32.
368. "Preliminary World Airport Traffic and Rankings 2013—High Growth Dubai Moves Up to 7th Busiest Airport". March 31, 2014. Archived from the original on April 1, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
369. "Number of U.S. Airports". Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
370. Black, Alan (1995). Urban mass transportation planning. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0070055575. OCLC 31045097.
371. "Cars still dominate the American commute". World Economic Forum. May 19, 2022. Retrieved May 21, 2023.
372. Humes, Edward (April 12, 2016). "The Absurd Primacy of the Automobile in American Life". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
373. "Roadways – The World Factbook". Cia.gov. Archived from the original on July 12, 2021. Retrieved July 15, 2021.
374. "Public Road and Street Mileage in the United States by Type of Surface". United States Department of Transportation. Archived from the original on January 2, 2015. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
375. "Railways – The World Factbook". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
376. "Seasonally Adjusted Transportation Data". Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 2021. Archived from the original on April 22, 2021. Retrieved February 16, 2021.
377. Fitzsimmons, Emma G. (April 24, 2017). "Amtrak at a Junction: Invest in Improvements, or Risk Worsening Problems". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2023.
378. "The Top 50 Container Ports". World Shipping Council. Washington, D.C. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
379. "SOME MILESTONES OF THE AUTO AGE". The New York Times. January 26, 1986. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
380. "1926 Ford Model T Sports Touring Car". The Washington Post. September 1, 2002. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
381. "2023 production statistics". International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers. Retrieved July 1, 2024.
382. Klebnikov, Sergei. "Tesla Is Now The World's Most Valuable Car Company With A $208 Billion Valuation". Forbes. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
383. Bunkley, Nick (January 21, 2009). "Toyota Ahead of G.M. in 2008 Sales". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
384. "China overtakes US in car sales". The Guardian. London. January 8, 2010. Retrieved July 10, 2011.
385. "Fact #962: Vehicles per Capita: Other Regions/Countries Compared to the United States". Energy.gov. January 30, 2017. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
386. "Vehicle Statistics: Cars Per Capita". Capitol Tires. August 2017.
387. "Cars". The Observatory of Economic Complexity. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
388. "Annual and cumulative estimates of residential population change for the United States, regions, states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved December 20, 2024.
389. "Census Bureau's 2020 Population Count". United States Census. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
390. "National Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2024".
391. "Population Clock". Census.gov.
392. "Table MS-1. Marital Status of the Population 15 Years Old and Over, by Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1950 to Present". Historical Marital Status Tables. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
393. Saric, Ivana (April 25, 2024). "Births dropped in 2023, ending pandemic baby boom". Axios. Retrieved July 1, 2024.
394. "U.S. has world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households". Pew Research Center. December 12, 2019. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
395. ^ "Ancestry 2000" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. June 2004. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 4, 2004. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
396. "The Chance That Two People Chosen at Random Are of Different Race or Ethnicity Groups Has Increased Since 2010".
397. "Table 52. Population by Selected Ancestry Group and Region: 2009" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 25, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
398. "Federally recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities | USAGov". www.usa.gov. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
399. "America Is Getting Older". Census.gov. June 22, 2023. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
400. Kaur, Harmeet (May 20, 2018). "FYI: English isn't the official language of the United States". CNN. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
401. "States Where English Is the Official Language". The Washington Post. August 12, 2014. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
402. "The Constitution of the State of Hawaii, Article XV, Section 4". Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau. November 7, 1978. Archived from the original on July 24, 2013. Retrieved June 19, 2007.
403. Chapel, Bill (April 21, 2014). "Alaska OKs Bill Making Native Languages Official". NPR.
404. "South Dakota recognizes official indigenous language". Argus Leader. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
405. Siebens, Julie; Julian, Tiffany (December 2011). "Native North American Languages Spoken at Home in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2006–2010" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
406. "Translation in Puerto Rico". Puerto Rico Channel. Archived from the original on December 30, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
407. "ACS B16001". ACS B16001. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved December 26, 2022.
408. "American FactFinder—Results". Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved May 29, 2017.
409. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (August 2019). "International Migrant Stock 2019 Documentation" (PDF). United Nations. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
410. "UN Migrant Stock Total 2019". United Nations. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
411. "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States". Migration Policy Institute. March 14, 2019.
412. "Key findings about U.S. immigrants". Pew Research Center. June 17, 2019.
413. "Immigrants in the United States" (PDF). americanimmigrationcouncil.org. September 21, 2021. Retrieved August 18, 2023.
414. "Who Are America's Immigrants?". Population Reference Bureau. May 22, 2024.
415. Krogstad, Jens Manuel (October 7, 2019). "Key facts about refugees to the U.S." Pew Research Center.
416. Donadio, Rachel (November 22, 2021). "Why Is France So Afraid of God?". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
417. "First Amendment". Constitution Annotated. United States Congress.
418. Alesina, Alberto; et al. (2003). "Fractionalization" (PDF). Journal of Economic Growth. 8 (2): 155–194. doi:10.1023/a:1024471506938. S2CID 260685524. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 31, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
419. Fahmy, Dalia (July 31, 2018). "Americans are far more religious than adults in other wealthy nations". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on January 9, 2020. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
420. ANALYSIS (December 19, 2011). "Global Christianity". Pewforum.org. Archived from the original on July 30, 2013. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
421. Sewell, Elizabeth (2010). "Religious Liberty and Religious Minorities in the United States". In Davis, Derek (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States. University of Oxford. pp. 249–275. ISBN 9780199892228.
422. ^ Williams, Daniel (March 1, 2023). "'Christian America' Isn't Dying. It's Dividing". Christianity Today. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
423. Merriam, Jesse; Lupu, Ira; Elwood, F; Davis, Eleanor (August 28, 2008). "On Ceremonial Occasions, May the Government Invoke a Deity?". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
424. Kallo, Becka; et al. (December 7, 2023). "Spirituality Among Americans". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved December 8, 2023.
425. Froese, Paul; Uecker, Jeremy E. (September 2022). "Prayer in America: A Detailed Analysis of the Various Dimensions of Prayer". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 61 (3–4): 663–689. doi:10.1111/jssr.12810. ISSN 0021-8294. S2CID 253439298.
426. Howe 2008, pp. 727–728.
427. "Mormon Population by State". World Population Review. June 2023.
428. "United States—Urban/Rural and Inside/Outside Metropolitan Area". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on April 3, 2009. Retrieved September 23, 2008.
429. "City and Town Population Totals: 2020-2022". Census.gov. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
430. "Counties in South and West Lead Nation in Population Growth". The United States Census Bureau. April 18, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
431. "Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas Population Totals: 2020–2023". United States Census Bureau. May 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
432. "About Us".
433. "Texas Medical Center, largest medical complex in the world, reaches 98 percent ICU capacity". Newsweek. August 19, 2020.
434. "TMC Facts & Figures" (PDF).
435. Mayes-Osterman, Cybele (November 30, 2023). "Americans are living longer but there's a catch: CDC report on life expectancy". USA Today. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
436. McPhillips, Deidre (November 29, 2023). "US life expectancy rebounded in 2022 but not back to pre-pandemic levels". CNN. Retrieved February 12, 2024.
437. Achenbach, Joel (November 26, 2019). "'There's something terribly wrong': Americans are dying young at alarming rates". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
438. "New International Report on Health Care: U.S. Suicide Rate Highest Among Wealthy Nations | Commonwealth Fund". Commonwealthfund.org. January 30, 2020. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
439. "Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Adults: United States, 2003–2004". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved June 5, 2007.
440. "The U.S. Healthcare System: The Best in the World or Just the Most Expensive?" (PDF). University of Maine. 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 9, 2007. Retrieved November 29, 2006.
441. Vladeck, Bruce (January 2003). "Universal Health Insurance in the United States: Reflections on the Past, the Present, and the Future". American Journal of Public Health. 93 (1): 16–19. doi:10.2105/ajph.93.1.16. PMC 1447684. PMID 12511377.
442. Oberlander, Jonathan (June 1, 2010). "Long Time Coming: Why Health Reform Finally Passed". Health Affairs. 29 (6): 1112–1116. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0447. ISSN 0278-2715. PMID 20530339.
443. Glenza, Jessica; Noor, Poppy. "Tracking abortion laws across the United States". The Guardian. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
444. National Center for Education Statistics. "U.S. Undergraduate Enrollment". Accessed July 29, 2024.
445. "Ages for Compulsory School Attendance ..." U.S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved June 10, 2007.
446. Rushe, Dominic (September 7, 2018). "The US spends more on education than other countries. Why is it falling behind?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
447. "Fast Facts: Expenditures". nces.ed.gov. April 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
448. "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2022". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved July 20, 2024.
449. For more detail on U.S. literacy, see A First Look at the Literacy of America's Adults in the 21st century, U.S. Department of Education (2003).
450. "All Nobel Prizes". Nobel Foundation.
451. "2022–2023 Best Global Universities Rankings". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved April 27, 2023.
452. Fink, Jenni (October 22, 2019). "U.S. Schools Take 8 of 10 Top Spots on U.S. News' Best Global Universities". Newsweek. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
453. "Best Countries for Education: North American and European countries are seen as offering the best opportunities for education". U.S. News & World Report. April 19, 2023.
454. Pannoni, Alexandra; Kerr, Emma (July 14, 2020). "Everything You Need to Know About Community Colleges: FAQ". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved July 9, 2022.
455. "U.S. education spending tops global list, study shows". CBS. Associated Press. June 25, 2013. Archived from the original on July 26, 2013. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
456. "The Biden administration cancelled $9.5B in student loan debt. Here's who it affects". USAFacts. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
457. Hess, Abigail Johnson (December 22, 2020). "U.S. student debt has increased by more than 100% over the past 10 years". CNBC. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
458. Dickler, Jessica; Nova, Annie (May 6, 2022). "This is how student loan debt became a $1.7 trillion crisis". CNBC. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
459. "Statue of Liberty". World Heritage. UNESCO. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
460. Huntington, Samuel P. (2004). "Chapters 2–4". Who are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-87053-3. Retrieved October 25, 2015.: see American Creed, written by William Tyler Page and adopted by Congress in 1918.
461. Hoeveler, J. David, Creating the American Mind: Intellect and Politics in the Colonial Colleges, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 978-0742548398, 2007, p. xi
462. Grabb, Edward; Baer, Douglas; Curtis, James (1999). "The Origins of American Individualism: Reconsidering the Historical Evidence". Canadian Journal of Sociology. 24 (4). University of Alberta: 511–533. doi:10.2307/3341789. ISSN 0318-6431. JSTOR 3341789.
463. Marsh, Abigail (May 26, 2021). "Everyone Thinks Americans Are Selfish. They're Wrong". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 16, 2023.
464. Porter, Gayle (November 2010). "Work Ethic and Ethical Work: Distortions in the American Dream". Journal of Business Ethics. 96 (4). Springer: 535–550. doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0481-6. JSTOR 29789736. S2CID 143991044.
465. Stephens, R. H. (September 1952). "The Role Of Competition In American Life". The Australian Quarterly. 24 (3). Australian Institute of Policy and Science: 9–14. JSTOR 41317686.
466. "World Giving Index 2022" (PDF). Charities Aid Foundation. September 9, 2022. Retrieved April 27, 2023.
467. "Country-level estimates of altruism". Our World in Data. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
468. Marsh, Abigail (February 5, 2018). "Could A More Individualistic World Also Be A More Altruistic One?". NPR. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
469. "GROSS DOMESTIC PHILANTHROPY: An international analysis of GDP, tax and giving" (PDF). Charities Aid Foundation. January 2016. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
470. Volokh, Eugene (January 17, 2015). "The American tradition of multiculturalism". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 30, 2024.
471. Jackson, Lucas (August 22, 2014). "America's Tipping Point: Most Of U.S. Now Multicultural, Says Group". NBC News. Retrieved July 30, 2024.
472. Berghahn, Volker R. (February 1, 2010). "The debate on 'Americanization' among economic and cultural historians". Cold War History. 10 (1): 107–130. doi:10.1080/14682740903388566. ISSN 1468-2745. S2CID 144459911.
473. Fergie, Dexter (March 24, 2022). "How American Culture Ate the World". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved July 3, 2022.
474. Fiorina, Morris P.; Peterson, Paul E. (2010). The New American democracy (7th ed.). London: Longman. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-205-78016-7.
475. • Holloway, Joseph E. (2005). Africanisms in American culture (2nd ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 18–38. ISBN 978-0-253-21749-3.
     • Johnson, Fern L. (2000). Speaking culturally : language diversity in the United States. Sage Publications. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8039-5912-5.
476. Clifton, Jon (March 21, 2013). "More Than 100 Million Worldwide Dream of a Life in the U.S. More than 25% in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Dominican Republic want to move to the U.S." Gallup. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
477. Kulkarni, Jay (January 12, 2022). "Attracting Immigrant Talent With A New American Dream". Forbes. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
478. "A Family Affair: Intergenerational Social Mobility across OECD Countries" (PDF). Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth. OECD. 2010. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
479. "Understanding Mobility in America". Center for American Progress. April 26, 2006.
480. Gould, Elise (October 10, 2012). "U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility". Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved July 15, 2013.
481. Gutfeld, Amon (2002). American Exceptionalism: The Effects of Plenty on the American Experience. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-903900-08-6.
482. Zweig, Michael (2004). What's Class Got To Do With It, American Society in the Twenty-First Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8899-3.
483. Hoff-Ginsberg, Erika (April 1989). Effects of Social Class and Interactive Setting on Maternal Speech (Report). Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH) – via Education Resource Information Center. Republished with revisions as Hoff-Ginsberg, Erika (1991). "Mother-Child Conversation in Different Social Classes and Communicative Settings". Child Development. 62 (4): 782–796. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01569.x. ISSN 0009-3920. PMID 1935343.
484. O'Keefe, Kevin (2005). The Average American. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-270-1.
485. "National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities". Federal Register. Retrieved October 1, 2022.
486. ^ Coleman, Gabriella (2013). Coding Freedom. Princeton University Press. pp. 10, 201. ISBN 978-0-691-14461-0.
487. "Held Dear In U.S., Free Speech Perplexing Abroad". NPR. September 19, 2012. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
488. Liptak, Adam (June 11, 2008). "Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S.". The New York Times. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
489. Durkee, Alison (April 25, 2018). "What if we didn't... have the First Amendment?". Mic. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
490. Wike, Richard (October 12, 2016). "Americans more tolerant of offensive speech than others in the world". Pew Research Center. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
491. Gray, Alex (November 8, 2016). "Freedom of speech: which country has the most?". World Economic Forum. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
492. Norris, Pippa (February 2023). "Cancel Culture: Myth or Reality?". Political Studies. 71 (1): 145–174. doi:10.1177/00323217211037023. ISSN 0032-3217. S2CID 238647612. As predicted, in post-industrial societies, characterized by predominately liberal social cultures, like the US, Sweden, and UK...
493. ^ Derks, Marco; van den Berg, Mariecke (2020). Public Discourses About Homosexuality and Religion in Europe and Beyond. Springer International Publishing. p. 338. ISBN 978-3-030-56326-4. ...(the United States and Europe) as "already in crisis" for their permissive attitudes toward nonnormative sexualities...
494. Leveille, Dan (December 4, 2009). "LGBT Equality Index: The most LGBT-friendly countries in the world". Equaldex. Retrieved January 26, 2023. 13.) United States
495. Garretson, Jeremiah (2018). "A Transformed Society: LGBT Rights in the United States". The Path to Gay Rights: How Activism and Coming Out Changed Public Opinion. New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-5007-5. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a dramatic wave began to form in the waters of public opinion: American attitudes involving homosexuality began to change... The transformation of America's response to homosexuality has been — and continues to be — one of the most rapid and sustained shifts in mass attitudes since the start of public polling.
496. Jelliffe, Robert A. (1956). Faulkner at Nagano. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, Ltd.
497. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 157–159.
498. Lauter 1994a, pp. 503–509.
499. Baym & Levine 2013, p. 163.
500. Mulford, Carla. "Enlightenment Voices, Revolutionary Visions." In Lauter 1994a, pp. 705–707.
501. Lease, Benjamin (1972). That Wild Fellow John Neal and the American Literary Revolution. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. p. 80. ISBN 0-226-46969-7.
502. Finseth, Ian Frederick. "The Emergence of Transcendentalism". American Studies @ The University of Virginia. The University of Virginia. Archived from the original on July 18, 2023. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
503. Coviello, Peter (2005). "Transcendentalism". The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195307726. Retrieved October 23, 2011 – via Oxford Reference Online.
504. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 444–447.
505. Lauter 1994a, pp. 1228, 1233, 1260.
506. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 1269–1270.
507. Lauter 1994b, pp. 8–10.
508. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 1271–1273.
509. Lauter 1994b, p. 12.
510. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 1850–1851.
511. Spillers, Hortense. "The New Negro Renaissance." In Lauter 1994b, pp. 1579–1585.
512. Philipson, Robert (2006). "The Harlem Renaissance as Postcolonial Phenomenon". African American Review. 40 (1): 145–160. JSTOR 40027037.
513. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 2260–2261.
514. Baym & Levine 2013, p. 2262.
515. Lauter 1994b, pp. 1975–1977. "Literature of the Cold War".
516. Baym & Levine 2013, pp. 2266–2267.
517. "All Nobel Prizes in Literature". The Nobel Prize. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
518. "Streaming TV Services: What They Cost, What You Get". The New York Times. Associated Press. October 12, 2015. Archived from the original on October 15, 2015. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
519. "Audio and Podcasting Fact Sheet". Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center. June 29, 2021. Retrieved July 3, 2022.
520. "BROADCAST STATION TOTALS AS OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2020" (PDF).
521. "History: NPR". NPR. June 20, 2013. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
522. Shaffer, Brenda (2006). The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy. MIT Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-262-19529-4.
523. "Spanish Newspapers in United States". W3newspapers. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
524. "Spanish Language Newspapers in the USA : Hispanic Newspapers : Periódiscos en Español en los EE.UU". Onlinenewspapers.com. Archived from the original on June 26, 2014. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
525. "Top Sites in United States". Alexa. 2021. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
526. "Top countries and markets by video game revenues". Newzoo. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
527. "California (CA)". ESA Impact Map. July 20, 2017. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
528. Saxon, Theresa (October 11, 2011). American Theatre: History, Context, Form. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 7–. ISBN 978-0-7486-3127-8. OCLC 1162047055.
529. Meserve, Walter J. An Outline History of American Drama, New York: Feedback/Prospero, 1994.
530. Londré, Felicia Hardison; Watermeier, Daniel J. (1998). The History of North American Theater: From Pre-Columbian Times to the Present. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-1079-5. OCLC 1024855967.
531. Stephen Watt, and Gary A. Richardson, American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary (1994).
532. Staff (undated). "Who's Who". Archived December 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. tonyawards.com. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
533. Güner, Fisun (February 8, 2017). "How American Gothic became an icon". BBC. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
534. American folk art the art of the common man in America, 1750-1900. New York, N.Y.: The Museum of Modern Art. 1932.
535. Brown, Milton W. (1963). The Story of the Armory Show (2nd ed.). New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 978-0-89659-795-2.
536. Davenport, Alma (1991). The History of Photography: An Overview. UNM Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-8263-2076-6.
537. Janson, Horst Woldemar; Janson, Anthony F. (2003). History of Art: The Western Tradition. Prentice Hall Professional. p. 955. ISBN 978-0-13-182895-7.
538. Lester, Alfred (December 6, 1993). "Letter: The Louvre: tourism on the grand scale". The Independent. Retrieved December 2, 2023.
539. "Folk Music and Song: American Folklife Center: An Illustrated Guide (Library of Congress)". Loc.gov.
540. "Musical Crossroads: African American Influence on American Music". Smithsonian. September 22, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2023.
541. Winans, Robert B. (1976). "The Folk, the Stage, and the Five-String Banjo in the Nineteenth Century". The Journal of American Folklore. 89 (354). American Folklore Society: 407–437. doi:10.2307/539294. JSTOR 539294.
542. Shi 2016, p. 378.
543. ^ "The Invention of the Electric Guitar". Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation. Smithsonian Institution. April 18, 2014.
544. ^ Biddle, Julian (2001). What Was Hot!: Five Decades of Pop Culture in America. New York: Citadel. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-8065-2311-8.
545. Stoia, Nicholas (October 21, 2014). "Early blues and country music". OUP blog. Oxford University Press.
546. "Bluegrass music". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
547. OpenStax 2014, § 28.4.
548. "No. 1 Bob Dylan". Rolling Stone. April 10, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
549. Funk, Clayton (August 16, 2016). "9. Neo-Expressionism, Punk, and Hip Hop Emerge". A Quick and Dirty Guide to Art, Music, and Culture. The Ohio State University.
550. "2022 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report". Record Industry Association of America. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
551. Hennessy, Eoin (March 27, 2014). "How American Music Took Over the World". The University Times. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
552. "10 ways that Frank Sinatra changed the world". USA Today. December 8, 2015. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
553. "Universal Music can't help falling for Elvis Presley, to manage song catalog". Reuters. April 12, 2022. Retrieved April 12, 2022.
554. "Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' First Ever 30X Multi-Platinum RIAA Certification". Recording Industry Association of America. December 16, 2015. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
555. Marcos, Carlos (August 17, 2022). "Madonna has been scandalizing people for 40 years, and nobody's going to stop her". El País. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
556. "The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time". Rolling Stone. January 1, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
557. "Prince Tribute: The Greatest Musical Talent of His Generation". Billboard. April 28, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
558. "Taylor Swift and Beyoncé reporters wanted by biggest newspaper chain in US". Sky News. September 14, 2023. Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved November 8, 2023.
559. "Global Apparel Industry Statistics (2024)". uniformmarket.com. June 19, 2024. Retrieved August 25, 2024.
560. "American Classics How seven everyday clothing items became American style staples". CNN. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
561. Caplin, John (September 1, 2021). "Made In New York: The Future Of New York City's Historic Garment District". Forbes. Retrieved December 5, 2023. Spanning just about 20 square blocks between Times Square and Penn Station along Seventh Avenue (also known as "Fashion Avenue"), the vibrant and always-busy neighborhood has a long and rich history that has become synonymous with American fashion since its inception more than a century ago.
562. Juarez, Diana (October 4, 2023). "The Economic Impact of New York Fashion Week". The Fordham Ram. Retrieved December 5, 2023.
563. Bauman, Ali (May 1, 2023). "Met Gala 2023: Fashion's biggest night honors Karl Lagerfeld". CBS News. Retrieved April 30, 2024.
564. "Met Gala 2024: How to Watch Fashion's Biggest Night". Glamour. April 29, 2024. Retrieved April 30, 2024.
565. Annual Report of the Controller of the City of Los Angeles, California. ByOffice of Controller Los Angeles, CA (1914). 1914. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
566. Report of the Auditor of the City of Los Angeles California of the Financial Affairs of the Corporation in Its Capacity as a City for the Fiscal Year. By Auditor's Office of Los Angeles, CA (1913). 1913. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
567. "Nigeria surpasses Hollywood as world's second-largest film producer" (Press release). United Nations. May 5, 2009. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
568. Kerrigan, Finola (2010). Film Marketing. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-7506-8683-9. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
569. Davis, Glyn; Dickinson, Kay; Patti, Lisa; Villarejo, Amy (2015). Film Studies: A Global Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 299. ISBN 978-1-317-62338-0. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
570. "John Landis Rails Against Studios: 'They're Not in the Movie Business Anymore'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
571. Drowne, Kathleen Morgan; Huber, Patrick (2004). The 1920s. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-313-32013-2.
572. Kroon, Richard W. (2014). A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms. McFarland. p. 338. ISBN 978-0-7864-5740-3.
573. Matthews, Charles (June 3, 2011). "Book explores Hollywood 'Golden Age' of the 1960s-'70s". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
574. Banner, Lois (August 5, 2012). "Marilyn Monroe, the eternal shape shifter". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
575. Rick, Jewell (August 8, 2008). "John Wayne, an American Icon". University of Southern California. Archived from the original on August 22, 2008. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
576. Greven, David (2013). Psycho-Sexual: Male Desire in Hitchcock, De Palma, Scorsese, and Friedkin. University of Texas Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-292-74204-8.
577. Morrison, James (1998). Passport to Hollywood: Hollywood Films, European Directors. SUNY Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-7914-3938-8.
578. Seitz, Matt Zoller (April 29, 2019). "What's Next: Avengers, MCU, Game of Thrones, and the Content Endgame". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
579. Avery, Hannah (January 18, 2023). "US streaming market growth continues, despite changes in the industry". Kantar Group. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
580. "Wheat Info". Wheatworld.org. Archived from the original on October 11, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
581. "Traditional Indigenous Recipes". American Indian Health and Diet Project. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
582. Akenuwa, Ambrose (July 1, 2015). Is the United States Still the Land of the Free and Home to the Brave?. Lulu Press. pp. 92–94. ISBN 978-1-329-26112-9. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
583. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred (1996). Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions Into Eating, Culture, and the Past. Beacon Press. pp. 134–. ISBN 978-0-8070-4629-6. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
584. Diner, Hasia (2001). Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration. Cmabridge: Harvard University Press. p. 1.
585. Poe, Tracy N. (February 1999). "The Origins of Soul Food in Black Urban Identity: Chicago, 1915–1947". American Studies International. 37 (1): 5.
586. Cawthon, Haley (December 31, 2020). "KFC is America's favorite fried chicken, data suggests". The Business Journals. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
587. Russell, Joan (May 23, 2016). "How Pizza Became America's Favorite Food". Paste. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
588. Klapthor, James N. (August 23, 2003). "What, When, and Where Americans Eat in 2003". Newswise/Institute of Food Technologists. Retrieved June 19, 2007.
589. "Our Story: CIA History | Culinary Institute of America". ciachef.edu. Retrieved October 11, 2022.
590. Averbuch, Bonnie (September 2015). "Attention Food Entrepreneurs: School's Back in Business". Food Tank. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
591. ^ Brownfield, Andy (March 20, 2020). "Cincinnati restaurants ask feds for coronavirus bailout". login.research.cincinnatilibrary.org. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
592. Ramirez, Elva. "The Restaurant Industry Needs A Coronavirus Bailout. Will They Get It?". Forbes. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
593. Noguchi, Yuki (March 22, 2020). "Closed All At Once: Restaurant Industry Faces Collapse". NPR. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
594. "Restaurant industry reeling from coronavirus". MSNBC. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
595. "Restaurants". Michelin Guide. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
596. United States Department of Agriculture "Global Wine Report August 2006 Archived April 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine", pp. 7-9.
597. Birchell, D.B.; Steel, G. (2013). New Mexico Wine: An Enchanting History. American Palate Series (in Italian). American Palate. ISBN 978-1-60949-643-2. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
598. New Mexico. Office of Cultural Affairs (1995). Enchanted Lifeways: The History, Museums, Arts & Festivals of New Mexico. New Mexico Magazine. ISBN 978-0-937206-39-3. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
599. T. Stevenson, The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia Fourth Edition, p. 462, Dorling Kindersly, 2005, ISBN 0-7566-1324-8.
600. J. Robinson, ed. The Oxford Companion to Wine, Third Edition, p. 719; Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-860990-6.
601. "America's Love Of Drive-thrus". NPR. December 11, 2023. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
602. "When Was the First Drive-Thru Restaurant Created?". Wisegeek.org. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
603. Sheldon, Andrew (July 23, 2020). "The History of the Drive-Thru in America". Your AAA Network.
604. Pavlova, Rada (April 8, 2019). "Globalization of American Fast-Food Chains: the Pinnacle of Effective Management and Adaptability – The Yale Globalist". The Yale Globalist. Retrieved May 4, 2024.
605. "Sports". Gallup, Incorporated. September 25, 2007. Retrieved April 16, 2023.
606. Krasnoff, Lindsay Sarah (December 26, 2017). "How the NBA went global". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 2269358. Archived from the original on December 26, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
607. Liss, Howard. Lacrosse (Funk & Wagnalls, 1970), p. 13.
608. "Global sports market to hit $141 billion in 2012". Reuters. June 18, 2008. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
609. Krane, David K. (October 30, 2002). "Professional Football Widens Its Lead Over Baseball as Nation's Favorite Sport". Harris Interactive. Archived from the original on July 9, 2010. Retrieved September 14, 2007. MacCambridge, Michael (2004). America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-50454-9.
610. Guliza, Anthony (August 14, 2019). "How the NFL took over America in 100 years". ESPN. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
611. "As American as Mom, Apple Pie and Football? Football continues to trump baseball as America's Favorite Sport" (PDF). Harris Interactive. January 16, 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 9, 2014. Retrieved July 2, 2014.
612. Cowen, Tyler; Grier, Kevin (February 9, 2012). "What Would the End of Football Look Like?". Grantland/ESPN. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
613. "Sports Illustrated: NCAA Reports $1.1 Billion in Revenues". Sports Illustrated. March 7, 2018.
614. "Passion for College Football Remains Robust". National Football Foundation. March 19, 2013. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
615. Rosandich, Thomas (2002). "Collegiate Sports Programs: A Comparative Analysis". Education. 122 (3). Project Innovation Austin LLC.: 471.
616. Schaus, Gerald P.; Wenn, Stephen R. (February 9, 2007). Onward to the Olympics: Historical Perspectives on the Olympic Games. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-88920-505-5.
617. "Greatest Sporting Nation". greatestsportingnation.com.
618. "1,000 times gold – The thousand medals of Team USA – Washington Post". The Washington Post.
619. Chase, Chris (February 7, 2014). "The 10 most fascinating facts about the all-time Winter Olympics medal standings". USA Today. Retrieved February 28, 2014. Loumena, Dan (February 6, 2014). "With Sochi Olympics approaching, a history of Winter Olympic medals". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 28, 2014.
620. Carlisle, Jeff (April 6, 2020). "MLS Year One, 25 seasons ago: The Wild West of training, travel, hockey shootouts and American soccer". ESPN. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
621. Wamsley, Laurel (June 16, 2022). "The U.S. cities hosting the 2026 World Cup are announced". NPR. Retrieved April 16, 2023.
622. Gerson, Aria (July 10, 2020). "Impact of 1999 Women's World Cup went far beyond Brandi Chastain's iconic goal". USA Today. Retrieved February 14, 2024.