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Parent Portals: Geography / North America / United States

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Introduction

Flag of the United States of America

The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district and 14 territories. It is located mostly in central North America. The U.S. has three land borders, two with Canada and one with Mexico, and has sea borders with Cuba, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Bermuda and Russia, and is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 50 states, only Alaska and Hawaii are not contiguous with any other state. The U.S. also has a collection of districts, territories, and possessions in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Each state has a high level of autonomy according to the system of federalism. The U.S. traces its national origin to the declaration by 13 British colonies in 1776 that they were one free and independent state. They were recognized as such by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Since then, the nation has grown to become a superpower and exerts a high level of economic, political, military, and cultural influence.

Featured article -

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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  James Wood Bush (c. 1844–45 – April 24, 1906) was an American Union Navy sailor of British and Native Hawaiian descent. He was among a group of more than one hundred Native Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants in the American Civil War, at a time when the Kingdom of Hawaii was still an independent nation.
  
  Enlisting in the Union Navy in 1864, Bush served as a sailor aboard USS Vandalia and the captured Confederate vessel USS Beauregard, which maintained the blockade of the ports of the Confederacy. He was discharged from service in 1865 after an injury, which developed into a chronic condition in later life. The impoverished Bush was unable to return to Hawaii for more than a decade, during which time he traveled through New England and much of the Pacific. Back in Hawaii, he worked as a government tax collector and road supervisor for the island of Kauai, where he settled down. In later life, he converted to Mormonism and became an active member of the Hawaiian Mission. After the annexation of Hawaii to the United States, Bush was recognized for his military service, and in 1905 was granted a government pension for the injuries he received in the Navy. He died at his home on Kauai on April 24, 1906. (Full article...)
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  Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall is the sixth album (and first live album) by the Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, released through Geffen Records in December 2007. The album consists of live recordings from his sold-out June 14–15, 2006, tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall to the American actress and singer Judy Garland. Backed by a 36-piece orchestra conducted by Stephen Oremus, Wainwright recreated Garland's April 23, 1961, concert, often considered "the greatest night in show business history". Garland's 1961 double album, Judy at Carnegie Hall, a comeback performance with more than 25 American pop and jazz standards, was highly successful, initially spending 95 weeks on the Billboard charts and garnering five Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year, Best Album Cover, Best Solo Vocal Performance – Female and Best Engineering Contribution – Popular Recording).
  
  For his album, Wainwright was also recognized by the Grammy Awards, earning a 2009 nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. While the tribute concerts were popular and the album was well received by critics, album sales were limited. Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall managed to chart in three nations, peaking at number 84 in Belgium, number 88 in the Netherlands and number 171 on the United States' Billboard 200. (Full article...)
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  Official portrait, 2019

  
  Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and former politician. He served as a United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. He was the Republican Party's nominee in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
  
  Mitt Romney is a son of George W. Romney, a former governor of Michigan. Raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Mitt spent over two years in France as a Mormon missionary. He married Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons. Active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) throughout his adult life, Romney served as bishop of his ward and later as a stake president for an area covering Boston and many of its suburbs. By 1971, he had participated in the political campaigns of both his parents. In 1971, Romney graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Brigham Young University (BYU) and in 1975 he received a JD–MBA degree from Harvard. He became a management consultant and in 1977 joined Bain & Company in Boston. As Bain's chief executive officer (CEO), he helped lead the company out of a financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded and led the spin-off company Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became one of the largest of its kind in the nation. (Full article...)
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  Chorioactis geaster

  
  Chorioactis is a genus of fungi that contains the single species Chorioactis geaster. The mushroom is commonly known as the devil's cigar or the Texas star in the United States, while in Japan it is called kirinomitake (キリノミタケ).
  This extremely rare mushroom is notable for its unusual appearance and disjunct distribution; it is found only in select locales in Texas and Japan. The fruit body, which grows on the stumps or dead roots of cedar elms (in Texas) or dead oaks (in Japan), somewhat resembles a dark brown or black cigar before it splits open radially into a starlike arrangement of four to seven leathery rays. The interior surface of the fruit body bears the spore-bearing tissue known as the hymenium, and is colored white to brown, depending on its age. The fruit body opening can be accompanied by a distinct hissing sound and the release of a smoky cloud of spores.
  
  Fruit bodies were first collected in Austin, Texas, and the species was named Urnula geaster in 1893; later, it was found in Kyushu in 1937, but the mushroom was not reported again in Japan until 1973. Although the new genus Chorioactis was proposed to accommodate the unique species a few years after its original discovery, it was not accepted as a valid genus until 1968. Its classification has also been a source of confusion. Historically, Chorioactis was placed in the fungus family Sarcosomataceae, despite inconsistencies in the microscopic structure of the ascus, the saclike structure in which spores are formed. Phylogenetic analyses of the past decade have clarified the fungus's classification: Chorioactis, along with three other genera, make up the family Chorioactidaceae, a grouping of related fungi formally acknowledged in 2008. In 2009, Japanese researchers reported discovering a form of the fungus missing the sexual stage of its lifecycle; this asexual state was named Kumanasamuha geaster. (Full article...)
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  Ronnie Lee Gardner (January 16, 1961 – June 18, 2010) was an American criminal who received the death penalty for killing a man during an attempted escape from a courthouse in 1985, and was executed by a firing squad by the state of Utah in 2010. His case spent nearly 25 years in the court system, prompting the Utah House of Representatives to introduce legislation to limit the number of appeals in capital cases.
  
  In October 1984, Gardner killed Melvyn John Otterstrom, 37, during a robbery in Salt Lake City. While being moved in April 1985 to a court hearing for the homicide, he fatally shot attorney Michael Burdell, 36, in an unsuccessful escape attempt. Convicted of two counts of murder, Gardner was sentenced to life imprisonment for the first charge and received the death penalty for the second charge. The state adopted more stringent security measures as a result of the incident at the courthouse. While held at Utah State Prison, Gardner was charged with another capital crime for stabbing an inmate in 1994. However, that charge was discarded by the Utah Supreme Court because the victim survived. (Full article...)
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  Smith in 1948

  
  Addie Viola Smith (November 14, 1893 – December 13, 1975), also known as Shi Fanglan (Chinese: 施芳蘭; pinyin: Shī Fānglán), was an American attorney who served as the United States trade commissioner to Shanghai from 1928 to 1939. She was the first female Foreign Service officer in the United States Foreign Service to work under the United States Department of Commerce, the first woman to serve as an assistant trade commissioner, and the first woman to serve as trade commissioner.
  
  Smith was born and raised in Stockton, California. In 1917, she moved to Washington, D.C. While working for the United States Department of Labor, she attended the Washington College of Law part-time, earning her bachelor of laws in 1920. In October that year she joined the Foreign Service and was assigned to Beijing as a clerk in the trade commissioner's office. Smith was promoted to assistant trade commissioner in Shanghai in 1922, and appointed trade commissioner of Shanghai in 1928, a post she held until 1939. For the remainder of her career, she held several roles in the United States government, international organizations, and the United Nations. (Full article...)
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  55 Wall Street in 2012

  
  55 Wall Street, formerly the National City Bank Building, is an eight-story building on Wall Street between William and Hanover streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The lowest three stories were completed in either 1841 or 1842 as the four-story Merchants' Exchange and designed by Isaiah Rogers in the Greek Revival style. Between 1907 and 1910, McKim, Mead & White removed the original fourth story and added five floors to create the present building. Since 2006, the banking room has functioned as an event venue called the Cipriani Wall Street, while the upper stories have been a condominium development known as the Cipriani Club Residences.
  
  55 Wall Street's granite facade includes two stacked colonnades facing Wall Street, each with twelve columns. Inside is a cruciform banking hall with a 60-foot (18 m) vaulted ceiling, Corinthian columns, marble floors and walls, and an entablature around the interior. The banking hall was among the largest in the United States when it was completed. The offices of Citibank's predecessor National City Bank were in the corners of the banking hall, while the fourth through eighth floors were used as office space. The facade and part of the interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is listed on both the New York State Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a National Historic Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, listed on the NRHP. (Full article...)
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  On June 19, 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell 272 slaves to two Louisiana planters, Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey, for $115,000 (equivalent to approximately $3.25 million in 2023). This sale was the culmination of a contentious and long-running debate among the Maryland Jesuits over whether to keep, sell, or free their slaves, and whether to focus on their rural estates or on their growing urban missions, including their schools.
  
  In 1836, the Jesuit superior general, Jan Roothaan, authorized the Maryland provincial superior to carry out the sale on three conditions: the slaves must be permitted to practice their Catholic faith, their families must not be separated, and the proceeds of the sale must be used only to support Jesuits in training. It soon became clear that Roothaan's conditions had not been fully met. The Jesuits ultimately received payment many years late and never received the full $115,000. Only 206 of the 272 slaves were actually delivered because the Jesuits permitted the elderly and those with spouses who were living nearby and not owned by Jesuits to remain in Maryland. (Full article...)
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  Chaplin in 1921

  
  Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy.
  
  Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financially – he was sent to a workhouse twice before age nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon introduced and adopted the Tramp as his screen persona. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft as he moved to Essanay Studios, where the Tramp persona was developed emotionally in The Tramp (1915). He then attracted a large fanbase and demanded more money as he moved to Mutual and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the world's best-paid and best-known figures. (Full article...)
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  Boys Don't Cry is a 1999 American biographical film directed by Kimberly Peirce, and co-written by Peirce and Andy Bienen. The film is a dramatization of the real-life story of Brandon Teena (played by Hilary Swank), an American trans man who attempts to find himself and love in Nebraska but falls victim to a brutal hate crime perpetrated by two male acquaintances. The film co-stars Chloë Sevigny as Brandon's girlfriend, Lana Tisdel.
  
  After reading about the case while in college, Peirce conducted extensive research for a screenplay, which she worked on for almost five years. The film focuses on the relationship between Brandon and Lana. The script took dialogue directly from archive footage in the 1998 documentary The Brandon Teena Story. Many actresses sought the lead role during a three-year casting process before Swank was cast. Swank was chosen because her personality seemed similar to Brandon's. Most of the film's characters were based on real-life people; others were composites. (Full article...)
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  "Daisy", sometimes referred to as "Daisy Girl" or "Peace, Little Girl", was a controversial American political advertisement that aired on television as part of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. Though aired only once, it is considered one of the most important factors in Johnson's landslide victory over the Republican Party's candidate, Barry Goldwater, and a turning point in political and advertising history. A partnership between the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency and Tony Schwartz, the "Daisy" advertisement was designed to broadcast Johnson's anti-war and anti-nuclear positions. Goldwater was against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and suggested the use of nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War, if necessary. The Johnson campaign used Goldwater's speeches to imply he would wage a nuclear war.
  
  The commercial begins with three-year-old Monique Corzilius standing in a meadow, picking the petals of a daisy as she counts from one to ten incorrectly. After she reaches "nine", she pauses, and a booming male voice is heard counting the numbers backward from "ten", in a manner similar to the start of a missile launch countdown. A zoom of the video still concentrates on the girl's right eye until her pupil fills the screen, which is then replaced by the flash and sound of a nuclear explosion. A voice-over by Johnson states emphatically: (Full article...)
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  "What'd I Say" (or "What I Say") is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.
  
  After his run of R&B hits, this song finally broke Charles into mainstream pop music and itself sparked a new subgenre of R&B titled soul, finally putting together all the elements that Charles had been creating since he recorded "I Got a Woman" in 1954. The gospel and rhumba influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in R&B and rock and roll history. For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002 and appeared in the 2003 and 2021 versions of Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list: at number 10 in 2003 and at number 80 in 2021. (Full article...)
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  The station and parking lot, viewed from Southcenter Boulevard in 2016

  
  Tukwila International Boulevard station is a light rail station in Tukwila, Washington, United States. It is located between SeaTac/Airport and Rainier Beach stations on the 1 Line from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport to Downtown Seattle. The station consists of two elevated side platforms enclosed within a structure northeast of the interchange of State Route 99 (International Boulevard) and State Route 518. As one of seven park and rides along the line, it includes 600 parking spaces in two lots.
  
  Tukwila International Boulevard station opened on July 18, 2009, on the first day of Central Link service (now part of the 1 Line). It was the line's terminus until SeaTac/Airport station opened in December 2009. Construction of the station was approved in 1996, but did not begin until 2005 due to routing disputes and planning issues. Trains serve the station twenty hours a day on most days; the headway between trains is six minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. Tukwila International Boulevard station is also served by King County Metro buses, including two RapidRide limited-stop bus rapid transit routes, which connects it to Downtown Seattle, West Seattle, and various locations in southern King County. (Full article...)
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  Sounders FC players with the 2009, 2010 and 2011 U.S. Open Cup trophies after winning the 2011 final

  
  The 2011 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final was a soccer match between the Seattle Sounders FC and the Chicago Fire, played on October 4, 2011, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Washington. The match was the culmination of the 2011 U.S. Open Cup, a tournament open to amateur and professional soccer teams affiliated with the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer). This was the 98th edition of the U.S. Open Cup, the oldest ongoing competition in American soccer. The Seattle Sounders FC won by defeating the Chicago Fire 2–0 with goals scored by Fredy Montero and Osvaldo Alonso. The attendance was 36,615, breaking the record for the final set the previous year when Seattle also won and hosted. Seattle became the first team since 1968 to win three consecutive U.S. Open Cup championships and the fourth team ever to do so in the 98-year history of the tournament.
  
  Sounders FC automatically qualified for the third round of the U.S. Open Cup tournament by finishing among the top six in the 2010 Major League Soccer season. The Fire did not automatically qualify, and had to play through two qualification rounds before entering the official tournament. Prior to the final, Chicago and Seattle had met twice in 2011, with Seattle winning one game and the other ending in a draw. (Full article...)
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  The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge half dollar or Bay Bridge half dollar is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936. One of many commemoratives issued that year, it was designed by Jacques Schnier and honors the opening of the Bay Bridge that November. One side of the coin depicts a grizzly bear, a symbol of California, and the other shows the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, with the Ferry Building in the foreground.
  
  Competing bills were considered by Congress in 1936: one to mark the Bay Bridge's completion that year, the other to honor both that and the Golden Gate Bridge, also under construction. The bill that only commemorated the Bay Bridge was successful, and passed into law with the signature of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After some discussion involving the Commission of Fine Arts, which reviews coinage designs, Schnier's models were approved and the coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint. (Full article...)
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  The McKinley Birthplace Memorial gold dollar was a commemorative coin struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1916 and 1917, depicting the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley. The coin's obverse was designed by Charles E. Barber, Chief Engraver of the Mint, and the reverse by his assistant, George T. Morgan. As McKinley had appeared on a version of the 1903-dated Louisiana Purchase Exposition dollar, the 1916 release made him the first person to appear on two issues of U.S. coins.
  
  The coins were to be sold at a premium to finance the National McKinley Birthplace Memorial at Niles, Ohio, and were vended by the group constructing it. The issue was originally proposed as a silver dollar; this was changed when it was realized it would not be appropriate to honor a president who had supported the gold standard with such a piece. The coins were poorly promoted, and did not sell well. Despite an authorized mintage of 100,000, only about 30,000 were minted. Of these, 20,000 were sold, many of these at a reduced price to Texas coin dealer B. Max Mehl. The remaining 10,000 pieces were returned to the Mint for melting. (Full article...)
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  Milk in June 1978

  
  Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
  
  Milk was born and raised in New York. He acknowledged his homosexuality in adolescence but secretly pursued sexual relationships well into adulthood. The counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and sexual expression. Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store. Although he held an assortment of jobs and frequently changed addresses, he settled in the Castro, a neighborhood that was experiencing a mass immigration of gay men and lesbians. He ran for city supervisor in 1973 but the existing gay political establishment resisted him. Milk's campaign was compared to theater due to his personality, earning media attention and votes, although not enough to be elected. He campaigned again in the next two supervisor elections, dubbing himself the "Mayor of Castro Street". The voter response caused him to also run for the California State Assembly. Due to his growing popularity, he led the gay rights movement in battles against anti-gay initiatives. Milk was elected city supervisor in 1977 after San Francisco began to choose neighborhood representatives rather than city-wide ones. During Milk's almost eleven months in office, he sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing, and employment. The Supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11–1, and Mayor George Moscone signed it into law. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk's bill. (Full article...)
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  CenturyLink Field in Seattle hosted the match.

  
  MLS Cup 2019 was the 24th edition of the MLS Cup, the championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS), and took place on November 10, 2019, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Washington, United States. The soccer match was contested by Seattle Sounders FC and Toronto FC to determine the champion of the 2019 season. It was a rematch of the 2016 and 2017 editions of the MLS Cup, which were won by Seattle and Toronto, respectively. This was the third final for both teams and the first MLS Cup to be hosted by the Sounders, as both of the previous Seattle–Toronto finals were held at BMO Field in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
  
  The Sounders won 3–1 to claim their second MLS Cup title in front of 69,274 spectators at CenturyLink Field, which set a new stadium attendance record. They scored three goals in the second half, beginning with a deflected shot by Kelvin Leerdam and followed by strikes from substitute Víctor Rodríguez (later named the match MVP) and Raúl Ruidíaz. Jozy Altidore scored a late consolation goal for Toronto in stoppage time. (Full article...)
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  Hoffman at the Paris premiere of The Ides of March in 2011

  
  Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor. Known for his distinctive supporting and character roles—eccentrics, underdogs, and misfits—he acted in many films and theatrical productions, including leading roles, from the early 1990s until his death in 2014. He was voted the greatest actor of the 21st century in a 2024 ranking by The Independent.
  
  Hoffman studied acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He gained recognition for his supporting work, notably in Scent of a Woman (1992), Boogie Nights (1997), Happiness (1998), The Big Lebowski (1998), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Almost Famous (2000). He began to occasionally play leading roles, and for his portrayal of the author Truman Capote in Capote (2005), won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Further Oscar nominations came for playing a brutally frank CIA officer in Charlie Wilson's War (2007), a priest accused of child sexual abuse in Doubt (2008), and the charismatic leader of a Scientology-type movement in The Master (2012). (Full article...)
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  Stone commemorative marker at Literary Hall in Romney, West Virginia

  
  The Romney Literary Society (also known as the Literary Society of Romney) existed from January 30, 1819, to February 15, 1886, in Romney, West Virginia. Established as the Polemic Society of Romney, it became the first organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. The society was founded by nine prominent men of Romney with the objectives of advancing literature and science, purchasing and maintaining a library, and improving educational opportunities.
  
  The society debated an extensive range of scientific and social topics, often violating its own rules which banned religious and political subjects. Even though its membership was relatively small, its debates and activities were frequently discussed throughout the Potomac Highlands region, and the organization greatly influenced trends of thought in the Romney community and surrounding areas. (Full article...)
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  Bobcat in Columbus Zoo

  
  The bobcat (Lynx rufus), also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus Lynx. Native to North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2002, due to its wide distribution and large population. Although it has been hunted extensively both for sport and fur, populations have proven stable, though declining in some areas.
  
  It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby (or "bobbed") tail, from which it derives its name. It reaches a total length (including the tail) of up to 125 cm (50 in). It is an adaptable predator inhabiting wooded areas, semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland environments. It remains in some of its original range, but populations are vulnerable to extirpation by coyotes and domestic animals. Though the bobcat prefers rabbits and hares, it hunts insects, chickens, geese and other birds, small rodents, and deer. Prey selection depends on location and habitat, season, and abundance. Like most cats, the bobcat is territorial and largely solitary, although with some overlap in home ranges. It uses several methods to mark its territorial boundaries, including claw marks and deposits of urine or feces. The bobcat breeds from winter into spring and has a gestation period of about two months. (Full article...)
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  Modern view of Byram's Ford

  
  The Battle of Byram's Ford (also known as the Battle of Big Blue River and the Battle of the Blue) was fought on October 22 and 23, 1864, in Missouri during Price's Raid, a campaign of the American Civil War. With the Confederate States of America collapsing, Major General Sterling Price of the Confederate States Army conducted an invasion of the state of Missouri in late 1864. Union forces led Price to abandon goals of capturing the cities of St. Louis and Jefferson City, and he turned west with his army towards Kansas City.
  
  On October 22, Price's army found itself caught between two Union forces, commanded by Major Generals James G. Blunt and Alfred Pleasonton. Part of Price's force conducted a delaying action against Pleasonton in the Second Battle of Independence, while the division of Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby broke Blunt's line at Byram's Ford on the Big Blue River by crossing at an unguarded ford above the Union defenses. The Union defenders were forced to retreat to the Kansas state line, and the 2nd Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment was caught at the Mockbee Farm and overwhelmed. Meanwhile, Pleasonton's men pushed Price's rear guard across the Big Blue in the Second Battle of Independence. (Full article...)
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  The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada.
  
  From 1942 to 1946, the project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys, and subsumed the program from the American civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development. (Full article...)
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  Official portrait of Cooper while serving

  
  John Sherman Cooper (August 23, 1901 – February 21, 1991) was an American politician, jurist, and diplomat from the United States. He served three non-consecutive, partial terms in the United States Senate before being elected to two full terms in 1960 and 1966, representing Kentucky. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to India from 1955 to 1956 and U.S. Ambassador to East Germany from 1974 to 1976. He was the first Republican to be popularly elected to more than one term as a senator from Kentucky and, in both 1960 and 1966, he set records for the largest victory margin for a Kentucky senatorial candidate from either party.
  
  Cooper's first political service was as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1928 to 1930. In 1929, he was elected county judge of Pulaski County. After a failed gubernatorial bid in 1939, he joined the U.S. Army in 1942. During World War II, he earned the Bronze Star Medal for reorganizing the Bavarian judicial system after the allied victory in Europe. While still in Germany, he was elected circuit judge for Kentucky's 28th circuit. He returned home to accept the judgeship, which he held for less than a year before resigning to seek election to A. B. "Happy" Chandler's vacated seat in the U.S. Senate. He won the seat by 41,823 votes, the largest victory margin by any Republican for any office in Kentucky up to that time. (Full article...)
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  Pearl Jam performing in Amsterdam in 2012. From left to right: Mike McCready, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron (on drums), Eddie Vedder, and Stone Gossard

  
  Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade, dubbed "the most popular American rock and roll band of the '90s". Since 1998, the band's lineup has comprised bassist Jeff Ament, guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, vocalist/guitarist Eddie Vedder and drummer Matt Cameron; keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a session and touring member with the band since 2002. Drummers Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese and Jack Irons are former members of the band.
  
  Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album, Ten, in 1991. Ten stayed on the US Billboard 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock albums ever, being certified 13× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold over 950,000 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, Vitalogy (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that the 2023 US FIBA Basketball World Cup team is the first American national team of NBA players without an All-NBA player?
• ... that John Oliver has been credited with influencing United States law and culture, a phenomenon dubbed the "John Oliver effect"?
• ... that anti-refugee activist Ann Corcoran has claimed that refugees are a Muslim plot to colonize the United States?
• ... that Cameroonian-born Joel Embiid opted to play for the 2024 U.S. Olympic basketball team instead of France in part because his son is American?
• ... that Angel Reese and her younger brother, Julian, both played college basketball for Maryland after competing at the same high school?
• ... that "perhaps the most notable wedding gown in existence" within the United States was once worn in St. Mary's-in-Tuxedo?
• ... that Australian Madeleine Steere played water polo professionally in Turkey after studying biomolecular science in the United States?
• ... that soprano Carolina White performed the title role in the United States premiere of Il segreto di Susanna at the Metropolitan Opera in 1911?

Selected society biography -

Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress later called "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement".

On December 1, 1955, Parks became famous for refusing to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. This action of civil disobedience started the Montgomery bus boycott, which is one of the largest movements against racial segregation. In addition, this launched Martin Luther King Jr., who was involved with the boycott, to prominence in the civil rights movement. She has had a lasting legacy worldwide.

Although Parks' autobiography recounts that some of her earliest memories are of the kindness of white strangers, her situation made it impossible to ignore racism. When the Ku Klux Klan marched down the street in front of her house, Parks recalls her grandfather guarding the front door with a shotgun. The Montgomery Industrial School, founded and staffed by white northerners for black children, was burned twice by arsonists, and its faculty was ostracized by the white community.

Parks received most of her national accolades very late in life, with relatively few awards and honors being given to her until many decades after the Montgomery bus boycott. For example, the Rosa Parks Congressional Gold Medal bears the legend "Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement".

Selected image -

• 
  Whig Party (United States)

  Image: Nathaniel Currier; Restoration: Lise Broer

  "An Available Candidate: The One Qualification for a Whig President"—an editorial cartoon about the 1848 U.S. presidential election, showing a military man representing either Zachary Taylor or Winfield Scott, both of whom were generals in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War, atop a pile of skulls. The Whig Party only operated for about 20 years, but during their brief existence, they could boast a number of political luminaries such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln, and would see three of their members become President of the United States (not including Lincoln, who was elected as a Republican).
• 
  Seals of the U.S. states (1876)

  Image credit: A.J. Connell Litho.

  A lithograph from 1876, showing the seals of the then-47 U.S. states and territories as well as the District of Columbia. Some of these seals have changed since this image was created.
• 
  Wes Brady, ex-slave

  Photograph: Federal Writers' Project; restoration: Chick Bowen

  A 1937 photograph of Wes Brady, a former slave. Born c. 1850, Brady had been owned by a farmer in Marshall, Texas before emancipation. As a young boy he worked the fields, picking cotton. He recalled "The rows was a mile long and no matter how much grass was in them, if you leaves one sprig on your row they beats you nearly to death."
  
  This portrait is part of the Slave Narrative Collection, a massive compilation of slave narratives – containing 10,000 typed pages representing more than 2,000 interviews – which was undertaken by the US Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1938.
• 
  California State Capitol

  Photograph credit: Andre m

  The California State Capitol, located in Sacramento, is the seat of the California government. The building houses the chambers of the California State Legislature, comprising the Assembly and the Senate, along with the office of the governor of California. The Neoclassical structure was designed by Reuben S. Clark and completed between 1861 and 1874. The California State Capitol Museum is housed on its grounds.
• 
  First American Colored Senator and Representatives

  Lithograph: Currier and Ives; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An 1872 lithograph depicting seven early African Americans in the United States Congress, (from left to right) Senator Hiram Revels and Representatives Benjamin Turner, Robert DeLarge, Josiah Walls, Jefferson Long, Joseph Rainey, and Robert Elliott. During the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, some several hundred African-American officeholders were elected – all of whom were members of the Republican Party.
• 
  John Quincy Adams

  Engraving: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restoration: Andrew Shiva

  John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) was an American statesman who served as a diplomat, minister and ambassador to foreign nations, and treaty negotiator, United States Senator, Congressman from Massachusetts, and the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. Involved in negotiating the treaties of Ghent, 1818, and Adams–Onís, Adams has been called one of the United States' greatest diplomats and secretaries of state. As president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education, paying off much of the national debt despite being stymied by a Congress controlled by opponents and lacking patronage networks. Historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president.
• 
  National Child Labor Committee

  Photo credit: Lewis Wickes Hine; restored by Michel Vuijlsteke

  A 1908 photo of child laborers in a glass factory in Indiana, United States, taken by Lewis Hine for the National Child Labor Committee, which formed after the 1900 census revealed that about 1 in 6 children between the ages of five and ten were gainfully employed. Hine's photos of children working in industrial settings resulted in a wave of popular support for federal child labor regulations put forward by the NCLC.
• 
  Charles J. Guiteau

  Cartoon: James Wales; Restoration: Jujutacular

  An 1881 editorial cartoon of Charles J. Guiteau, an American lawyer who assassinated President James A. Garfield on July 2, 1881. Guiteau, depicted here holding a note that reads "An office or your life!", believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's victory, and demanded an ambassadorship in return, but his requests were rejected. Despite the use of the insanity defense in his trial, he was found guilty and executed by hanging on June 30, 1882.
• 
  Andrew Jackson

  Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva

  Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He has been widely revered in the United States as an advocate for democracy and the common man, but many of his actions proved divisive, garnering both fervent support and strong opposition from different sectors of society. His reputation has suffered since the 1970s, largely due to his pivotal role in the forcible removal of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands; however, surveys of historians and scholars have ranked Jackson favorably among U.S. presidents.
• 
  Presidencies of Grover Cleveland

  Credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva

  Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was an American politician and lawyer who was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office (1885–1889 and 1893–1897). His victory in the 1884 presidential election made him the first successful Democratic nominee since the start of the Civil War. He won praise for his honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism, and was renowned for fighting political corruption, patronage, and bossism.
• 
  Philip Francis Thomas

  Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva

  Philip Francis Thomas (12 September 1810 – 2 October 1890) was an American lawyer and politician. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates and was the 28th governor of Maryland from 1848 to 1851. In 1860, he was appointed as the 23rd United States secretary of the treasury, in President James Buchanan's administration. He held the post for only one month, resigning after he failed to obtain a loan to pay the interest on the bonded public debt. After unsuccessfully standing for election to the United States Senate in 1878, he returned to the Maryland House of Delegates and later resumed the practice of law.
• 
  Ansel Adams

  Photograph credit: J. Malcolm Greany

  Ansel Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist, known for his black-and-white images of the American West. As a child, he visited Yosemite National Park with his family and was given his first camera. He was later tasked by the United States Department of the Interior to take photographs of national parks. For this work, and for his persistent advocacy, which helped expand the National Park system, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
• 
  Pearl Harbor

  Satellite image credit: NASA

  Pearl Harbor is a complex embayment on the island of O'ahu, Hawai'i, west of Honolulu. Originally an extensive, shallow inlet or bay called Wai Momi, meaning "Water of Pearl", or Pu'uloa, by the Hawaiians, Pearl Harbor was regarded as the home of the shark goddess Ka'ahupahau and her brother Kahi'uka. Pearl Harbor is well known for the attack by Japan in 1941 which brought the United States into World War II.
• 
  History of Dallas, Texas (1874-1929)

  Photo credit: Johnson & Rogers

  A panorama of Dallas, Texas, April 1, 1913. Dallas, which was incorporated on February 2, 1856, is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States.
• 
  New Kensington, Pennsylvania

  Lithograph: Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  A lithograph by Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler showing the town of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, in 1896. Originally part of Burrell (and later Lower Burrell) Township, the city of New Kensington was founded in 1891. During the public sale held on June 10, 1891, thousands of people came to the area, including a number of investors, including the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which later became Alcoa. The city continued to grow and, as of 2010, New Kensington has a population of 13,116.

Selected culture biography -

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

Selected location -

Erie is an industrial city on the shore of Lake Erie in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city with a population of 104,000. Erie's Metropolitan Area consists of 281,000 residents. The city is the seat of government for Erie County.

Erie is in proximity to Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Once teeming with heavy industry, Erie's heavy manufacturing sector now consists mainly of plastics and locomotive building. Known for its lake-effect snow, Erie is in the heart of the Rust Belt and has begun to focus on tourism as a driving force in its economy. More than four million people each year visit Presque Isle State Park, for water recreation, and a new casino named for the state park is growing in popularity.

Erie is known as the Flagship City because of the presence of Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship USS Niagara.

Selected quote -

Anniversaries for April 3

• 1865 – In a major turning point of the American Civil War, Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America.
• 1948 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
• 1955 – The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.
• 1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.
• 1973 – The first portable cell phone call is made in New York City, United States.
• 1996 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is arrested at his cabin in Montana, United States.
• 2000 – In the case of United States v. Microsoft (testimony pictured), a federal judge rules that Microsoft violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors, and orders the corporation be split into two separate units.

Selected cuisines, dishes and foods -

Some modern Hawaiian dishes. From top left, clockwise: tripe stew (ʻōpū kū), rice (laiki), ʻopihi poke, laulau, squid lūʻau, pipikaula shortribs, kālua puaʻa (kālua pig), and poi in the center.

The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food, reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands, primarily originating from Polynesian, North American and East Asian cuisines.^[a] (Full article...)

Selected panorama -

South Beach, Miami.

South Beach, Miami.

More did you know? -

• ...that the Pewee Valley Confederate Memorial (pictured) is the only American Civil War obelisk monument in Kentucky to be made of zinc?

• ...that the second subtitle of title III of the USA PATRIOT Act largely modifies the Bank Secrecy Act in an effort to make it harder for money launderers to operate, and to make it easier for law enforcement and regulatory agencies to police money laundering operations?

• ...that Senator William A. Blakley of the U.S. state of Texas worked as ranch hand as a young man?

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