Portal:United States
Parent Portals: Geography / North America / United States
Introduction
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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.
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The Harry F. Sinclair House is a mansion at the southeast corner of East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The house was built between 1897 and 1899. Over the first half of the 20th century, the house was successively the residence of businessmen Isaac D. Fletcher and Harry F. Sinclair, and then the descendants of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Director of New Netherland. The Ukrainian Institute of America acquired the home in 1955. After the house gradually fell into disrepair, the institute renovated the building in the 1990s. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1978.
The mansion was designed in an eclectic French Renaissance style by C. P. H. Gilbert and built by foreman Harvey Murdock. The building largely retains its original design, except for a tankhouse on the roof. Gilbert and Murdock constructed the bulk of the house with brick, which was then faced with limestone ashlar. The northern facade on 79th Street, containing the main entrance, is characterized by multiple windows in square recesses or semi-elliptical and fully Gothic arches. The western facade on Fifth Avenue is symmetrical and dominated by a curved, projecting pavilion. The interior of the mansion comprises 27 rooms on six floors, for a total floor-space of 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2). Critical reviews of the house's architecture over its history have been largely positive. (Full article...) -
1 Wall Street (also known as the Irving Trust Company Building, the Bank of New York Building, and the BNY Mellon Building) is a 654-foot-tall (199 m) Art Deco skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The building, which occupies a full city block, consists of two sections. The original 50-story building was designed by Ralph Thomas Walker of the firm Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker and constructed between 1929 and 1931 for Irving Trust, an early-20th-century American bank. A 28-story annex to the south (later expanded to 36 stories) was designed by the successor firm Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines and built between 1963 and 1965.
The limestone facade consists of slight inwardly-curved bays with fluting to resemble curtains. On the lower stories are narrow windows and elaborate entrances. The massing of 1 Wall Street incorporates numerous small setbacks, and there are chamfers at the corners of the original building. The top of the original building consists of a freestanding tower with fluted windowless bays. The facade of the annex is crafted in a style reminiscent of the original structure. The original building has an ornate lobby, known as the Red Room, with colored mosaics. The 10th through 45th floors were originally rented to tenants, while the other floors contained offices, lounges, and other spaces for Irving Trust. After 1 Wall Street was converted to a residential building, the upper stories were divided into 566 condominium apartments. (Full article...) -
Arlington is a city in northern Snohomish County, Washington, United States, part of the Seattle metropolitan area. The city lies on the Stillaguamish River in the western foothills of the Cascade Range, adjacent to the city of Marysville. It is approximately 10 miles (16 km) north of Everett, the county seat, and 40 miles (64 km) north of Seattle, the state's largest city. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Arlington had a population of 19,868; its estimated population is 20,075 as of 2021.
The city lies in the traditional territory of the Stillaguamish people, an indigenous Coast Salish group. Arlington was established in the 1880s by settlers and the area was platted as two towns, Arlington and Haller City. Haller City was absorbed by the larger Arlington, which was incorporated as a city in 1903. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Arlington area was the site of major projects undertaken for employment under the direction of federal relief agencies, including construction of a municipal airport that would serve as a naval air station during World War II. Arlington began suburbanizing in the 1980s, growing by more than 450 percent by 2000 and annexing the unincorporated area of Smokey Point to the southwest. (Full article...) -
John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president in 1841. He was elected vice president on the 1840 Whig ticket with President William Henry Harrison, succeeding to the presidency following Harrison's death 31 days after assuming office. Tyler was a stalwart supporter and advocate of states' rights, including regarding slavery, and he adopted nationalistic policies as president only when they did not infringe on the states' powers. His unexpected rise to the presidency posed a threat to the presidential ambitions of Henry Clay and other Whig politicians and left Tyler estranged from both of the nation's major political parties at the time.
Tyler was born into a prominent slaveholding Virginia family. He became a national figure at a time of political upheaval. In the 1820s, the Democratic-Republican Party, at the time the nation's only political party, split into several factions. Initially a Jacksonian Democrat, Tyler opposed President Andrew Jackson during the nullification crisis as he saw Jackson's actions as infringing on states' rights and criticized Jackson's expansion of executive power during Jackson's veto on banks. This led Tyler to ally with the southern faction of the Whig Party. He served as a Virginia state legislator and governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator. Tyler was a regional Whig vice-presidential nominee in the 1836 presidential election; they lost. He was the sole nominee on the 1840 Whig presidential ticket as William Henry Harrison's running mate. Under the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", the Harrison–Tyler ticket defeated incumbent president Martin Van Buren. (Full article...) -
The Turban Head eagle, also known as the Capped Bust eagle, was a ten-dollar gold piece, or eagle, struck by the United States Mint from 1795 to 1804. The piece was designed by Robert Scot, and was the first in the eagle series, which continued until the Mint ceased striking gold coins for circulation in 1933. The common name is a misnomer; Liberty does not wear a turban but a cap, believed by some to be a pileus or Phrygian cap (Liberty cap): her hair twisting around the headgear makes it resemble a turban.
The eagle was the largest denomination authorized by the Mint Act of 1792, which established the Bureau of the Mint. It was not struck until 1795, as the Mint at first struck copper and silver coins. The number of stars on the obverse was initially intended to be equal to the number of states in the Union, but with the number at 16, that idea was abandoned in favor of using 13 stars in honor of the original states. The initial reverse, featuring an eagle with a wreath in its mouth, proved unpopular and was replaced by a heraldic eagle. (Full article...) -
Broad Ripple Park Carousel is an antique carousel in The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. It was installed in 1917 at an amusement park near the White River in Indianapolis, Indiana, where it remained until the building housing it collapsed in 1956. The ride's mechanism was destroyed, but the animals were relatively unscathed and put into storage by the park's owners, the Indianapolis Department of Parks and Recreation. The animals were carved by the Dentzel Carousel Company some time before 1900 but were assembled by the William F. Mangels carousel company, which also supplied the engine powering the ride.
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis acquired its first two carved animals from the ride in 1965, and the last few wooden animals in 1973. The museum planned to sell some to finance the restoration of others until the director of the museum, Mildred Compton, was convinced by carousel enthusiasts that the museum should instead restore all the animals and recreate the working carousel. Restoration of the carved animals began in 1966 and was only finished with the restoration of the entire carousel in 1977. No space had been allocated for the display of such a large exhibit in the museum's planned new building, which meant some re-designing was necessary to allow its installation on the fifth floor. A 1919 Wurlitzer band organ model #146-B, a type manufactured only for carousels, was also installed. As restored, the carousel is 42 feet (13 meters) wide and has a total of 42 animals, including – as well as the usual horses – goats, giraffes, deer, a lion, and a tiger. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. (Full article...) -
Stephens City (/ˈstiːvənz/ STEE-vənz) is an incorporated town in the southern part of Frederick County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 2,016 at the time of the 2020 census, and an estimated population of 2,096 in 2022. Founded by Peter Stephens in the 1730s, the colonial town was chartered and named for Lewis Stephens (Peter's only son) in October 1758. It was originally settled by German Protestants from Heidelberg.
Stephens City is the second-oldest municipality in the Shenandoah Valley after nearby Winchester, which is about 5 mi (8 km) to the north. "Crossroads", the first free black community in the Valley in the pre-Civil War years, was founded east of town in the 1850s. Crossroads remained until the beginning of the Civil War when the freed African Americans either escaped or were recaptured. Stephens City was saved from intentional burning in 1864 by Union Major Joseph K. Stearns. The town has gone through several name changes in its history, starting as "Stephensburg", then "Newtown", and finally winding up as "Stephens City", though it nearly became "Pantops". Interstate 81 and U.S. Route 11 pass close to and through the town, respectively. (Full article...) -
John Young Brown (June 28, 1835 – January 11, 1904) was an American politician from the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky who represented the state in the United States House of Representatives and served as its 31st governor. Brown was elected to the House of Representatives for three non-consecutive terms, each of which was marred by controversy. He was first elected in 1859, despite his own protests that he was not yet twenty-five years old, the minimum age set by the Constitution for serving in the legislature. The voters of his district elected him anyway, but he was not allowed to take his seat until the Congress' second session, after he was of legal age to serve. After moving to Henderson, Kentucky, Brown was elected from that district in 1866. On this occasion, he was denied his seat because of alleged disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War. Voters in his district refused to elect another representative, and the seat remained vacant throughout the term to which Brown was elected. After an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1871, Brown was again elected to the House in 1872 and served three consecutive terms. During his final term, he was officially censured for delivering a speech excoriating Massachusetts Representative Benjamin F. Butler. The censure was later expunged from the congressional record.
After his service in the House, Brown took a break from politics but re-entered the political arena as a candidate for governor of Kentucky in 1891. He secured the Democratic nomination in a four-way primary election, then convincingly won the general election over his Republican challenger, Andrew T. Wood. Brown's administration, and the state Democratic Party, were split between gold standard supporters (including Brown) and supporters of the free coinage of silver. Brown's was also the first administration to operate under the Kentucky Constitution of 1891, and most of the legislature's time was spent adapting the state's code of laws to the new constitution. Consequently, little of significance was accomplished during Brown's term. (Full article...) -
State Route 520 (SR 520) is a state highway and freeway in the Seattle metropolitan area, part of the U.S. state of Washington. It runs 13 miles (21 km) from Seattle in the west to Redmond in the east. The freeway connects Seattle to the Eastside region of King County via the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge on Lake Washington. SR 520 intersects several state highways, including Interstate 5 (I-5) in Seattle, I-405 in Bellevue, and SR 202 in Redmond.
The original floating bridge was opened in 1963 as a replacement for the cross-lake ferry system that had operated since the late 19th century. In 1964, SR 520 was designated as a freeway connecting I-5 to I-405. An extension to Redmond was proposed later in the decade. In the 1970s and 1980s, sections of the freeway between Bellevue and Redmond were opened to traffic, replacing the temporary designation of SR 920. (Full article...) -
The Alaska-class were six large cruisers ordered before World War II for the United States Navy (USN), of which only two were completed and saw service late in the war. The USN designation for the ships of this class was 'large cruiser' (CB), a designation unique to the Alaska-class, and the majority of leading reference works consider them as such. However, various other works have alternately described these ships as battlecruisers despite the USN having never classified them as such, and having actively discouraged the use of the term in describing the class. The Alaskas were all named after territories or insular areas of the United States, signifying their intermediate status between larger battleships (which were mostly named after states) and smaller heavy and light cruisers (which were named after cities).
The idea for a large cruiser class originated in the early 1930s when the USN sought to counter the Deutschland-class "pocket battleships" being launched by Germany. Planning for ships that eventually evolved into the Alaska-class began in the late 1930s after the deployment of Germany's Scharnhorst-class battleships and rumors that Japan was constructing a new large cruiser class, the B-65 "super cruiser." To serve as "cruiser-killers" capable of seeking out and destroying these post-treaty heavy cruisers, the class was given large guns of a new and expensive design, limited armor protection against 12-inch shells, and machinery capable of speeds of about 31–33 knots (57–61 km/h; 36–38 mph). (Full article...) -
Interstate 82 (I-82) is an Interstate Highway in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States that travels through parts of Washington and Oregon. It runs 144 miles (232 km) from its northwestern terminus at I-90 in Ellensburg, Washington, to its southeastern terminus at I-84 in Hermiston, Oregon. The highway passes through Yakima and the Tri-Cities, and is also part of the link between Seattle and Salt Lake City, Utah. I-82 travels concurrently with U.S. Route 97 (US 97) between Ellensburg and Union Gap; US 12 from Yakima to the Tri-Cities; and US 395 from Kennewick to Umatilla, Oregon.
I-82 primarily serves the Yakima Valley agricultural region, following the Yakima and Columbia rivers southeastward to the Tri-Cities. The highway enters the valley from the north by crossing the Manastash Ridge, which separates Yakima from the Kittitas Valley. I-82 bypasses the Tri-Cities by traveling southwest around Richland and Kennewick and then turns south to cross the Columbia River on the Umatilla Bridge. Its only auxiliary route, I-182, connects the highway to Richland and Pasco in the Tri-Cities. (Full article...) -
Lawrence Winchester Wetherby (January 2, 1908 – March 27, 1994) was an American politician who served as Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Kentucky. He was the first of only two governors in state history born in Jefferson County, despite the fact that Louisville (the county seat) is the state's most populous city. The second governor born in Jefferson County is the incumbent governor, Andy Beshear.
After graduating from the University of Louisville, Wetherby held several minor offices in the Jefferson County judicial system before being elected lieutenant governor in 1947. He was called Kentucky's first "working" lieutenant governor because Governor Earle C. Clements asked him to carry out duties beyond his constitutional responsibility to preside over the state Senate, such as preparing the state budget and attending the Southern Governors Conference. In 1950, Clements resigned to assume a seat in the U.S. Senate, elevating Wetherby to governor. Wetherby won immediate acclaim by calling a special legislative session to increase funding for education and government benefits from the state's budget surplus. In 1951, he won a four-year full term as governor, during which he continued and expanded many of Clements' programs, including increased road construction and industrial diversification. He endorsed the Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation order in the case of Brown v. Board of Education and appointed a biracial commission to oversee the successful integration of the state's schools. As chairman of the Southern Governors Conference in 1954 and 1955, he encouraged other southern governors to accept and implement desegregation. (Full article...) -
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 1880. Republican nominee James A. Garfield defeated Winfield Scott Hancock of the Democratic Party. The voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the nation's history. Garfield was assassinated during his first year in office, and he was succeeded by his vice president, Chester A. Arthur.
Incumbent President Rutherford B. Hayes did not seek reelection. After the longest convention in the party's history, the factionalized Republicans chose Representative Garfield of Ohio as their standard-bearer. The Democratic Party chose General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania as their nominee. The dominance of the two major parties began to fray as an upstart left-wing party, the Greenback Party, nominated another Civil War general for president, Iowa Congressman James B. Weaver. In a campaign fought mainly over issues of Civil War loyalties, tariffs, and Chinese immigration, Garfield narrowly won both the electoral and popular vote. He and Hancock each took just over 48 percent of the popular vote, while Weaver and two other minor candidates, Neal Dow and John W. Phelps, together made up the remainder. (Full article...) -
Meghan Elizabeth Trainor (born December 22, 1993) is an American singer-songwriter and television personality. She rose to prominence after signing with Epic Records in 2014 and releasing her debut single "All About That Bass", which reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold 11 million copies worldwide. Trainor has released six studio albums with the label and has received various accolades, including a Grammy Award, four ASCAP Pop Music Awards, and two Billboard Music Awards.
Trainor became interested in music at a young age; she wrote, recorded, and produced three independently released acoustic albums, Meghan Trainor (2009), I'll Sing with You, and Only 17 (2010). She began writing and producing songs for other artists in 2013. In 2015, Trainor released her pop and hip hop major-label debut studio album, Title, which included the top-10 singles "Lips Are Movin" and "Like I'm Gonna Lose You"; it debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. The single "No" led her follow-up album, the R&B Thank You (2016), both of which reached number three on the respective charts. In 2020, Trainor released the electronic dance music-influenced album Treat Myself and the holiday album A Very Trainor Christmas. She followed these with the doo-wop and bubblegum pop albums Takin' It Back (2022) and Timeless (2024). The former included the single "Made You Look", which reached the top five in countries including the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. (Full article...) -
The Anbar campaign consisted of fighting between the United States military, together with Iraqi security forces, and Sunni insurgents in the western Iraqi governorate of Al Anbar. The Iraq War lasted from 2003 to 2011, but the majority of the fighting and counterinsurgency campaign in Anbar took place between April 2004 and September 2007. Although the fighting initially featured heavy urban warfare primarily between insurgents and U.S. Marines, insurgents in later years focused on ambushing the American and Iraqi security forces with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), large scale attacks on combat outposts, and car bombings. Almost 9,000 Iraqis and 1,335 Americans were killed in the campaign, many in the Euphrates River Valley and the Sunni Triangle around the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
Al Anbar, the only Sunni-dominated province in Iraq, saw little fighting in the initial invasion. Following the fall of Baghdad it was occupied by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Violence began on 28 April 2003 when 17 Iraqis were killed in Fallujah by U.S. soldiers during an anti-American demonstration. In early 2004 the U.S. Army relinquished command of the governorate to the Marines. By April 2004 the governorate was in full-scale revolt. Savage fighting occurred in both Fallujah and Ramadi by the end of 2004, including the Second Battle of Fallujah. Violence escalated throughout 2005 and 2006 as the two sides struggled to secure the Western Euphrates River Valley. During this time, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) became the governorate's main Sunni insurgent group and turned the provincial capital of Ramadi into its stronghold. The Marine Corps issued an intelligence report in late 2006 declaring that the governorate would be lost without a significant additional commitment of troops. (Full article...) -
U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway System and runs for over 1,500 miles (2,400 km) along the Pacific Ocean. The highway is also known by various names, including El Camino Real in parts of California, the Oregon Coast Highway, and the Olympic Highway in Washington. Despite its three-digit number, normally used for spur routes, US 101 is classified as a primary route.
The highway's southern terminus is at a major interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) and I-10 in Los Angeles. US 101 follows several freeways in Southern California as it travels north of the Santa Monica Mountains and along the coast, where it is concurrent with California State Route 1 (SR 1). The highway travels inland from the coast after it splits from SR 1 and approaches the San Francisco Bay Area, where it becomes the Bayshore Freeway and later traverses San Francisco on city streets to reach the Golden Gate Bridge. US 101 continues north on the Redwood Highway and rejoins the coast before it enters Oregon. (Full article...) -
It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School is a 1996 American documentary film directed by Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen. It provides educators with information on how to teach elementary schoolchildren to be tolerant of gay and lesbian people. The film was noted as the "first of its kind" and was generally well received, although there was some backlash from conservatives. It was released in several film festivals, and had screenings in the 2000s.
The documentary received little support from PBS, owing to backlash from the American Family Association. Prior to airing the film, television stations received calls, letters, and e-mails from people who did not want PBS program directors to broadcast It's Elementary. The film was awarded the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary, Best Documentary at the Reeling Film Festival, and the Silver Spire from the San Francisco International Film Festival, among other awards. The film had two sequels: That's a Family! and It's Still Elementary. (Full article...) -
The 2020 season was Seattle Sounders FC's twelfth season in Major League Soccer (MLS), the top flight of professional club soccer in the United States. It was the 37th season played by a professional team bearing the Sounders name, which had originated in 1974 with the first incarnation of the franchise. The team was under the management of Brian Schmetzer in his fourth full MLS season as head coach of the Sounders.
Seattle were the reigning MLS Cup champions, having defeated Toronto FC 3–1 in the 2019 final at their home stadium, CenturyLink Field (renamed Lumen Field in November 2020). The season began with two home matches but was suspended on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the second Sounders match had reduced attendance due to the pandemic's spread in the Seattle metropolitan area. MLS resumed with a special tournament in July hosted in the Orlando area, and teams returned home a month later to play in matches behind closed doors. The Sounders only played 22 regular season matches, mostly against opponents in the Western Conference, due to a shortened schedule and several canceled matches. The 2020 Campeones Cup was canceled along with the 2020 U.S. Open Cup. (Full article...) -
William Matthews (December 16, 1770 – April 30, 1854), occasionally spelled Mathews, was an American who became the fifth Roman Catholic priest ordained in the United States and the first such person born in British America. Born in the colonial Province of Maryland, he was briefly a novice in the Society of Jesus. After being ordained, he became influential in establishing Catholic parochial and educational institutions in Washington, D.C. He was the second pastor of St. Patrick's Church, serving for most of his life. He served as the sixth president of Georgetown College, later known as Georgetown University. Matthews acted as president of the Washington Catholic Seminary, which became Gonzaga College High School, and oversaw the continuity of the school during suppression by the church and financial insecurity.
Matthews was vicar apostolic and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Philadelphia during a period of ecclesiastical turmoil. He was a co-founder and president of the Washington Library Company for thirteen years—the first public library in the District of Columbia. He also was co-director and trustee of the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he was one of the superintendents of a school. He played a significant role in the founding of Washington Visitation Academy for girls, St. Peter's Church on Capitol Hill, and the parish that now includes the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. Matthews was involved in Catholic charitable organizations as well; he was the founder and president of St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum and the co-founder and president of St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum. (Full article...) -
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA executive David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an initialism of Radio-Keith-Orpheum). Two years later, another Kennedy concern, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By the mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum.
RKO has long been renowned for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid- to late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years, with credits including touchstones of the screwball comedy genre with which RKO was identified. The work of producer Val Lewton's low-budget horror unit and RKO's many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong and producer/director/star Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. RKO was also responsible for notable coproductions such as It's a Wonderful Life and Notorious, and it distributed many celebrated films by animation pioneer Walt Disney and leading independent producer Samuel Goldwyn. Though it often could not compete financially for top star and director contracts, RKO's below-the-line personnel were among the finest, including composer Max Steiner, cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, and designer Van Nest Polglase. (Full article...) -
The Heidi Game or Heidi Bowl was a 1968 American Football League (AFL) game between the Oakland Raiders and the visiting New York Jets. The contest, held on November 17, 1968, was notable for its exciting finish, in which Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minute to win the game 43–32. However, NBC, the game's television broadcaster, decided to break away from its coverage on the East Coast to broadcast the television film Heidi, which caused many viewers to miss the Raiders' comeback.
In the late 1960s, few professional football games took longer than two and a half hours to play, and the three-hour time slot allotted to the Jets and Raiders was thought to be adequate. A high-scoring contest, together with a number of injuries and penalties for the two bitter AFL rivals, caused the game to run longer than usual. NBC executives had originally ordered that Heidi begin at 7 p.m. EST, but then decided to allow the game to air to its conclusion. However, communicating this revised plan to the technicians running NBC's master control proved impossible – as 7 p.m. approached, NBC's switchboards were jammed by viewers phoning to inquire about the night's schedule, preventing the planned change from being communicated. Heidi began as scheduled, preempting the final moments of the game and the two Oakland touchdowns in the eastern half of the country, to the outrage of viewers. (Full article...) -
Right whales are three species of large baleen whales of the genus Eubalaena: the North Atlantic right whale (E. glacialis), the North Pacific right whale (E. japonica) and the Southern right whale (E. australis). They are classified in the family Balaenidae with the bowhead whale. Right whales have rotund bodies with arching rostrums, V-shaped blowholes and dark gray or black skin. The most distinguishing feature of a right whale is the rough patches of skin on its head, which appear white due to parasitism by whale lice. Right whales are typically 13–17 m (43–56 ft) long and weigh up to 100 short tons (91 t; 89 long tons) or more.
All three species are migratory, moving seasonally to feed or give birth. The warm equatorial waters form a barrier that isolates the northern and southern species from one another although the southern species, at least, has been known to cross the equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, right whales tend to avoid open waters and stay close to peninsulas and bays and on continental shelves, as these areas offer greater shelter and an abundance of their preferred foods. In the Southern Hemisphere, right whales feed far offshore in summer, but a large portion of the population occur in near-shore waters in winter. Right whales feed mainly on copepods but also consume krill and pteropods. They may forage the surface, underwater or even the ocean bottom. During courtship, males gather into large groups to compete for a single female, suggesting that sperm competition is an important factor in mating behavior. Gestation tends to last a year, and calves are weaned at eight months old. (Full article...) -
Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and would have been the third Moon landing. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) exploded two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system. The crew, supported by backup systems on the lunar module (LM), instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella.
A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the contents of both of the SM's oxygen tanks to space. Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating electric power, the SM's propulsion and life support systems could not operate. The CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing canceled, mission controllers worked to bring the crew home alive. (Full article...) -
Grand Teton National Park is a national park of the United States in northwestern Wyoming. At approximately 310,000 acres (1,300 km2), the park includes the major peaks of the 40-mile-long (64 km) Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole. Grand Teton National Park is 10 miles (16 km) south of Yellowstone National Park, to which it is connected by the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway which is managed by the National Park Service. Along with surrounding national forests, these three protected areas constitute the almost 22-million-acre (89,000-square-kilometer) Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the world's largest intact mid-latitude temperate ecosystems.
The human history of the Grand Teton region dates back at least 11,000 years when the first nomadic hunter-gatherer Paleo-Indians began migrating into the region during warmer months to pursue food and supplies. In the early 19th century, the first explorers encountered the eastern Shoshone people. Between 1810 and 1840, the region attracted fur trading companies that vied for control of the lucrative beaver pelt trade. U.S. government expeditions to the region commenced in the mid-19th century as an offshoot of exploration in Yellowstone, with the first permanent white settlers in Jackson Hole arriving in the 1880s. (Full article...) -
USS LST-21 unloads railway cars in Normandy in June 1944.
American logistics played a key role in the success of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of northwest Europe during World War II. The campaign officially commenced on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and ended on 24 July, the day before the launch of Operation Cobra. The Services of Supply (SOS) was formed under the command of Major General John C. H. Lee in May 1942 to provide logistical support to the European Theater of Operations, United States Army. From February 1944 on, the SOS was increasingly referred to as the Communications Zone (COMZ). Between May 1942 and May 1944, Operation Bolero, the buildup of American troops and supplies in the UK, proceeded fitfully and by June 1944 1,526,965 US troops were in the UK, of whom 459,511 were part of the COMZ.
The Overlord plan called for the early capture of Cherbourg, and a rapid American advance to secure the Brittany ports and Quiberon Bay, which was to be developed as a port. Crucially, the logistical plan called for a one-month pause at the Seine River, which Allied forces were expected to reach 90 days after D-Day, before advancing further. The expectation of an advance at a prescribed rate, while necessary for planning purposes, built inflexibility into a logistics plan that already had little margin for error. Staff studies confirmed that Overlord could be supported if everything went according to plan. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that after reading American Writers, William Lloyd Garrison told John Neal to be on guard should he return to the United States?
- ... that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Guam in the territory's attempt to seek U.S. Navy contributions to clean up Ordot Dump, a former landfill and Superfund site?
- ... that the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Sports Illustrated have all profiled the smallest TV station in the United States?
- ... that James Edward Moore was the chief of staff of the Ninth United States Army, which Omar Bradley described as "uncommonly normal"?
- ... that Nathaniel Coe declined nomination to the United States Senate, instead choosing to serve as an inspector for the United States Postal Service?
- ... that David Wheeler was running for re-election to the Alabama House of Representatives unopposed in the Republican primary when he died in 2022?
- ... that as the first licensed architect in Oklahoma, Leon B. Senter held "License Number 1" for forty years, from 1925 until his death?
- ... that VMB-611 was the only United States Marine Corps bombing squadron to operate in the Philippines during World War II?
Selected society biography -
As First Lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes including volunteerism and oversaw the collection of more than 600 examples of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration. She also encouraged women to run for political offices and became the most traveled First Lady in U.S. history up to that time, visiting about eighty nations; she was the first First Lady to visit a combat zone. Pat's tenure ended when, after being re-elected in the landslide victory of 1972, President Nixon resigned two years later amidst the Watergate scandal.
Pat's public appearances became rarer in her later life. She suffered two strokes within ten years of returning to California and was later diagnosed with lung cancer. She died in 1993.
Selected image -
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Photo credit: Lewis Wickes Hine; restored by Michel VuijlstekeA 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. -
Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew ShivaJohn Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and he served as the first vice president of the United States. Adams was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with many important figures in early American history, including his wife and adviser, Abigail. His letters and other papers serve as an important source of historical information about the era.
This picture is a line engraving of Adams, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. -
The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been. -
Poster: J. Hale Powers & Co. Fraternity & Fine Art Publishers; restoration: TrialsanderrorsAn 1873 print promoting the Grange, the oldest U.S. agricultural advocacy group with a national scope. In 2005 it had 160,000 members.
The central scene shows a farmer with one foot on his shovel, captioned "I Pay for All". From left to right, the top insets show a farmer's fireside and the Grange in session; the bottom ones show a harvest dance, a broken-down cabin signposted "Ignorance" and "Sloth", and a Biblical scene of the gleaners Ruth and Boaz. -
Photo credit: McPherson and OliverScars of a whipped slave named Peter, photo taken at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863. In his own words, "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer." The slave pictured here escaped from a plantation in Mississippi, made his way to Union forces, and joined the U.S. Army at the Union garrison located at Baton Rouge.
Slavery in the United States began soon after the English colonists first settled in North America. From about the 1640s until 1865, people of African descent were legally enslaved within the boundaries of the present U.S. mostly by whites, but also by a comparatively tiny number of American Indians and free blacks. By 1860, the slave population in the U.S. had grown to 4 million. -
Photo credit: U.S. News & World ReportU.S. President Gerald Ford appearing at an October 1974 House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing regarding his pardon of Richard Nixon. Nixon had resigned due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal, which began with an attempted break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex on June 17, 1972. -
Image: Northwestern Litho. Co.; Restoration: NativeForeignerA campaign poster from the 1900 United States presidential election for the incumbent William McKinley, who would eventually win. The poster shows McKinley standing on a gold coin, representing the gold standard, with support from soldiers, businessmen, farmers and professionals, claiming to restore prosperity at home and victory abroad. The election was a repeat of the 1896 election, pitting McKinley against William Jennings Bryan. -
Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew ShivaMillard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, succeeding to the presidency in July 1850 upon the death of the incumbent Zachary Taylor. Born into poverty with little formal education, he became a successful attorney and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1832. Never an advocate of slavery, he felt duty-bound as president to support the Compromise of 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states. He sought election to a full term in 1852, but was passed over by the Whigs in favor of Winfield Scott. This line engraving of Fillmore was produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. -
Wes Brady, ex-slavePhotograph: Federal Writers' Project; restoration: Chick BowenA 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. -
Photograph credit: Los Angeles Times; restored by RhododendritesHelen Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She lost her sight and hearing after a bout of illness at the age of nineteen months. When she was seven years old, she met her first teacher and life-long companion, Anne Sullivan, who taught her language skills, including reading and writing. After attending Radcliffe College at Harvard University, she became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind for many years, during which time she toured the United States and traveled to 35 countries around the world. This 1920 photograph depicts Keller examining a magnolia flower. -
Image credit: Astrokey44An animated image showing the U.S. states by date of statehood, that is, the date when each U.S. state joined the Union. Although the first 13 states can be considered to be members of the United States from the date of the Declaration of Independence, they are presented here as being "admitted" on the date each ratified the present United States Constitution. The secession of states to form the Confederacy is not addressed here. -
Photograph: Unknown; Restoration: Adam CuerdenWilliam H. Seward (1801–1872) was United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as Governor of New York and United States Senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was generally praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the American Civil War. His firm stance against foreign intervention in the Civil War helped deter Britain and France from entering the conflict, which might have led to the independence of the Confederate States. His contemporary Carl Schurz described Seward as "one of those spirits who sometimes will go ahead of public opinion instead of tamely following its footprints." -
Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam CuerdenWilliam Grant Still (1895–1978) was an American composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies and nine operas. Often referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers", Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. His first symphony, entitled Afro-American Symphony, was until 1950 the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and was a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and later Edgard Varèse. Still was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra and the first to have an opera performed on national television. Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, he is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance movement.
This picture of Still was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1949; the photograph is in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. -
Map: Private Robert K. Sneden, mapmaker for Samuel P. Heintzelman's III CorpsThe Battle of Malvern Hill was fought on July 1, 1862, between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac. It was the final battle of the Seven Days Battles during the American Civil War, taking place on Malvern Hill near the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Including inactive reserves, more than fifty thousand soldiers from each side took part, using more than two hundred pieces of artillery and three warships. The battle resulted in a tactical victory for the Union side, but the Confederates claimed a strategic victory as the Union failed to go on to capture Richmond.
This is a map of the night's march undertaken by the Union forces after the battle. -
Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew ShivaJames Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat and philosopher who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is widely considered to be one of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States, and historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president.
This picture is a line engraving of Madison, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents, which was reportedly given to Treasury Secretary Lyman J. Gage.
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Selected culture biography -
Witherspoon married actor and Cruel Intentions co-star Ryan Phillippe in 1999; they have two children, Ava and Deacon. The couple separated at the end of 2006 and divorced in October 2007. Witherspoon owns a production company, Type A Films, and she is actively involved in children's and women's advocacy organizations. She serves on the board of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), and was named Global Ambassador of Avon Products in 2007, serving as honorary chair of the charitable Avon Foundation.
Selected location -
The first permanent white settlers—Arthur A. Denny and those subsequently known as the Denny party—arrived November 13, 1851. Early settlements in the area were called "New York-Alki" ("Alki" meaning "bye and bye" in the local Chinook Jargon) and "Duwamps". In 1853, Doc Maynard suggested that the main settlement be renamed "Seattle", an anglicized rendition of the name of Sealth, the chief of the two local tribes.
Seattle is often regarded as the birthplace of grunge music, and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks and Tully's. Analysis conducted in 2004 by the United States Census Bureau indicated that Seattle was the most educated large city in the U.S. with 48.8 percent of residents 25 and older having at least bachelor degrees.
Selected quote -
Anniversaries for January 2
- 1788 – Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution
- 1791 – In what becomes known as the Big Bottom massacre, Delaware and Wyandot Indians attack a new settlement at the edge of the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.
- 1901 – Bob Marshall (pictured), author, government official, and one of the founders of The Wilderness Society, is born. Today he is considered largely responsible for the wilderness preservation movement in America.
- 1920 – The second Palmer Raid takes place, with 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial across several U.S. cities.
- 1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history.
- 1949 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. All previous holders of the office were appointed, first by the King of Spain, then by the President of the United States.
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods -
The cuisine of Kentucky mostly resembles and is a part of traditional Southern cuisine. Some common dinner dishes are fried catfish and hushpuppies, fried chicken and country fried steak. These are usually served with vegetables such as green beans, greens, pinto beans (or "soup beans") slow-cooked with pork as seasoning and served with cornbread. Other popular items include fried green tomatoes, cheese grits, corn pudding, fried okra, and chicken and dumplings, which can be found across the commonwealth. (Full article...)
Selected panorama -
More did you know? -
- ... that Glacier Bay (pictured) in Alaska, US, known in the 18th century as the Grand Pacific Glacier, was a single glacier that has now retreated by 65 miles to the head of the bay at Tarr Inlet?
- ... that the American Delta blues pianist and singer, Willie Love, never employed his musician friend, Sonny Boy Williamson II, on any of his own recordings?
- ... that the Alexandria Zoological Park in Alexandria, Louisiana, US, started mostly with discarded pets when it opened in 1926?
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