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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was a famous American essayist and one of America's most influential thinkers and writers.

Life

Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister in a famous line of ministers. He gradually drifted from the doctrines of his peers, then formulated and first expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his essay Nature. When he was three years old, Emerson's father complained that the child could not read well enough. Then in 1810, when Emerson was eight years old, his father died. He attended Boston Latin School. In October of 1817, at the age of 14, Emerson went to Harvard University and was appointed President's Freshman, a position which gave him a room free of charge. He waited at Commons, which reduced the cost of his board to one quarter, and he received a scholarship. He added to his slender means by tutoring and by teaching during the winter vacations at his Uncle Ripley's school in Waltham, Massachusetts. After Emerson graduated from Harvard in 1821, he assisted his brother in a school for young ladies established in their mother's house; when his brother went to Göttingen to study divinity, Emerson took charge of the school. Over the next several years, Emerson made his living as a schoolmaster, then went to Harvard Divinity School, and emerged as a Unitaritan minister in 1829. A dispute with church officials over the administration of the Communion service, and a reticence for public prayer led to his resignation in 1832. A year earlier his young wife and reputed one true love, Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker, died in April of 1831. In 1832–33, Emerson toured Europe, a trip that he would later write about in English Traits (1856). During this trip, he met Wordsworth, Coleridge, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Carlyle. Emerson maintained a correspondence with Carlyle until Carlyle's death in 1882. He served as Carlyle's agent in America. In 1835, Emerson bought a house on the Cambridge Turnpike, in Concord, Massachusetts. He quickly became one of the leading citizens in the town. He also married his second wife Lydia Jackson here. In September of 1836, Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement, but didn't publish its journal The Dial, until July of 1840. Emerson published his first essay, Nature, anonymously in September of 1836. While it became the foundation for Transcendentalism, many people at the time assumed it to be a work of Swedenborgianism. In 1838 he was invited back to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School, for the school's graduation address. His remarks managed to outrage the establishment and shock the whole Protestant community at the time, as he proclaimed Jesus Christ a great man, but not God. For this, he was denounced as an atheist, and a poisoner of young men's minds. Despite the roar of his critics, he made no reply, leaving it to others for his defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another 40 years, but by the mid 1880s his position had become standard Unitarian doctrine. Early in 1842, Emerson lost his first son, Waldo, to scarlet fever. Emerson wrote about his grief in two major works: the poem "Threnody", and the essay "Experience". In the same year, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather. Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and the rest of the country outside of the south. During several scheduled appearances that he was not able to make, Frederick Douglass took his place. Emerson spoke on a wide variety of subjects. Many of his essays grew out of his lectures. Emerson associated closely with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau and often took walks with them in Concord. Emerson encouraged Thoreau's talent and early career. The land on which Thoreau built his cabin on Walden Pond belonged to Emerson. While Thoreau was living at Walden, Emerson provided food and hired Thoreau to perform odd jobs. When Thoreau left Walden after two years' time, it was to live at the Emerson house while Emerson was away on a lecture tour. Their close relationship fractured after Emerson gave Thoreau the poor advice to publish his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, without extensive drafts, and directed Thoreau to his own agent who made Thoreau split the price/risk of publishing. The book was a flop, and put Thoreau heavily into debt. Eventually the two would reconcile some of their differences, although Thoreau privately accused Emerson of having drifted from his original philosophy, and Emerson began to view Thoreau as an anti-social misanthrope. Emerson's eulogy of Thoreau "Thoreau" is largely credited with Thoreau's negative reputation for the 19th century. Emerson was noted as being a very abstract and difficult writer who nevertheless drew large crowds for his speeches. The heart of Emerson writing were his direct observations in his journals, which he started keeping as a teenager at Harvard. The journals were elaborately indexed by Emerson. Emerson went back to his journals, his bank of experiences and ideas, and took out relevant passages, which were joined together in his dense, concentrated lectures. He later revised and polished his lectures for his essays. A common joke heard from his audiences was that they had no idea what he was saying, but that it was beautiful. He was considered one of the great orators of the time, a man who could enrapture crowds with his deep voice, his enthusiasm, and his egalitarian respect for his audience. His outspoken, uncompromising support for abolitionism later in life caused protest and jeers from crowds when he spoke on the subject. He continued to speak on abolition without concern for his popularity and with increasing radicalism. He attempted, with difficulty, not to join the public arena as a member of any group or movement, and always retained a stringent independence that reflected his individualism. He always insisted that he wanted no followers, but sought to give man back to himself, as a self-reliant individual. Asked to sum up his work late in life, he said it was his doctrine of "the infinitude of the private man" that remained central. Emerson is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord. The town of Emerson, Manitoba is named after him.

Works

Emerson's prose works include:
- Nature (1836)
- "The American Scholar" (1837, an address to Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard)
- "The Divinity School Address" (1838)
- Essays: First Series (1841; includes "Compensation", "Self-Reliance", and "Circles")
- "The Transcendentalist" (1841)
- Essays: Second Series (1844; includes "The Poet (Ralph Waldo Emerson)", "Experience", and "Politics")
- Representative Men (1850; features essays on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe)
- English Traits (1856)
- The Conduct of Life (1860; includes "Fate" and "Power")
- "Thoreau" (1862; a eulogy for Henry David Thoreau) Although he is more generally recognized as an essayist, Emerson also wrote and translated poetry. Emerson's poetry includes:
- Collections:
- Poems (1847)
- May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
- Selected Poems (1876)
- Poems:
- "Threnody"
- "Uriel"
- "Brahma"
- "Works and Days"
- "Concord Hymn" (origin of the phrase "Shot heard 'round the world")

External links

- Collected works on-line:

- [http://www.emersoncentral.com/texts.htm Emersoncentral.com]
- [http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=205&CFID=9951845&CFTOKEN=74436944 Poets.org]
- [http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96may/emerson.html Lucidcafe.com]
- [http://www.poetseers.org/early_american_poets/ralph_waldo_emerson/ Biography and Poems ]
- [http://www.rwe.org Rwe.org]
"The most important site for anything Emerson related. Texts and links"
- [http://rwe.org/pages/centenary_edition_the_complete_works_of_RWE.htm Rwe.org – complete works]
"An almost completed collection of all of Emersons published works. Provided free."
-
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2944 Essays – First Series]
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2945 Essays – Second Series]
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=6312 Representative Men]
- [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12843 Poems – Household Edition]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emerson/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
- [http://www.bartleby.com/65/em/Emerson.html Columbia Encyclopedia entry] Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo ko:랠프 에머슨

1803

1803 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 4 - William Symington demostrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat".
- January 30 - Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to discuss, and possibly buy, New Orleans. They end completing the Louisiana Purchase.
- February 21 - Edward Despard and six others are hanged, drawn and quartered for plotting to assassinate king George III and to destroy the Bank of England
- February 24 - The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, establishes the principle of judicial review.
- March 1 - Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state, retroactive from August 7, 1953.
- April 30 - Louisiana Purchase made by the United States from France.
- March 12 - Port Gibson, MS is chartered
- May 18 - The United Kingdom redeclares war on France after France refused to withdraw from Dutch territory.
- July 4 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
- July 5 - The convention of Artlenburg leads to the French occupation of Hanover (which had been ruled by the British king).
- July 23 - Robert Emmet's uprising in Ireland begins
- July 26 - The wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon is opened, being the first public railway line of the world.
- August 3 – British begin Second Anglo-Maratha War against Sindhia of Gwalior
- September 20 - Irish rebel Robert Emmet is executed
- September 23 - The Battle of Assaye in India – British-lead troops defeat Maratha forces
- October 20 - Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, doubling the size of the United States.
- November 30 - At the Cabildo building in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marqués de Casa Calvo, officially transfer Louisiana Territory to French representative Prefect Pierre Clément de Laussat (just 20 days later, France had transferred the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase).
- Aargau, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, the Ticino, Vaud become Swiss cantons.
- France - the Livre Tournois (Tours Pound) is replaced by the Franc.
- William Osgoode, Chief Justice of Lower Canada, rules that slavery is inconsistent with British Law.

Ongoing events

- Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

Births

- February 2 - Albert Sidney Johnston, American Confederate general (d. 1862)
- February 15 - John Sutter, American pioneer (d. 1880)
- April 7 - Flora Tristan, French feminist (d. 1844)
- May 12 - Justus von Liebig, German chemist (d. 1873)
- May 24 - Charles Lucien Bonaparte, French naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1857)
- May 25 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer (d. 1882)
- May 25 - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, English novelist and playwright (d. 1873)
- June 24 - George James Webb, English-born composer (d. 1887)
- July 24 - Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (d. 1856)
- July 31 - John Ericsson, Swedish inventor and engineer (d. 1889)
- September 4 - Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the United States (d. 1891)
- September 27 - Samuel Francis du Pont, American admiral (d. 1865)
- September 28 - Prosper Mérimée, French writer (d. 1870)
- November 14 - Jacob Abbott, American writer (d. 1879)
- November 29 - Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician (d. 1853)
- December 11 - Hector Berlioz, French composer (d. 1869)

Deaths

- January 23 - Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (b. 1725)
- February 9 - Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French poet (b. 1716)
- February 18 - Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, German poet (b. 1719)
- February 20 - Marie Dumesnil, French actress (b. 1713)
- March 14 - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (b. 1724)
- April 2 - Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet, Scottish politician and judge (b. 1721)
- April 7 - Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary (b. 1743)
- June 24 - Matthew Thornton, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1714)
- September 5 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (b. 1741)
- September 15 - Gian Francesco Albani, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1719)
- October 2 - Samuel Adams, American revolutionary leader (b. 1722)
- October 26 - Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, English politician (b. 1721)
- November 23 - Roger Newdigate, English politician (b. 1719)
- December 18 - Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher and writer (b. 1744)
- December 30 - Francis Lewis, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1713)
- Jacques-Donatien Le Ray, French "Father of the American Revolution" (b. 1726) Category:1803 ko:1803년 ms:1803

April 27

April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining.

Events

- 1124 - David I becomes King of Scotland.
- 1296 - Battle of Dunbar: The Scots are defeated by Edward I of England.
- 1509 - Pope Julius II places the Italian state of Venice under interdict.
- 1521 - Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu.
- 1565 - Cebu is established becoming the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.
- 1650 - The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from the Orkney Islands but is defeated by a Covenanter army.
- 1667 - The blind, impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
- 1773 - The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
- 1805 - First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn).
- 1813 - War of 1812: United States troops capture the capital of Ontario, York (present day Toronto, Ontario).
- 1840 - Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, laid by wife of Sir Charles Barry.
- 1861 - President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
- 1865 - The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.
- 1897 - Grant's Tomb is dedicated.
- 1904 - The Australian Labor Party becomes the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson.
- 1906 - Salem, Ohio celebrates its Centennial.[http://www.salemohio.com]
- 1908 - The 1908 Summer Olympics open in London.
- 1909 - Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II is overthrown, and is succeeded by his brother, Murat V.
- 1914 - Honduras becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1936 - The United Auto Workers (UAW) gains autonomy from the American Federation of Labor.
- 1941 - World War II: German troops enter Athens.
- 1945 - World War II: Last German troops are expelled from Finnish Lapland (the last day of World War II going on in Finland). The day is the national war veteran day in Finland.
- 1945 - The Völkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the Nazi Party, ceases publication.
- 1947 - Babe Ruth Day is celebrated at Yankee Stadium.
- 1950 - Apartheid: In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed formally segregating races.
- 1960 - Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.
- 1961 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister.
- 1964 - "Love me do" by the Beatles was #1 for one week in the US
- 1967 - Expo '67 opens in Montreal, Quebec.
- 1972 - Constructive Vote of No Confidence against German Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances.
- 1981 - Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
- 1986 - Captain Midnight (John R. MacDougall) hijacks HBO's satellite and transmits his own message to HBO viewers.
- 1992 - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is proclaimed, comprising of Serbia and Montenegro.
- 1994 - South African general election, 1994: The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens vote.
- 1997 - Andrew Cunanan murders Jeffrey Trail, beginning a murder spree that will last until July and terminate with the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace.
- 2005 - The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus 380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France.

Births

- 1623 - Johann Adam Reinken, German organist (d. 1722)
- 1701 - King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia (d. 1773)
- 1718 - Thomas Lewis, Irish-born Virginia settler (d. 1790)
- 1737 - Edward Gibbon, English historian (d. 1794)
- 1759 - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English activist and author (d. 1797)
- 1791 - Samuel F. B. Morse, American inventor (d. 1872)
- 1812 - Friedrich von Flotow, German composer (d. 1883)
- 1820 - Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (d. 1903)
- 1822 - Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States (d. 1885)
- 1840 - Edward Whymper, English mountain climber (d. 1911)
- 1878 - Frank Alvin Gotch, American professional wrestler (d. 1917)
- 1888 - Florence La Badie, Canadian actress (d. 1917)
- 1891 - Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (d. 1953)
- 1894 - Nicolas Slonimsky, Russian-born musicologist and composer (d.1995)
- 1896 - Rogers Hornsby, baseball player (d. 1963)
- 1899 - Walter Lantz, American cartoonist (d. 1994)
- 1904 - Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish poet and writer (d. 1972)
- 1913 - Philip Hauge Abelson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
- 1916 - Enos Slaughter, baseball player (d. 2002)
- 1920 - Guido Cantelli, Italian conductor (d. 1956)
- 1920 - Edwin Morgan, Scottish poet
- 1922 - Jack Klugman, American actor
- 1927 - Coretta Scott King, American civil rights activist and wife of Martin Luther King
- 1931 - Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist
- 1932 - Anouk Aimée, French actress
- 1932 - Casey Kasem, American disc jockey
- 1932 - Gian-Carlo Rota, Italian-born mathematician and philosopher (d. 1999)
- 1937 - Sandy Dennis, American actress (d. 1992)
- 1938 - Earl Anthony, American bowler (d. 2001)
- 1939 - Judy Carne, British actress and comedienne
- 1941 - Lee Roy Jordan, American football player
- 1944 - Cuba Gooding, Sr., American musician (The Main Ingredient)
- 1945 - August Wilson, American playwright (d. 2005)
- 1947 - Ann Peebles, American singer
- 1948 - Kate Pierson, American singer (The B-52's)
- 1951 - Ace Frehley, American musician (KISS)
- 1952 - George Gervin, American basketball player
- 1959 - Sheena Easton, Scottish singer
- 1963 - Cali Timmins, Canadian actress
- 1967 - Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands
- 1969 - Darcey Bussell, British ballerina
- 1969 - Mica Paris, British singer and presenter
- 1970 - Kylie Travis, English actress and model
- 1976 - Walter Pandiani, Uruguayan footballer
- 1984 - Patrick Stump, American musician (Fall Out Boy)
- 1988 - Nicholas Henderson, Scottish political activist
- 1990 - Natasha Margolis, Australian violinist

Deaths

- 630 - King Ardashir III of Persia
- 1404 - Philip II, Duke of Burgundy (b. 1342)
- 1521 - Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer
- 1530 - Jacopo Sannazaro, Italian poet (b. 1458)
- 1599 - Maeda Toshiie, Japanese general (b. 1538)
- 1605 - Pope Leo XI (b. 1535)
- 1613 - Robert Abercromby, Scottish Jesuit (b. 1532)
- 1625 - Mori Terumoto, Japanese warrior (b. 1553)
- 1656 - Jan van Goyen, Dutch painter (b. 1596)
- 1694 - John George IV, Elector of Saxony (b. 1668)
- 1695 - John Trenchard, English statesman (b. 1640)
- 1702 - Jean Bart, French admiral (b. 1651)
- 1782 - William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician (b. 1710)
- 1813 - Zebulon Pike, American frontiersman and explorer (b. 1779)
- 1882 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist (b. 1803)
- 1915 - Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (b. 1872)
- 1921 - Arthur Mold, English cricketer (b. 1863)
- 1932 - Hart Crane, American writer (suicide) (b. 1899)
- 1936 - Karl Pearson, English statistician (b. 1857)
- 1952 - Guido Castelnuovo, Italian mathematician (b. 1865)
- 1965 - Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (b. 1908)
- 1970 - Arthur Shields, Irish actor (b. 1896)
- 1972 - Kwame Nkrumah, leader of Ghana (b. 1909)
- 1977 - Stanley Adams, American actor (b. 1915)
- 1992 - Olivier Messiaen, French composer (b. 1908)
- 1995 - Willem Frederik Hermans, Dutch writer (b. 1921)
- 1996 - William Colby, American director of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1920)
- 1998 - Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-born writer (b. 1925)
- 1999 - Al Hirt, American trumpeter (b. 1922)
- 2000 - Vicki Sue Robinson, American singer (b. 1954)
- 2002 - George Alec Effinger, American author (b. 1947)
- 2002 - Ruth Handler, American toy manufacturer (b. 1916)
- 2002 - Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Swiss industrialist and art collector (b. 1921)

Holidays and observances

- Slovenia: Day of Uprising Against Occupation
- South Africa: Freedom day

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/27 BBC: On This Day] ---- April 26 - April 28 - March 27 - May 27 – listing of all days ko:4월 27일 ms:27 April ja:4月27日 simple:April 27 th:27 เมษายน

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded¹ from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Boston, Massachusetts

:For other uses of Boston, see Boston (disambiguation) Boston is the capital and largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. It is the unofficial capital of the region known as New England, and one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most culturally significant large cities in the United States. Its economy is based on education, health care, finance, and technology. Boston has many nicknames. The City on a Hill came from the original Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor John Winthrop's goal to create the biblical "City on a Hill." It also refers to Boston's original three hills. Beantown refers to early Bostonian merchants' habit for making baked beans with imported molasses. The Hub is a shortened form of writer Oliver Wendell Holmes's phrase The Hub of the Solar System. William Tudor, co-founder of the North American Review, christened the city The Athens of America for its great cultural and intellectual influence. Boston is sometimes called Puritan City because its founders were Puritans. The city is also sometimes called The Cradle of Liberty for its role in instigating the American Revolution. Citizens of Boston are called Bostonians. The city lies at the center of the Boston CMSA (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area), the seventh largest in the United States. The area encompasses parts of the states of New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The city also lies at the center of Greater Boston, which also includes the cities of Cambridge, Brookline, Quincy, Newton, and many suburban communities farther from Boston.

History

Newton Boston was founded on September 17,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life

Works

See also

Further reading

External links

1803

Events

Ongoing events

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April 27

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links

United States

Geography and climate

History

Government

Republic and suffrage

Federal government

The Congress

The President

The Courts

State and local governments

Political divisions

Foreign relations and military

Largest cities

Economy

Transportation

Society

Demographics

Ethnicity and race

Religion

Education

Boston, Massachusetts

History