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Robert S. McNamara

Robert S. McNamara

] Robert Strange McNamara (born June 9, 1916) is an American business executive and a former United States Secretary of Defense. McNamara served as Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. He resigned that position to become President of the World Bank (1968–1981).

Early life and career

Robert McNamara was born in San Francisco where his father was sales manager of a wholesale shoe firm. He graduated in 1937 from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in economics and philosophy, and earned a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1939. He worked a year for the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse in San Francisco, and then in August 1940 returned to Harvard to teach in the Business School. Following his involvement there in a program to teach the analytical approaches used in business to officers of the Army Air Forces, he entered the Army as a captain in early 1943, serving under Col. Curtis LeMay with analysis of U.S. bombers' efficiency and effectiveness as a major responsibility. He left active duty three years later with the rank of lieutenant colonel. During this period, McNamara helped to plan the 1945 bombing of Tokyo. In 1946 McNamara joined Ford Motor Company, which he later said had been the result of a Life magazine article which reported how few college-educated managers there were at the then unprofitable company. He was one of ten former WW II officers known as the "Whiz Kids". Starting as manager of planning and financial analysis, he advanced rapidly through a series of top-level management positions, becoming on 9 November 1960 the first president of Ford from outside the family of Henry Ford, one day after President Kennedy's election. McNamara received substantial credit for Ford's expansion and success in the postwar period. During his engagement in the Ford automobile company, he analyzed why a car model built by Ford was not popular. He revised the design; and the result was a car that was more simple and affordable to the common public. He also improved car safety by introducing safety belts. Among Ford fans and collectors, he is best remembered as the man most responsible for the discontinuation of the 2-Seat 1955-1957 Thunderbird in favor of a much larger 4-Seat model, which he championed because felt its sales volume of the "Little Bird" was unacceptably small (although the actual sales of the T-Bird was over 50% higher than sales projections every year of its production run).

Secretary of Defense

President-elect John F. Kennedy first offered the post of secretary of defense to former secretary Robert A. Lovett. Lovett declined but recommended McNamara; Kennedy had him approached by Sargent Shriver (regarding either the Treasury or the Defense cabinet post), and less than five weeks after becoming president at Ford, McNamara accepted Kennedy's invitation to serve as Secretary of Defense. Although not especially knowledgeable about defense matters, McNamara immersed himself in the subject, learned quickly, and soon began to apply an "active role" management philosophy, in his own words "providing aggressive leadership questioning, suggesting alternatives, proposing objectives and stimulating progress." He rejected radical organizational changes, such as those proposed by a group Kennedy appointed, headed by Sen. W. Stuart Symington, which would have abolished the military departments, replaced the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a single chief of staff, and established three functional unified commands. McNamara accepted the need for separate services but argued that "at the end we must have one defense policy, not three conflicting defense policies. And it is the job of the Secretary and his staff to make sure that this is the case." Initially the basic policies outlined by President Kennedy in a message to Congress on March 28, 1961 guided McNamara in the reorientation of the defense program. Kennedy rejected the concept of first-strike attack and emphasized the need for adequate strategic arms and defense to deter nuclear attack on the United States and its allies. U.S. arms, he maintained, must constantly be under civilian command and control, and the nation's defense posture had to be "designed to reduce the danger of irrational or unpremeditated general war." The primary mission of U.S. overseas forces, in cooperation with allies, was "to prevent the steady erosion of the Free World through limited wars." Kennedy and McNamara rejected massive retaliation for a posture of flexible response. The United States wanted choices in an emergency other than "inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation," as the president put it. Out of a major review of the military challenges confronting the United States initiated by McNamara in 1961 came a decision to increase the nation's limited warfare capabilities. These moves were significant because McNamara was abandoning Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation in favor of a flexible response strategy that relied on increased U.S. capacity to conduct limited, non-nuclear warfare. He also created the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Supply Agency.

Communism

The Kennedy administration placed particular emphasis on improving ability to counter communist "wars of national liberation," in which the enemy avoided head-on military confrontation and resorted to political subversion and guerrilla tactics. As McNamara said in his 1962 annual report, "The military tactics are those of the sniper, the ambush, and the raid. The political tactics are terror, extortion, and assassination." In practical terms, this meant training and equipping U.S. military personnel, as well as such allies as South Vietnam, for counterinsurgency operations. Increased attention to conventional strength complemented these special forces preparations. In this instance he called up reserves and also proceeded to expand the regular armed forces. Whereas active duty strength had declined from approximately 3,555,000 to 2,483,000 between 1953 (the end of the Korean conflict) and 1961, it increased to nearly 2,808,000 by 30 June 1962. Then the forces leveled off at around 2,700,000 until the Vietnam military buildup began in 1965, reaching a peak of nearly 3,550,000 by mid-1968, just after McNamara left office.

Nuclear strategy

McNamara played a much larger role in the formulation of nuclear strategy than his predecessors. In part this reflected both the increasing sophistication of nuclear weapons and delivery systems and Soviet progress toward nuclear parity with the United States. Central in McNamara's thinking on nuclear policy was the NATO alliance and the U.S. commitment to defend its members from aggression. In a widely-noticed speech at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in June 1962, McNamara repeated much of what he had told a NATO ministers' meeting in Athens several weeks earlier, especially about the importance of NATO to U.S. security and the proper response to a surprise Soviet nuclear attack on the Western allies. Basic NATO strategy in such an unlikely event, McNamara argued, should follow the "no-cities" concept. "General nuclear war," he stated, "should be approached in much the same way that more conventional military operations have been regarded in the past. That is to say, principal military objectives, in the event of a nuclear war stemming from a major attack on the Alliance, should be the destruction of the enemy's military forces, not of his civilian population." McNamara's principal goal was deterrence — convincing Moscow that a nuclear attack against the Western allies would trigger U.S. retaliation against Soviet forces, thereby eliminating Moscow's ability to pursue further military action. McNamara also wanted to provide the Russians with an incentive to refrain from attacking cities. "The very strength and nature of the Alliance forces," he said in the Ann Arbor speech, "make it possible for us to retain, even in the face of a massive surprise attack, sufficient reserve striking power to destroy an enemy society if driven to it." McNamara soon deemphasized the no-cities approach, for several reasons: public fear that planning to use nuclear weapons in limited ways would make nuclear war seem more feasible; increased Air Force requirements, after identifying additional targets under the no-cities strategy, for more nuclear weapons; the assumption that such a policy would require major air and missile defense, necessitating a vastly expanded budget; and negative reactions from the Soviets and NATO allies. McNamara turned to "assured destruction," which he characterized as the capability "to deter deliberate nuclear attack upon the United States and its allies by maintaining a highly reliable ability to inflict an unacceptable degree of damage upon any single aggressor, or combination of aggressors, even after absorbing a surprise first strike." As defined by McNamara, assured destruction meant that the United States would be able to destroy in retaliation 20 to 25 percent of the Soviet Union's population and 50 percent of its industrial capacity. Later the term mutual assured destruction meant the capacity of each side to inflict sufficient damage on the other to constitute an effective deterrent. In conjunction with assured destruction McNamara stressed the importance of damage limitation the use of strategic forces to limit damage to the nation's population and industrial capacity by attacking and diminishing the enemy's strategic offensive forces. To make this strategy credible, McNamara sped up the modernization and expansion of weapon and delivery systems. He accelerated production and deployment of the solid-fuel Minuteman ICBMs and Polaris SLBMs and by FY 1966 had removed from operational status all of the older liquid-fuel Atlas and Titan I missiles. By the end of McNamara's tenure, the United States had deployed 54 Titan II and 1,000 Minuteman missiles on land, and 656 Polaris missiles on 41 nuclear submarines. The size of this long-range strategic missile force remained stable until the 1980s, although the number of warheads increased significantly as the MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) system emerged in the late 1960s and the 1970s.

Other steps

McNamara took other steps to improve U.S. deterrence posture and military capabilities. He raised the portion of SAC strategic bombers on 15-minute ground alert from 25 percent to 50 percent, thus lessening their vulnerability to missile attack. In December 1961 he established the Strike Command (STRICOM). Authorized to draw forces when needed from the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), the Tactical Air Command, and the airlift units of the Military Air Transport Service and the military services, Strike Command had the mission "to respond swiftly and with whatever force necessary to threats against the peace in any part of the world, reinforcing unified commands or… carrying out separate contingency operations." McNamara also increased long-range airlift and sealift capabilities and funds for space research and development. After reviewing the separate and often uncoordinated service efforts in intelligence and communications, McNamara in 1961 consolidated these functions in the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Communications Agency (the latter originally established by Secretary Gates in 1960), having both report to the secretary of defense through the JCS. In the same year, he set up the Defense Supply Agency to work toward unified supply procurement, distribution, and inventory management. McNamara's institution of systems analysis as a basis for making key decisions on force requirements, weapon systems, and other matters occasioned much debate. Two of its main practitioners during the McNamara era, Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, described the concept as follows: "First, the word 'systems' indicates that every decision should be considered in as broad a context as necessary… The word 'analysis' emphasizes the need to reduce a complex problem to its component parts for better understanding. Systems analysis takes a complex problem and sorts out the tangle of significant factors so that each can be studied by the method most appropriate to it." Enthoven and Smith said they used mainly civilians as systems analysts because they could apply independent points of view to force planning. McNamara's tendency to take military advice into account less than had previous secretaries contributed to his unpopularity with service leaders. The most notable example of systems analysis was the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) instituted by United States Department of Defense Comptroller Charles J. Hitch. McNamara directed Hitch to analyze defense requirements systematically and produce a long-term, program-oriented Defense budget. PPBS evolved to become the heart of the McNamara management program. According to Enthoven and Smith, the basic ideas of PPBS were: "the attempt to put defense program issues into a broader context and to search for explicit measures of national need and adequacy"; "consideration of military needs and costs together"; "explicit consideration of alternatives at the top decision level"; "the active use of an analytical staff at the top policymaking levels"; "a plan combining both forces and costs which projected into the future the foreseeable implications of current decisions"; and "open and explicit analysis, that is, each analysis should be made available to all interested parties, so that they can examine the calculations, data, and assumptions and retrace the steps leading to the conclusions." Among the management tools developed to implement PPBS were the Five Year Defense Plan (FYDP), the Draft Presidential Memorandum (DPM), the Readiness, Information and Control Tables, and the Development Concept Paper (DCP). The annual FYDP was a series of tables projecting forces for eight years and costs and manpower for five years in mission-oriented, rather than individual service, programs. By 1968, the FYDP covered 10 military areas: strategic forces, general purpose forces, intelligence and communications, airlift and sealift, guard and reserve forces, research and development, central supply and maintenance, training and medical services, administration and related activities, and support of other nations. The DPM, intended for the White House and usually prepared by the systems analysis office, was a method to study and analyze major Defense issues. Sixteen DPMs appeared between 1961 and 1968 on such topics as strategic offensive and defensive forces, NATO strategy and force structure, military assistance, and tactical air forces. OSD sent the DPMs to the services and the JCS for comment; in making decisions, McNamara included in the DPM a statement of alternative approaches, force levels, and other factors. The DPM in its final form became a decision document. The Development Concept Paper examined performance, schedule, cost estimates, and technical risks to provide a basis for determining whether to begin or continue a research and development program. The Readiness, Information, and Control Tables provided data on specific projects, more detailed than in the FYDP, such as the tables for the Southeast Asia Deployment Plan, which recorded by month and quarter the schedule for deployment, consumption rates, and future projections of U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. PPBS was suspect in some quarters, especially among the military, because it was civilian-controlled and seemed to rely heavily on impersonal quantitative analysis. As Enthoven and Smith observed, "Much of the controversy over PPBS, particularly the use of systems analysis, is really an attack on the increased use of the legal authority of the Secretary of Defense and an expression of a view about his proper role." In spite of the criticism, the system persisted in modified form long after McNamara had left the Pentagon. McNamara relied heavily on systems analysis to reach several controversial weapon decisions. He canceled the B-70 bomber, begun during the Eisenhower years as a replacement for the B-52, stating that it was neither cost-effective nor needed, and later he vetoed its proposed successor, the RS-70. McNamara expressed publicly his belief that the manned bomber as a strategic weapon had no long-run future; the intercontinental ballistic missile was faster, less vulnerable, and less costly. Similarly, McNamara terminated the Skybolt project late in 1962. Begun in 1959, Skybolt was conceived as a ballistic missile with a 1,000-nautical mile (1852 km) range, designed for launching from B-52 bombers as a defense suppression weapon to clear the way for bombers to penetrate to targets. McNamara decided that Skybolt was too expensive, not accurate enough, and would exceed its planned development time. McNamara's abrupt cancellation of the Skybolt system (without consultation with the UK) nearly caused the collapse of the Macmillan government in Britain-- they had banked much of their defense strategy on that weapons system. He asserted that other systems, including the Hound Dog missile, could do the job at less cost. Toward the end of his term McNamara also opposed an antiballistic missile (ABM) system proposed for installation in the United States, arguing that it would be too expensive (at least $40 billion) and ultimately ineffective, because the Soviets would increase their offensive capability to offset the defensive advantage of the United States. Under pressure to proceed with the ABM program after it became clear that the Soviets had begun a similar project, McNamara finally agreed to a "thin" system, but he never believed it wise for the United States to move in that direction.

TFX

Despite serious problems, McNamara initiated and continued the TFX (later General Dynamics F-111) aircraft. He believed that Navy and Air Force requirements for a new tactical fighter could best be met by development of a common aircraft. After extensive study of the recommendations of a joint Air Force–Navy evaluation board, McNamara awarded the TFX contract to General Dynamics. The decision, based on cost-effectiveness and efficiency considerations, irritated the chief of naval operations and the Air Force chief of staff, both of whom preferred separate new fighters for their services and Boeing as the contractor. Because of high cost overruns, trouble in meeting performance objectives, flight test crashes, and difficulties in adapting the plane to Navy use, the TFX's future became more and more uncertain. The Navy dropped its version in 1968. Some of McNamara's critics in the services and Congress labeled the TFX a failure, but versions of the F-111 remained in Air Force service two decades after McNamara decided to produce them.

Cost Reductions

McNamara's staff stressed systems analysis as an aid in decision making on weapon development and many other budget issues. The secretary believed that the United States could afford any amount needed for national security, but that "this ability does not excuse us from applying strict standards of effectiveness and efficiency to the way we spend our defense dollars…. You have to make a judgment on how much is enough." Acting on these principles, McNamara instituted a much-publicized cost reduction program, which, he reported, saved $14 billion in the five-year period beginning in 1961. Although he had to withstand a storm of criticism from senators and representatives from affected congressional districts, he closed many military bases and installations that he judged unnecessary to national security. He was equally determined about other cost-saving measures. Nonetheless, mainly because of the Vietnam War buildup, total obligational authority increased greatly during the McNamara years. Fiscal year TOA increased from $48.4 billion in 1962 to $49.5 billion in 1965 (before the major Vietnam increases) to $74.9 billion in 1968, McNamara's last year in office. Not until FY 1984 did DoD's total obligational authority surpass that of FY 1968 in constant dollars.

Crisis

In the broad arena of national security affairs, McNamara played a principal part under both Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, especially during international crises. The first of these occurred in April 1961, when a Cuban exile group with some support from the United States attempted to overthrow the Castro regime. The disastrous failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, carried through by the Kennedy administration based on planning begun under Eisenhower, proved a great embarrassment. When McNamara left office in 1968, he told reporters that his principal regret was his recommendation to Kennedy to proceed with the Bay of Pigs operation, something that "could have been recognized as an error at the time." More successful from McNamara's point of view was his participation in the Executive Committee, a small group of advisers who counseled Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. McNamara supported the president's decision to quarantine Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from bringing in more offensive weapons. During the crisis the Pentagon placed U.S. military forces on alert, ready to back up the administration's demand that the Soviet Union withdraw its offensive missiles from Cuba. McNamara believed that the outcome of the missile crisis "demonstrated the readiness of our armed forces to meet a sudden emergency" and "highlighted the importance of maintaining a properly balanced Defense establishment." Similarly, McNamara regarded the use of nearly 24,000 U.S. troops and several dozen naval vessels to stabilize a revolutionary situation in the Dominican Republic in April 1965 as another successful test of the "readiness and capabilities of the U.S. defense establishment to support our foreign policy."

Vietnam

The Vietnam conflict came to claim most of McNamara's time and energy. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations had committed the United States to support the French and native anti-Communist forces in Vietnam in resisting efforts by the Communists in the North to control the country. The U.S. role, including financial support and military advice, expanded after 1954 when the French withdrew. During the Kennedy administration, the U.S. military advisory group in South Vietnam steadily increased, with McNamara's concurrence, from just a few hundred to about 17,000. U.S. involvement escalated after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964 when North Vietnamese naval vessels reportedly fired on two U.S. destroyers. President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes on North Vietnamese naval bases and Congress approved almost unanimously the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the U.S. and to prevent further aggression." In 1965, in response to stepped up military activity by the Communist Viet Cong in South Vietnam and their North Vietnamese allies, the United States began bombing North Vietnam, deployed large military forces, and entered into combat in South Vietnam. Requests from top U.S. military commanders in Vietnam led to the commitment of 485,000 troops by the end of 1967 and almost 535,000 by 30 June 1968. The casualty lists mounted as the number of troops and the intensity of fighting escalated. Although he loyally supported administration policy, McNamara gradually became skeptical about whether the war could be won by deploying more troops to South Vietnam and intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam. He traveled to Vietnam many times to study the situation firsthand. He became increasingly reluctant to approve the large force increments requested by the military commanders. In early November 1967 McNamara's recommendation to freeze troop levels, stop bombing North Vietnam and for the US to hand over ground fighting to South Vietnam was rejected outright by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Largely as a result, on November 29 that year McNamara announced his pending resignation and that he would become president of the World Bank.

Public speculation

As McNamara grew more and more controversial after 1966 and his differences with the president and the JCS over Vietnam policy became the subject of public speculation, frequent rumors surfaced that he would leave office. Yet there was great surprise when President Johnson announced on 29 November 1967 that McNamara would resign to become president of the World Bank. The increasing intensity of the antiwar movement in the United States and the approaching presidential campaign, in which Johnson was expected to seek reelection, figured heavily in explanations of McNamara's departure. So also did McNamara's alleged differences with the JCS over the bombing of North Vietnam, the number of U.S. troops to be assigned to the ground war, and construction along the 17th parallel separating South and North Vietnam of an antiinfiltration ground barrier, which McNamara favored and the JCS opposed. McNamara's resistance to deployment of a major ABM system also upset the military chiefs. The president's announcement of McNamara's move to the World Bank stressed his stated interest in the job and that he deserved a change after seven years as secretary of defense, much longer than any of his predecessors. McNamara left office on 29 February 1968; for his dedicated efforts, the president awarded him both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal. He served as head of the World Bank from April 1968 to June 1981. Shortly after he departed the Pentagon, he published The Essence of Security, discussing various aspects of his tenure and his position on basic national security issues. He did not speak out again on defense issues until after he left the World Bank. In 1982 McNamara joined several other former national security officials in urging that the United States pledge not to use nuclear weapons first in Europe in the event of hostilities; subsequently he proposed the elimination of nuclear weapons as an element of NATO's defense posture. His memoir, In Retrospect, published in 1995, presented an account and analysis of the Vietnam War that dwelt heavily on the mistakes to which he was a prime party and conveyed his strong sense of guilt and regret. A picture of McNamara's 1995 meeting with General Vo Nguyen Giap hangs in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, near pictures of John Kerry, Elmo Zumwalt, Warren Christopher, and other American dignitaries who visited Vietnam after normalization of relations between the two countries. [http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/08/16&ID=Ar00100] [http://www.tinyvital.com/Misc/KerryHonoredByCommunists2.htm] (see photo #10 (Giap incorrectly identified as Mao)) According to McNamara, during this meeting, Gen. Giap asked him how a country so rich could not afford history books, because Vietnam had no intention of becoming a Chinese puppet, evidence being the epic 1000 year war between China and Vietnam for independence. (paraphrased from McNamara in The Fog of War) McNamara has maintained his involvement in politics during recent years, delivering statements critical of the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq. [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0125-01.htm] In the 1980s, he was highly critical of the defense and Cold War policies of the Reagan Administration.

Evaluations

Evaluations of McNamara's long career as secretary of defense vary from glowing to negative and sometimes scathing. One journalist criticised McNamara as a " 'human IBM machine' who cares more for computerized statistical logic than for human judgements." His other sarcastic nicknames include "Mac the Knife," "arrogant dictator" or just "an IBM machine with legs." On the other hand, a congressman who had helped shape the National Security Act in 1947 stated when McNamara left the Pentagon that he "has come nearer [than anyone else] to being exactly what we planned a Secretary of Defense to be when we first wrote the Unification Act." Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote, "Except for General Marshall I do not know of any department head who, during the half century I have observed government in Washington, has so profoundly enhanced the position, power and security of the United States as Mr. McNamara." Dean Acheson Journalist Hanson W. Baldwin cited an impressive list of McNamara accomplishments:
- containment of the more damaging aspects of service rivalry;
- significant curtailment of duplication and waste in weapon development;
- institution of systems analysis and the PPBS;
- application of computer technology;
- elimination of obsolescent military posts and facilities; and
- introduction of a flexible strategy, which among other things improved U.S. capacity to wage conventional and limited wars. Although McNamara had many differences with military leaders and members of Congress, few could deny that he had had a powerful impact on the Defense Department, and that much of what he had done would be a lasting legacy.

The Fog of War

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara was a 2003 Errol Morris documentary consisting mostly of interviews with Robert McNamara and archival footage. It received an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Books


- Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (2001)
- Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (1999)
- In Retrospect : The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (1996)

External links


- [http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/EXTARCHIVES/0,,contentMDK:20502974~pagePK:36726~piPK:437378~theSitePK:29506,00.html Biography of Robert Strange McNamara (website)]
- [http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/mcnamara.htm US Department of Defense]
- [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War McNamara quotes in The Fog of War] by [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page wikiquote]
- [http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare01.htm Noam Chomsky on Robert McNamara]
- [http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Robert_McNamara.php Robert McNamara's campaign contributions] Macnamara, Robert Strange Macnamara, Robert Macnamara, Robert Macnamara, Robert Macnamara, Robert Macnamara, Robert Macnamara, Robert Mcnamara, Robert Mcnamara, Robert ja:ロバート・マクナマラ

June 9

June 9 is the 160th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (161st in leap years), with 205 days remaining.

Events


- 68 - Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, imploring his secretary Epaphroditus to slit his throat to evade a Senate-imposed death by flogging.
- 1534 - Jacques Cartier is the first European to discover the St. Lawrence River.
- 1732 - James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of Georgia. [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/ga01.htm]
- 1772 - British vessel Gaspee is burned off of Rhode Island.
- 1790 - Philadelphia Spelling Book by John Barry becomes the first book to be copyrighted in the United States.
- 1815 - End of the Congress of Vienna: new European political situation is set.
- 1856 - 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
- 1860 - Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter becomes the first dime novel to be published.
- 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.
- 1909 - 1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.
- 1915 - U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding his nation's handling of the RMS Lusitania sinking.
- 1923 - Bulgaria's military takes over the government in a coup.
- 1930 - Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle is killed at the Illinois Central train station during rush hour by the Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a 100,000 USD gambling debt owed to Al Capone.
- 1934 - Donald Duck debuts in The Wise Little Hen.
- 1935 - Ho-Umezu Agreement: China, under KMT administration, recognized Japanese occupations in Northeast China.
- 1944 - World War II: The Soviet Union invades East Karelia and the previously Finnish part of Karelia, since 1941 occupied by Finland.
- 1953 - Flint-Worcester Tornadoes: A tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts killing 94.
- 1954 - McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army.
- 1957 - First ascent of Broad Peak (12th highest mountain).
- 1959 - The USS George Washington is launched as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.
- 1973 - Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
- 1978 - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens the priesthood to "all worthy men,"ending a 148-year-old policy excluding black men.
- 1980 - Comedian Richard Pryor attempts to commit suicide by dousing himself with rum and setting it ablaze during a cocaine binge.
- 1985 - Thomas Sutherland is kidnapped in Lebanon (he was not released until 1991).
- 1986 - The Rogers Commission releases its report on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
- 1991 - The congress of the Italian party Proletarian Democracy decides to merge with the Communist Refoundation Party.
- 1999 - Kosovo War: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.

Births


- 1508 - Primož Trubar, Slovenian protestant reformet (d. 1586)
- 1580 - Daniel Heinsius, Flemish scholar (d. 1655)
- 1588 - Johann Andreas Herbst, German composer (d. 1666)
- 1595 - King Wladislaus IV of Poland (d. 1648)
- 1640 - Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1705)
- 1686 - Andrei Osterman, German-born Russian statesman (d. 1747)
- 1661 - Tsar Feodor III of Russia (d. 1682)
- 1672 - Tsar Peter I of Russia (d. 1725)
- 1686 - Andrei Osterman, Russian statesman (d. 1747)
- 1768 - Samuel Slater, American industrialist (d. 1835)
- 1810 - Otto Nicolai, German composer (d. 1849)
- 1812 - Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer (d. 1910)
- 1843 - Bertha von Suttner, Austrian novelist and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1914)
- 1845 - Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto (d. 1914)
- 1849 - Michael Peter Ancher, Danish painter (d. 1927)
- 1851 - Charles Joseph Bonaparte, French politician (d. 1921)
- 1865 - Albéric Magnard, French composer (d. 1914)
- 1865 - Carl Nielsen, Danish composer (d. 1931)
- 1875 - Henry Hallett Dale, English scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1968)
- 1882 - Bobby Kerr, Canadian sprinter (d. 1963)
- 1890 - Leslie Banks, British actor (d. 1952)
- 1891 - Cole Porter, American composer and lyricist (d. 1964)
- 1900 - Fred Waring, American bandleader (d. 1984)
- 1916 - Robert McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense and president of the World Bank
- 1916 - Les Paul, American guitarist
- 1922 - John Gillespie Magee, Jr., American poet and aviator (d. 1941)
- 1931 - Jackie Mason, American comedian
- 1931 - Joe Santos, American actor
- 1937 - Harald Rosenthal, German biologist
- 1939 - Ileana Cotrubas, Romanian soprano
- 1939 - Dick Vitale, American sportscaster
- 1947 - Mitch Mitchell, drummer in The Jimi Hendrix Experience
- 1952 - Uzi Hitman, israeli singer
- 1956 - Patricia Cornwell, American author
- 1961 - Michael J. Fox, Canadian-born actor
- 1961 - Aaron Sorkin, American director, producer, and writer
- 1963 - Johnny Depp, American actor
- 1964 - Gloria Reuben, Canadian actress
- 1973 - Tedy Bruschi, American football player
- 1975 - Andrew Symonds, Australian cricketer
- 1977 - Peja Stojaković, Serbian basketball player
- 1978 - Matthew Bellamy, British singer, guitarist, pianist, composer of the band Muse (band).
- 1978 - Miroslav Klose, German footballer
- 1981 - Natalie Portman, Israeli-born actress

Deaths


- 62 - Octavia, wife of Nero (b. 40)
- 68 - Nero, Roman Emperor (b. 37)
- 373 - Ephrem the Syrian, Christian hymnodist
- 597 - St. Columba, Christian missionary, patron saint of Ireland (b. 521)
- 630 - King Shahrbaraz of Persia
- 1361 - Philippe de Vitry, French composer (b. 1291)
- 1563 - William Paget, 1st Baron Paget, English statesman (b. 1506)
- 1572 - Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre (b. 1528)
- 1583 - Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
- 1656 - Thomas Tomkins, Welsh composer (b. 1572)
- 1716 - Banda Bahadur Sikh military commander (executed)
- 1717 - Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, French mystic (b. 1648)
- 1870 - Charles Dickens, English author (b. 1812)
- 1892 - William Stairs, Canadian explorer (b. 1863)
- 1946 - Ananda Mahidol, Rama VIII, king of Thailand (b. 1925)
- 1952 - Adolf Busch, German composer (b. 1891)
- 1958 - Robert Donat, English actor (b. 1905)
- 1959 - Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1876)
- 1961 - Camille Guérin, French scientist (b. 1872)
- 1964 - Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, Canadian-born business tycoon and politician (b. 1879)
- 1974 - Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
- 1989 - George Wells Beadle, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1903)
- 1991 - Claudio Arrau, Chilean-born pianist (b. 1903)
- 1993 - Alexis Smith, Canadian actress (b. 1921)
- 1994 - Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
- 2004 - Rosey Brown, American football player (b. 1932)

Holidays and observances


- Catholicism - Saint Columba (called Saint Columcille in Ireland, where he is honoured as one of the islands three patron saints).
- Roman Empire - third day of the Vestalia in honor of Vesta
- United States - Race Unity Day

Other appearances


- June 9th is the name of a song from the Boards Of Canada-album, Boc Maxima.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/9 BBC: On This Day] ---- June 8 - June 10 - May 9 - July 9 -- listing of all days ko:6월 9일 ms:9 Jun ja:6月9日 simple:June 9 th:9 มิถุนายน

1916

1916 (MCMXVI) is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar)

Events

January-February


- January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. Impressionist Monet paints 'Water Lilies'.
- January 5 - Heavy rain - allegedly caused by rainmaker Charles Hatfield - begins; it will cause flooding around San Diego, California
- January 8 - Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli
- January 13/14 - A heavy storm sweeps through the Zuiderzee in the Netherlands, causing extensive damage. This storm helped the Dutch parliament to decide to build the Afsluitdijk and build polders in the current IJsselmeer.
- January 17 - The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is formed
- January 18 - A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite struck a house near Baxter, Stone County, Missouri.
- January 23 to 24 In Browning, Montana, the temperature drops from +6.7°C to -48.8°C (44°F to -56°F) in one day, the greatest change ever on record for a 24-hour period.
- January 24 - In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax void
- January 28 - Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
- January 29 - World War I: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
- February 2 - Blizzard in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
- February 3 - Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada are burned down.
- February 9 - 6.00 PM - Tristan Tzara "founds" Dadaism (according to Hans Arp
- February 11 - Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
- February 11 - Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert
- February 21 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.

March-June


- March 1 - Liberal British Columbia Premier Harlan Carey Brewster term in office ends
- March 6 - Sydney conservatorium of music in Australia accepts first students
- March 8-9 night - Mexican Revolution - Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17. Garrison of US 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.
- March 15 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border border to pursue Pancho Villa; 13th Cavalry regiment enters Mexican territory.
- March 16 - US 7th and 10th cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing crosses the border to join the hunt of Villa
- March 19 - First United States air combat mission in history as eight US planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa
- March 22 - Marriage of Edith Bratt and John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. They would serve as the inspiration for the fictional characters Lúthien and Beren.
- April 24 - April 30 - Easter Rising in Ireland
- April 27 - Battle of Hulluch in World War One, 47th Brigade, 16th Irish Division decimated in one of the most heavily-concentrated gas attacks of the war
- May 5 - United States Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
- May 20 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting ("Boy with Baby Carriage").
- May 21 - Sir Ernest Shackleton and two of his companions reach a whaling station to get help for the rest of the crew of Endurance.
- May 21 - Britain initiates daylight saving time.
- May 31 - June 1 - Battle of Jutland
- June 5 - Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
- June 5 - HMS Hampshire sinks off the Orkneys, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard
- June 15 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America. [http://www.scouting.org/factsheets/02-507.html]

July-August


- July 1 - November 18: More than 1 million soldiers die during The Battle of the Somme including 60,000 soldiers from the British Commonwealth on the first day. The United States is still unwilling to join in the war with Britain, Canada, Australia and the other commonwealth countries.
- July 1 through July 12, at least one shark mauled five swimmers along 80 miles of New Jersey coastline during the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916, resulting in four deaths and survival of one youth who required limb amputation. This event was the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write Jaws.
- July 15 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporates Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
- July 16 - Hellenic Holocaust: The entire Greek population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome is either exiled or killed.
- July 22 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 injuring 40. (Warren Billings and Tom Mooney are later wrongly convicted of it)
- July 29 - In Ontario, Canada, a lightning strike ignites a forest fire that destroys the towns of Cochrane and Matheson - 233 dead
- 2 August - World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto.

October-December

Taranto.]]
- October 27 - Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasu, is defeated by Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zauditu.
- November 5 - Kingdom of Poland proclaimed by joined act of emperors of Germany and Austria
- November 7 - Woodrow Wilson defeats Charles E. Hughes in the U.S. presidential election.
- November 7 - Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
- November 13 - Prime Minister of Australia William Morris Hughes is expelled from the Labor Party over his support for conscription.
- November 18 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.
- November 25 - Friedrich Adler shoots Karl Stürgh, prime minister of Austria
- November 30 - Hellenic Holocaust: According to the Austrian consul: "on 26 November Rafet Bey (Turkish Minister of the Interior) told me: "we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians … on 28 November.""
- December 12 - In the Dolomites, an avalanche buries 18,000 Austrian and Italian soldiers.
- December 30 - Humberto Gómez and his mercenaries seize Arauca in Colombia and declare Republic of Arauca. He proceeds to pillage the region before fleeing to Venezuela
- December 23 - World War I: Battle of Magdhaba - In the Sinai desert, Australian and New Zealand mounted troops capture the Turkish garrison.
- December 31 - The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the nation at the time, burns to the ground.

Unknown dates


- Hipolito Irigoyen elected as the President of Argentina.
- Blaise Diagre, first black representative of Senegal in the French parliament
- Cours de linguistique générale by Ferdinand de Saussure is published.
- Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, are cancelled.
- Food is rationed in Germany.
- Ernst Rudin published his initial results on the genetics of schizophrenia.
- The Netherlands is hit by a North Sea storm that floods lowlands and kills 10.000 people.
- Woman's International Bowling Congress established in the US.
- Robert Baden-Powell founds Wolf Scouts in Britain, changed to Cub Scouts in the USA.
- Sopwith Camel aircraft is introduced to combat the German-built Fokker fighter aircraft.
- Louis Enricht claims he has a substitute for gasoline
- Gustav Holst composes The Planets, Opus 32
- Bray Studios created the Farmer Alfalfa series, the first of theTerrytoons.

Ongoing events


- World War I (1914-1918)
- Armenian Genocide (1915-1918)
- Mexican Revolution

Births

January-March


- January 3 - Betty Furness, American actress and consumer activist (d. 1994)
- January 7 - Paul Keres, Estonian chess player
- January 9 - Peter Twinn, English mathematician and World War II code-breaker (d. 2004)
- January 10 - Sune Bergström, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
- January 12 - Pieter Willem Botha, President of South Africa
- January 22 - Henri Dutilleux, French composer
- February 9 - Tex Hughson, baseball player (d. 1993)
- February 11 - Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco (d. 1998)
- February 14 - Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese film director
- February 26 - Jackie Gleason, American comedian (d. 1987)
- February 29 - Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)
- March 3 - Paul Halmos, Hungarian-born mathematician
- March 4 - Hans Eysenck, German-born psychologist (d. 1997)
- March 11 - Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
- March 13 - John Aspinwall Roosevelt, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1981)
- March 14 - Horton Foote, American writer
- March 15 - Harry James, American musician and band leader (d. 1983)
- March 17 - Ray Ellington, British singer (d. 1985)
- March 19 - Irving Wallace, American novelist (d. 1990)
- March 26 - Christian B. Anfinsen, American chemist, Christian B. Anfinsen laureate (d. 1995)
- March 29 - Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (d. 2005)

April-June


- April 3 - Herb Caen, American journalist (d. 1997)
- April 5 - Gregory Peck, American actor (d. 2003)
- April 11 - Alberto Ginastera, Argentine composer (d. 1983)
- April 12 - Beverly Cleary, American author
- April 15 - Alfred S. Bloomingdale, American department store heir (d. 1982)
- April 22 - Yehudi Menuhin, American-born violinist (d. 1999)
- April 25 - R.J. Rushdoony, American founder of Christian Reconstructionism (d. 2001)
- April 28 - Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian automobile manufacturer (d. 1993)
- April 30 - Claude Elwood Shannon, American information theorist (d. 2001)
- April 30 - Robert Shaw, American conductor (d. 1999)
- May 8 - João Havelange, Brazilian industrialist and football league president
- May 10 - Milton Babbitt, American composer
- May 11 - Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2002)
- May 20 - Trebisonda Valla, Italian athlete
- May 21 - Tinus Osendarp, Dutch runner (d. 2002)
- May 21 - Harold Robbins, American novelist (d. 1997)
- May 26 - Henriette Roosenburg, Dutch journalist (d. 1972)
- June 4 - Robert F. Furchgott, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- June 8 - Francis Crick, English molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
- June 15 - Herbert Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
- June 18 - Julio César Turbay Ayala, Colombian politician (d. 2005)
- June 23 - Hermann Gmeiner, Austrian educator (d. 1986)
- June 23 - Len Hutton, English cricketer (d. 1990)

July-December


- July 2 - Hans-Ulrich Rudel, German pilot (d. 1982)
- July 9 - Sir Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
- July 11 - Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 2002)
- July 11 - Gough Whitlam, twenty-first Prime Minister of Australia
- July 14 - Natalia Ginzburg, Italian author (d. 1991)
- July 18 - L. Patrick Gray III, director of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (d. 2005)
- July 22 - Marcel Cerdan, French boxer (d. 1949)
- July 31 - Bill Todman, American game show producer (d. 1979)
- August 25 - Frederick Chapman Robbins, American pediatrician and virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2003)
- August 27 - Martha Raye, American actress (d. 1994)
- September 13 - Roald Dahl, Welsh author (d. 1990)
- October 3 - James Herriot, veterinarian and author (d. 1995)
- October 4 - Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate
- October 19 - Jean Dausset, French immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- October 19 - Emil Gilels, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1994)
- October 26 - François Mitterrand, President of France (d. 1996)
- October 30 - Leon Day, baseball player (d. 1995)
- November 1 - John C. Harkness, American architect
- November 4 - Walter Cronkite, American television journalist
- November 5 - Jim Tabor, baseball player
- November 10 - Louis le Brocquy, Irish painter
- November 16 - Daws Butler, American voice actor
- November 24 - Forrest J. Ackerman, American writer
- November 27 - Chick Hearn, American basketball announcer (d. 2002)
- November 28 - Mary Lilian Baels, queen of Léopold III of the Belgians (d. 2002)
- November 29 - Fran Ryan, American actress (d. 2000)
- December 9 - Kirk Douglas, American actor
- December 11 - Dámaso Pérez Prado, Cuban musician (d. 1989)
- December 15 - Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
- December 19 - Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German political scientist
- Jack Agazarian, English World War II spy (d. 1945)

Deaths


- February 6 - Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan writer (b. 1867)
- February 12 - Richard Dedekind, German mathematician (b. 1831)
- February 19 - Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (b. 1838)
- February 20 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1844)
- February 28 - Henry James, American writer (b. 1843)
- March 4 - Franz Marc, German artist (b. 1880)
- March 24 - Enrique Granados, Spanish composer (ship sinking) (b. 1867)
- April 19 - Ephraim Shay, American inventor (b. 1839)
- May 3 - Padraig Pearse, Irish nationalist (b. 1879)
- May 11 - Max Reger, German composer (b. 1873)
- May 13 - Sholom Aleichem, Ukrainian Yiddish writer (b. 1859)
- June 6 - Yuan Shikai, Chinese military official and politician (b. 1859)
- June 29 - Georges Lacombe, French artist (b. 1868)
- July 6 - Odilon Redon, French painter (b. 1840)
- July 16 - Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, Russian microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1845)
- July 23 - Sir William Ramsay, Scottish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- August 31 - Martha McClellan Brown, American temperance movement leader (b. 1838)
- September 4 - José Echegaray y Eizaguirre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1832)
- October 7 - James Whitcomb Riley, American poet (b. 1849)
- October 28 - Cleveland Abbe, American meteorologist (b. 1838)
- November 13 - Lanoe Hawker, British fighter pilot (b. 1890)
- November 14 - Saki, British writer (b. 1870)
- November 15 - Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1846)
- November 21 - Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (b. 1830)
- November 22 - Jack London, American author (b. 1876)
- November 24 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, American firearms inventor (b. 1840)
- December 28 - Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1835)
- December 29 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (b. 1870)

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - not awarded
- Chemistry - not awarded
- Medicine - not awarded
- Literature - Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam
- Peace - not awarded Category:1916 ko:1916년 ja:1916年 simple:1916 th:พ.ศ. 2459

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