Portal:United States

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Parent Portals: Geography / North America / United States

Introduction

Flag of the United States of America

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

Featured article -

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

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  Schmid after a Sounders match in 2010

  
  Siegfried "Sigi" Schmid (German: [ˈziːkfʀiːt ˈziːɡiː ʃmiːt]; March 20, 1953 – December 25, 2018) was a German soccer coach.
  
  Born in Tübingen, West Germany, he moved to the United States with his family when he was a child. He played college soccer from 1972 to 1975 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was a starting midfielder. He coached his former college team, the UCLA Bruins from 1980 to 1999. During that period, he became one of the most successful collegiate coaches of all time, leading the Bruins to a record of 322–63–33 (wins–losses–draws). The team made 16 consecutive playoff appearances from 1983 to 1998, winning the national championship in 1985, 1990, and 1997. Schmid also worked with U.S. Soccer throughout the 1990s. (Full article...)
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  Zion Canyon from Angels Landing at sunset

  
  Zion National Park is a national park of the United States located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches. The lowest point in the park is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest peak is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km²) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to 2,640 ft (800 m) deep. The canyon walls are reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone eroded by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The park attracted 5 million visitors in 2023.
  
  Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans, one of which was the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Ancestral Puebloans (who used to be called Anasazi by early non-indigenous archeologists) (c. 300 CE). Subsequently, what has been called the Virgin Anasazi culture (c. 500) and the Parowan Fremont group developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. (Full article...)
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  "Nightswimming" is the eighth episode of the American television police procedural fantasy drama Awake, which originally aired on NBC on April 19, 2012. Written by Leonard Chang and co-executive producer Davey Holmes, "Nightswimming" was watched by 2.8 million viewers, including 0.9 percent of those aged between 18 and 49 in Nielsen ratings, upon its initial broadcast in the United States. Directed by executive producer Jeffrey Reiner, this episode received generally mixed reviews.
  
  Awake centers on Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs), a detective living in two separate realities after a car crash. In one reality, in which he wears a red wristband, his wife Hannah (Laura Allen) survived the crash, and in another reality, in which he wears a green wristband, his son Rex (Dylan Minnette) survived. In this episode, Michael helps Accountant Marcus Ananyev (Elijah Alexander) and his wife Alina (Ayelet Zurer) start a new life in the Witness Protection Program after a gang member attempts to kill Marcus in the "green reality". In the "red reality", Michael and Hannah prepare for a new life in Oregon after deciding to move there. They go swimming at a college pool to celebrate their love. (Full article...)
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  KCPQ (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving as the Fox network outlet for the Seattle area. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station KZJO (channel 22). The two stations share studios on Westlake Avenue in Seattle's Westlake neighborhood; KCPQ's main transmitter is located on Gold Mountain in Bremerton.
  
  The station signed on in August 1953 as KMO-TV, the television outgrowth of Tacoma radio station KMO. It was briefly an NBC network affiliate until another Seattle station signed on; the next year, KMO radio and television were sold to separate owners. The Seattle broadcaster J. Elroy McCaw bought channel 13, changed the call sign to KTVW, and ran it as an independent station. While KTVW produced a number of local programs, McCaw, a famously parsimonious owner, never converted the station to broadcast in color, and its syndicated programming inventory was considered meager. McCaw died in August 1969; three years later, his estate sold the station to the Blaidon Mutual Investors Corporation. While Blaidon tried several new programs and began color telecasting, the station continued to underperform financially. Two attempts to sell KTVW to out-of-state buyers failed because of its high liabilities. After a walkout by employees in January and the appointment of a receiver in July, KTVW was ordered closed on December 12, 1974. (Full article...)
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  James Robert "Loafer" McAleer (July 10, 1864 – April 29, 1931) was an American center fielder, manager, and stockholder in Major League Baseball who assisted in establishing the American League. He spent most of his 13-season playing career with the Cleveland Spiders, and went on to manage the Cleveland Blues, St. Louis Browns, and Washington Senators. Shortly before his retirement, he became a major shareholder in the Boston Red Sox. His career ended abruptly. During his brief tenure as co-owner of the Red Sox, McAleer quarreled with longtime friend and colleague Ban Johnson, president of the American League. In the wake of this disagreement, he sold off his shares in the Red Sox and broke off his relationship with Major League Baseball.
  
  McAleer's rift with Johnson, along with his sudden retirement, damaged his professional reputation, and he received little recognition for his contributions to baseball. Today, he is most often remembered for initiating the customary request that the President of the United States throw out the first ball of the season. (Full article...)
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  Map of the Sawmill Fire on April 28, 2017

  
  The Sawmill Fire was a wildfire that burned 46,991 acres (190 km²) in the U.S. state of Arizona in April 2017. The fire was caused by the detonation of a target packed with Tannerite at a gender reveal party in the Coronado National Forest. No injuries or fatalities resulted from the fire, nor were any buildings destroyed, though the fire did come close to the historic Empire Ranch, a National Register of Historic Places property. Over 800 personnel from various federal, state, and local agencies and organizations worked to contain and then extinguish the Sawmill Fire at a cost of $8.2 million (equivalent to $10.2 million in 2023).
  
  The fire was started by accident on April 23, 2017, by Dennis Dickey, an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who had shot the Tannerite target. Dickey immediately informed first responders of the fire, which spread rapidly until it was contained on April 30. The U.S. Attorney's Office charged Dickey with a misdemeanor charge to which he pleaded guilty, fined him $220,000 in restitution (equivalent to $267,000 in 2023), and sentenced him to five years' probation. When the U.S. Forest Service released footage of the fire's inception in November 2018 at the request of a local news agency, the concept and practice of gender reveal parties became the subject of widespread ridicule and online mockery, a pattern repeated after later wildfires started at such events. (Full article...)
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  Melanie Barnett-Davis is a fictional character, portrayed by actress Tia Mowry, who appears in the American sitcom The Game, which aired on the CW Television Network and BET from 2006 to 2015. Introduced in a backdoor pilot on the sitcom Girlfriends as Joan Clayton's cousin, Melanie chooses to support her boyfriend Derwin Davis' career with the San Diego Sabres, a fictional National Football League (NFL) team, rather than attend medical school at Johns Hopkins University. The series focuses primarily on Melanie and Derwin's complicated relationship, with her fears of his infidelity at the center of many of the episodes' storylines. Mowry left the series in 2012 upon learning that her role would be reduced as a result of co-star Pooch Hall's decision to reduce his role on The Game to appear in the crime drama series Ray Donovan. Both actors reprised their roles in the series finale, in which Melanie gives birth to twins.
  
  Melanie was created by producer Mara Brock Akil. While casting the character, Brock Akil had doubts about whether Mowry would be the best choice, given her wholesome image from starring as Tia Landry on the sitcom Sister, Sister, but hired the actress based on her strong work ethic and her desire to be part of the series. Mowry considered the character to be her first adult role and felt it emphasized her individuality and maturity. She identified closely with the part, observing parallels between Melanie's relationship with Derwin and her own marriage to actor Cory Hardrict. She cited The Game as an example of women receiving more lead roles on television. (Full article...)
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  The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar was a fifty-cent piece struck intermittently by the United States Bureau of the Mint between 1926 and 1939. The coin was designed by Laura Gardin Fraser and James Earle Fraser, and commemorates those who traveled the Oregon Trail and settled the Pacific Coast of the United States in the mid-19th century. Struck over a lengthy period in small numbers per year, the many varieties produced came to be considered a ripoff by coin collectors, and led to the end, for the time, of the commemorative coin series.
  
  Ohio-born Ezra Meeker had traveled the Trail with his family in 1852 and spent the final two decades of his long life before his death in 1928 publicizing the Oregon Trail, that it should not be forgotten. In 1926, at age 95, he appeared before a Senate committee, requesting that the government issue a commemorative coin that could be sold to raise money for markers to show where the Trail had been. The coin had originally been thought of by Idahoans, led by Dr. Minnie Howard, seeking to further preservation work at Fort Hall; Meeker broadened the idea. Congress authorized six million half dollars, and placed no restriction on when or at what mint the coins would be struck. Meeker's Oregon Trail Memorial Association (OTMA) had tens of thousands of pieces struck in 1926 and 1928, and did not sell them all. Nevertheless, most years between 1933 and 1939, it had small quantities of the half dollar coined, in some years from all three operating mints to produce mintmarked varieties, and raised prices considerably. (Full article...)
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  Official portrait, 1978

  
  Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. She was the fourth woman, the second American woman and the first Jewish woman of any nationality to fly in space, logging 145 hours in orbit.
  
  Recognized while still a child for her intellectual brilliance, Resnik was accepted at Carnegie Institute of Technology after becoming only the sixteenth woman in the history of the United States to have attained a perfect score on the SAT exam. She graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon before attaining a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland. (Full article...)
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  Starship Troopers is a 1997 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier, based on the 1959 novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Set in the 23rd century, the story follows teenager Johnny Rico and his comrades as they serve in the military of the United Citizen Federation, an Earth-based world government engaged in an interstellar war against an alien species known as the Arachnids. The film stars Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon, and Michael Ironside.
  
  Development of Starship Troopers began in 1991 as Bug Hunt at Outpost 7, written by Neumeier. After recognizing similarities between Neumeier's script and Heinlein's book, producer Jon Davison suggested aligning the script more closely with the novel to garner greater interest from studio executives. Despite these efforts development was slow, with studios hesitant to fund the costly project right up to the start of filming. Principal photography took place between April and October 1996 on a $100–110 million budget, of which nearly half was spent on the extensive computer-generated imagery (CGI) and practical effects required to vivify the Arachnid creatures. (Full article...)
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  Brown in 1948

  
  Jesse LeRoy Brown (October 13, 1926 – December 4, 1950) was a United States Navy officer. He was the first African-American aviator to complete the United States Navy's basic flight training program (though not the first African-American Navy aviator), the first African-American naval officer killed in the Korean War, and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
  
  Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to an impoverished family, Brown was avidly interested in aircraft from a young age. He graduated as salutatorian of his high school, notwithstanding its racial segregation, and later earned a degree from Ohio State University. Brown enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1946, becoming a midshipman. Brown earned his pilot wings on October 21, 1948, amid a flurry of press coverage. In January 1949 he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 32 (VF-32) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Leyte based at Naval Air Station Quonset Point. (Full article...)
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  Josip "Jozo" Tomasevich (1908 – October 15, 1994; Serbo-Croatian: Josip Tomašević) was an American economist and historian whose speciality was the economic and social history of Yugoslavia. Tomasevich was born in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, and after completing high school and attending a commercial academy, he earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Basel in Switzerland. In the mid-1930s, he worked at the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and published three well-received books on Yugoslavia's national debt, fiscal policy, and money and credit respectively.
  
  In 1938, he moved to the United States as the recipient of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship and conducted research at Harvard University before joining the academic staff of Stanford University. During World War II, Tomasevich worked for the Board of Economic Warfare and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and post-war he joined the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. In 1948, he joined the staff at San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University). He combined research and teaching there for twenty-five years until his retirement in 1973, which was broken by a year of teaching at Columbia University in 1954. Between 1943 and 1955, Tomasevich published two positively reviewed books on economic matters; one focused on marine resources and the other on the peasant economy of Yugoslavia. (Full article...)
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  Pound photographed in 1913 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

  
  
  
  Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).
  
  Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as H. D., Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 1915 publication of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in the late 19th or early 20th century, not to be influenced by Pound would be "like passing through a great blizzard and not feeling its cold". (Full article...)
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  The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, within New York City. The copper-clad statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
  
  The statue is a figure of a classically draped woman, likely inspired by the Roman goddess of liberty Libertas. In a contrapposto pose, she holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. With her left foot she steps on a broken chain and shackle, commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its dedication the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, being subsequently seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. (Full article...)
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  The Minute Man is an 1874 sculpture by Daniel Chester French in Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord, Massachusetts. It was created between 1871 and 1874 after extensive research, and was originally intended to be made of stone. The medium was switched to bronze and it was cast from ten Civil War-era cannons appropriated by Congress.
  
  The statue depicts a minuteman stepping away from his plow to join the patriot forces at the Battle of Concord, at the start of the American Revolutionary War. The young man has an overcoat thrown over his plow, and has a musket in his hand. Nineteenth-century art historians noticed that the pose resembles the pose of the Apollo Belvedere. Until the late twentieth century, it was assumed that the pose was transposed from the earlier statue. Based on Daniel Chester French's journals, modern art historians have shown that the Apollo Belvedere was only one of several statues that were used in the research for The Minute Man. (Full article...)
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  The Liberty Bell outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia in April 2017

  
  The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American independence located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell today is located across the street from Independence Hall in the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park.
  
  The bell was commissioned in 1752 by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly from the London-based firm Lester and Pack, later renamed the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof", a Biblical reference from the Book of Leviticus (25:10). The bell first cracked when rung after its arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose surnames appear on the bell. In its early years, the bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations. (Full article...)
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  Cast of the holotype specimen at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History; the tail and uncertain bones are at left, the body at right

  
  Podokesaurus is a genus of coelophysoid dinosaur that lived in what is now the eastern United States during the Early Jurassic Period. The first fossil was discovered by the geologist Mignon Talbot near Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1910. The specimen was fragmentary, preserving much of the body, limbs, and tail. In 1911, Talbot described and named the new genus and species Podokesaurus holyokensis based on it. The full name can be translated as "swift-footed lizard of Holyoke". This discovery made Talbot the first woman to find and describe a non-bird dinosaur. The holotype fossil was recognized as significant and was studied by other researchers, but was lost when the building it was kept in burned down in 1917; no unequivocal Podokesaurus specimens have since been discovered. It was made state dinosaur of Massachusetts in 2022.
  
  Estimated to have been about 1 m (3 ft) in length and 1–40 kg (2–90 lb) in weight, Podokesaurus was lightly constructed with hollow bones, and would have been similar to Coelophysis, being slender, long-necked, and with sharp, recurved teeth. The vertebrae were very light and hollow, and some were slightly concave at each end. The cervical (neck) vertebrae were relatively large in length and diameter compared to the dorsal (back) vertebrae, and the caudal (tail) vertebrae were long and slender. The humerus (upper-arm bone) was small and delicate, less than half the length of the femur (thigh-bone). The pubis (pubic bone) was very long, expanding both at the front and hind ends. The femur was slender, nearly straight, had thin walls, and was expanded at the back side of its lower end. The three metatarsals of the lower leg were closely appressed together forming a compact structure. (Full article...)
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  The Flying Eagle cent is a one-cent piece struck by the Mint of the United States as a pattern coin in 1856 and for circulation in 1857 and 1858. The coin was designed by Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre, with the eagle in flight based on the work of Longacre's predecessor, Christian Gobrecht.
  
  By the early 1850s, the large cent (about the size of a half dollar) being issued by the Mint was becoming both unpopular in commerce and expensive to mint. After experimenting with various sizes and compositions, the Mint decided on an alloy of 88% copper and 12% nickel for a new, smaller cent. After the Mint produced patterns with an 1856 date and gave them to legislators and officials, Congress formally authorized the new piece in February 1857. (Full article...)
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  The Livestock Conservancy, formerly known as the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC) and prior to that, the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, is a nonprofit organization focused on preserving and promoting rare breeds, also known as "heritage breeds" of livestock. Founded in 1977, through the efforts of livestock breed enthusiasts concerned about the disappearance of many of the US's heritage livestock breeds, The Livestock Conservancy was the pioneer livestock preservation organization in the United States, and remains a leading organization in that field. It has initiated programs that have saved multiple breeds from extinction, and works closely with similar organizations in other countries, including Rare Breeds Canada. With 3,000 members, a staff of eleven and a 19-member board of directors, the organization has an operating budget of over a million dollars.
  
  The Livestock Conservancy maintains a conservation priority list that divides endangered breeds of horses, asses, sheep, goats, cattle, rabbits, pigs and poultry into five categories based on population numbers and historical interest. The organization has published several books, and works with breed registries and other groups on several aspects of breed preservation, including genetic testing, historical documentation, animal rescue and marketing. Preservation of genetic material is of special interest to the Conservancy, and for a period of time it maintained a gene bank that was later transferred to the United States Department of Agriculture. It has also developed and published several heritage definitions, including parameters for heritage breeds of cattle and poultry. (Full article...)
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  WBPX-TV (channel 68) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, airing programming from the Ion Television network. It is owned by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, which also owns Woburn-licensed Grit station WDPX-TV (channel 58); the two channels share the same TV spectrum. WBPX-TV and WDPX-TV are broadcast from a tower shared with WUNI and WWJE-DT on Parmenter Road in Hudson, Massachusetts.
  
  WBPX-TV's programming is duplicated on WPXG-TV (channel 21) in Concord, New Hampshire, which shares its channel with Lowell, Massachusetts–licensed Daystar station WYDN (channel 48) and broadcasts from Fort Mountain near Epsom, New Hampshire. (Full article...)
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  The American Bible Challenge is an American biblical-themed television game show created by Game Show Network. The series is hosted by comedian Jeff Foxworthy, with gospel musician Kirk Franklin joining Foxworthy as co-host and announcer in the second season. The series debuted on August 23, 2012.
  
  Each season of the series is played as a nine-episode tournament with six episodes of opening rounds, two semi-finals, and a final. Each opening round starts with three teams of three contestants answering questions about the Bible. The teams then nominate their strongest contestants to answer questions by themselves without any assistance from their teammates. After this part of the round, the third-placed team is eliminated and the two highest-scoring teams compete in a final round with the scores being reset to zero. The remaining teams answer as many questions correctly as possible within one minute, and the highest-scoring team from this round wins a $20,000 prize which is given to the team's nominated charity. The winning team then advances to a semi-final game against two other winning teams, the winning team from this game advances to a final game where the grand prize is raised to $100,000. Thus, the team that wins the season-long tournament earns a total of $140,000 for their charity. (Full article...)
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  Hurricane Andrew at peak intensity near the Bahamas on August 23

  
  Hurricane Andrew was a compact, but very powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that struck the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana in August 1992. It was the most destructive hurricane to ever hit Florida in terms of structures damaged or destroyed, and remained the costliest in financial terms until Hurricane Irma surpassed it 25 years later. Andrew was also the strongest landfalling hurricane in the United States in decades and the costliest hurricane to strike anywhere in the country, until it was surpassed by Katrina in 2005.
  
  Andrew is one of only four tropical cyclones to make landfall in the continental United States as a Category 5, alongside the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, 1969's Camille, and 2018's Michael. While the storm also caused major damage in The Bahamas and Louisiana, the greatest impact was felt in South Florida, where the storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, with 1-minute sustained wind speeds as high as 165 mph (266 km/h) and a gust as high as 174 mph (280 km/h). (Full article...)
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  Troika is a 1969 American comedy art film written, directed, and produced by Charles Fredric Hobbs. It stars Hobbs, Richard Faun, Morgan Upton, Nate Thurmond, Gloria Rossi, and members of the San Francisco Art Institute. Its three parts are built around a fictional account of the director's attempt to gain financing for a film titled Troika.
  
  Hobbs conceived the plot after working with the filmmakers Ron Bostwick and Robert Blaisdell on the short film Trojan Horse. Troika began as a "modern morality play"; the title comes from the Russian word for a set of three, reflecting the film's three segments. It was filmed in early to mid-1969 in locations in and around California. The score was a collaboration between Hobbs and the editor-co-director Gordon Mueller. (Full article...)
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  Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a 2001 American animated science fantasy action-adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise and produced by Don Hahn, from a screenplay by Tab Murphy, and a story by Murphy, Wise, Trousdale, Joss Whedon, and the writing team of Bryce Zabel and Jackie Zabel. The film features an ensemble voice cast that includes Michael J. Fox, Cree Summer, James Garner, Leonard Nimoy, Don Novello, Phil Morris, Claudia Christian, Jacqueline Obradors, Jim Varney, Florence Stanley, John Mahoney, David Ogden Stiers, and Corey Burton. The film is set in 1914 and tells the story of young linguist Milo Thatch, who gains possession of a sacred book, which he believes will guide him and a crew of mercenaries to the lost city of Atlantis.
  
  Development of the film began after production had finished on The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Instead of another musical, directors Trousdale and Wise, producer Hahn, and screenwriter Murphy decided to do an adventure film inspired by the works of Jules Verne. Atlantis: The Lost Empire was notable for adopting the distinctive visual style of comic book artist Mike Mignola, one of the film's production designers. The film made greater use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) than any of Disney's previous traditionally animated features and remains one of the few to have been shot in anamorphic format. Linguist Marc Okrand constructed an Atlantean language specifically for use in the film. James Newton Howard provided the film's musical score. The film was released at a time when audience interest in animated films was shifting away from hand-drawn animation toward films with full CGI. (Full article...)
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  Path of AAL77 from Dulles International Airport to the Pentagon, just outside of Washington, D.C.

  
  American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. The Boeing 757-200 aircraft serving the flight was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijacked airliner was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, killing all 64 aboard and another 125 in the building.
  
  Flight 77 became airborne at 08:20 ET. Thirty-one minutes after takeoff, the attackers stormed the cockpit and forced the passengers and crew to the rear of the cabin, threatening the hostages but initially sparing all of them. Lead hijacker Hani Hanjour assumed control of the aircraft after having undergone extensive flight training as part of his preparation for the attack. In the meantime, two people aboard discreetly made phone calls to family members and relayed information on the situation without the knowledge of their assailants. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that Bazzini, established in 1886, is the oldest extant nut company in the United States?
• ... that journalist Isaac Saul was named as one of the 16 people who had the greatest influence in the 2016 U.S. election?
• ... that soprano Vera Curtis was the first singer trained exclusively in the United States to perform with the Metropolitan Opera?
• ... that, according to its owner, KLEF in Anchorage, Alaska, was one of just three remaining commercially operated classical-music radio stations in the United States, as of 2013?
• ... that a portrait engraver made the controversial decision to change a Sioux chief's war bonnet so that it would fit on the 1899 United States five-dollar silver certificate?
• ... that Alexandra Hunt, a former stripper, opened an OnlyFans account in response to an Internet troll during her campaign for a seat in the United States House of Representatives?
• ... that channel 31 in Denver was planned to broadcast in Spanish – until the 1980 United States census figures came out?
• ... that after the McVey Fire, the United States Forest Service accidentally planted thousands of acres of non-native trees?

Selected society biography -

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (née Robinson; born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as the first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017, being married to Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In her early legal career, she worked at the law firm Sidley Austin where she met her future husband. She subsequently worked in nonprofits and as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago. Later, she served as vice president for community and external affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle married Barack in 1992, and they have two daughters. (Full article...)

Selected image -

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  Ansel Adams

  Photograph credit: J. Malcolm Greany

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

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

  Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) was a politician and lawyer who served as the 23rd President of the United States from 1889 to 1893. Before ascending to the presidency, Harrison established himself as a prominent local attorney, church leader, and politician in Indianapolis, Indiana, and as a Union Army soldier in the American Civil War. After a term in the U.S. Senate (1881–1887), the Republican Harrison was elected to the presidency in 1888. Hallmarks of his administration included unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff and Sherman Antitrust Act, as well as modernizing the U.S. Navy and admitting six new western states to the Union.
• 
  James A. Garfield

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

  James A. Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881, until his death by assassination six and a half months later. He had been shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2 that year by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker. According to some historians, Garfield might have survived his wounds had the doctors attending him had at their disposal today's medical research and techniques. Instead, they probed the wound with unsterilized fingers and equipment, trying to locate the bullet, and the resulting infection was a significant factor in his death.
  
  This picture is a line engraving of Garfield, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents, which was reportedly given to Treasury Secretary Lyman J. Gage.
• 
  I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse

  Photograph: Kevin Rofidal, United States Coast Guard; edit: Papa Lima Whiskey

  The I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Once the third-busiest bridge in the state, it suddenly collapsed on August 1, 2007, killing 13 and injuring 145. Rescue of people stranded on the bridge was complete in three hours, while recovery of bodies—involving 75 local, state and federal agencies—took three weeks. An NTSB investigation cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that a too-thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets.
• 
  "Join, or Die"

  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  "Join, or Die", a 1754 editorial cartoon by Benjamin Franklin, a woodcut showing a snake severed into eight pieces, with each segment labeled with the initials of a British American colony or region (not all colonies are represented). It was originally about the importance of colonial unity against France during the French and Indian War, and re-used in the years ahead of the American Revolution to signify unity against Great Britain.
• 
  Franklin Pierce

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

  Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States (1853–1857), a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. He alienated anti-slavery groups by supporting and signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, yet these efforts failed to stem conflict between North and South. The South eventually seceded and the American Civil War began in 1861. Historians and scholars generally rank Pierce as one of the worst and least memorable U.S. presidents.
• 
  Easter Monday

  Photo: Harris & Ewing; Restoration: Lise Broer

  Two boys enjoy treats during the 1911 Easter egg roll at the White House lawn, the highest-profile event on Easter Monday in the United States. The day after Easter is a holiday in some largely Christian cultures, especially Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox cultures. The White House Easter egg roll has been held annually since 1814.
• 
  Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

  Photograph: Warren K. Leffler; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Vivian Malone entering Foster Auditorium on June 11, 1963, to register for classes at the University of Alabama through a crowd that includes photographers, National Guard members, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. During the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, George Wallace, the Democratic Governor of Alabama, stood at the door of the auditorium to try to block the entry of two black students, Malone and James Hood. Intended by Wallace as a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", the stand ended when President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and Guard General Henry Graham commanded Wallace to step aside.
• 
  Racial segregation in the United States

  Photo: Marion Post Wolcott; Restoration: Lise Broer

  An African American man climbs the stairs to a theater's "colored" entrance in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1939. The door on the ground floor is labeled "white men only". De jure (legally enforced) racial segregation in the United States was eliminated by a series of Supreme Court decisions starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
• 
  Emma Smith DeVoe

  Photograph credit: James & Bushnell; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Emma Smith DeVoe (August 22, 1848 – September 3, 1927) was a leading advocate for women's suffrage in the United States in the early 20th century. She was inspired as a child by hearing a speech by Susan B. Anthony, and became an excellent public speaker over time, being mentored by Anthony herself. After campaigning in South Dakota and successfully obtaining the vote for women in Idaho, the National American Woman Suffrage Association sent her to Kentucky, and she eventually made speeches and organized new suffrage groups in 28 states and territories. Moving to Washington, she was made president of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association; in 1910, the state became the fifth in the country to grant women suffrage.
• 
  Engrossed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence

  Document: Thomas Jefferson et al.

  The engrossed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, which was ratified on July 4, 1776, and signed over the following months.
  
  The history of this document is one of reverence and neglect. After being signed, it was moved several times, first with the Continental Congress and later with the Secretary of State. When the British razed Washington during the War of 1812, it was evacuated to Virginia. From 1841 to 1876, the document was on public display in conditions which caused it to fade drastically. Consequently, from 1892 to 1922 it was stored between two glass plates and exhibited only rarely. After a period at the Library of Congress, the engrossed copy is now held by the National Archives. It is exhibited in a titanium-aluminum case filled with argon.
• 
  Great White Fleet

  Artist: William Allen Rogers; Restoration: Lise Broer

  An editorial cartoon from the New York Herald depicting (left to right) Uncle Sam, George Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt on a pier welcoming the Great White Fleet back into port. Roosevelt had ordered the fleet, which consisted of 16 battleships and various escort ships, to circumnavigate the globe as a demonstration of growing American military power and blue-water navy capability.
• 
  1933 double eagle

  Photo: United States Mint

  The 1933 double eagle is a gold coin of the United States with a $20 face value. 445,500 specimens of this Saint-Gaudens double eagle were minted in 1933, the last year of production for the double eagle, but no specimens ever officially circulated, and nearly all were melted down due to the discontinuance of the domestic gold standard in 1933. It currently holds the record for the highest price paid at auction for a single U.S. coin, having been sold for $7.59 million.
• 
  Horseshoe Bend (Arizona)

  Photograph: Christian Mehlführer

  Horseshoe Bend is a horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, located 5 miles (8 km) downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell, near the town of Page, Arizona. It is accessible via hiking trail or an access road.
• 
  John Quincy Adams

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

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

Selected culture biography -

Angelina Jolie (Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as one of the world's most attractive people, as well as the world's "most beautiful" woman, titles for which she has received substantial media attention.

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, as well as three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.

Selected location -

Louisville is Kentucky's largest city. The settlement that became the City of Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark and is named after King Louis XVI of France. Louisville is famous as the home of "The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports": the Kentucky Derby, the widely watched first race of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.

Louisville is situated in north-central Kentucky on the Kentucky-Indiana border at the only natural obstacle in the Ohio River, the Falls of the Ohio. Although situated in a Southern state, Louisville is influenced by both Midwestern and Southern culture, and is commonly referred to as either the northernmost Southern city or the southernmost Northern city in the United States.

Louisville has been the site of many important innovations through history. Notable residents have included inventor Thomas Edison, the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, boxing legend Muhammad Ali, newscaster Diane Sawyer, writer Hunter S. Thompson, and actor Tom Cruise. Notable events occurring in the city include the first public viewing place of Edison's light bulb, the first library open to African Americans in the South, and medical advances including the first human hand transplant, the first self-contained artificial heart transplant and the development site of the first cervical cancer vaccine.

Selected quote -

Anniversaries for December 27

• 1657 – Citizens of New Netherland presented the Flushing Remonstrance to Peter Stuyvesant, the director general, requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship.
• 1814 – The destruction of the schooner USS Carolina brings to an end Commodore Daniel Patterson's makeshift fleet, which fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
• 1845 – John L. O'Sullivan, in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argued that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny", popularizing the term's use.
• 1927 – Show Boat, considered to be the first truly American musical, opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
• 1932 – New York City's Radio City Music Hall opened with the world's largest auditorium at the time.
• 1968 – Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital crewed mission to the Moon.

Selected cuisines, dishes and foods -

The cuisine of New York City comprises many cuisines belonging to various ethnic groups that have entered the United States through the city. Almost all ethnic cuisines are well represented in New York, both within and outside the various ethnic neighborhoods. (Full article...)

Selected panorama -

Joshua Tree National Park in Southeastern California.

Joshua Tree National Park in Southeastern California.

More did you know? -

• ... that Tower Optical coin-operated binoculars (pictured) can hold up to 2,000 US quarters and have kept their same distinctive look since first manufactured in 1932?
• ... that Bayne-Fowle House, a National Register of Historic Places registered property located at 811 Prince Street in Alexandra, Virginia, United States, served as a military hospital in 1864?
• ... that Arizona SB1070, the state's new immigration enforcement law, has attracted national attention as the broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration measure in decades within the United States?

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