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Introduction

Flag of the United States of America

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

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  Kaske, c. 1974

  
  Robert Earl Kaske (June 1, 1921 – August 8, 1989) was an American professor of medieval literature. He spent most of his career at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he was the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, and where he founded one of the preeminent medieval studies graduate programs in North America. His published output included lengthy interpretations of Beowulf, and of poems and passages by Dante and Chaucer, and frequently constituted leading studies. Kaske particularly enjoyed solving cruxes, with articles on problematic passages in works such as Pearl, Piers Plowman, the Divine Comedy, "The Husband's Message", "The Descent into Hell", and Beowulf.
  
  Born in Cincinnati and a straight-A student in high school, Kaske studied liberal arts at Xavier University and joined a variety of student literary organizations there. He was a four-year member of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, and was commissioned a second lieutenant before his 1942 graduation; much of the next four years was spent with the Army in the South Pacific during World War II. While there he read a story about a dusk-to-dawn conversation between two professors and, entranced by the prospect of such intellectual discussions, decided on an academic career. Kaske enrolled in the English literature program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) on the back of the G.I. Bill, received his master's in 1947, and his PhD in 1950. (Full article...)
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  Conan the Barbarian is a 1982 American epic sword-and-sorcery film directed by John Milius and written by Milius and Oliver Stone. Based on Robert E. Howard's Conan, the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones, and tells the story of a barbarian warrior named Conan (Schwarzenegger) who seeks vengeance for the death of his parents at the hands of Thulsa Doom (Jones), the leader of a snake cult.
  
  Ideas for a Conan film were proposed as early as 1970; executive producer Edward R. Pressman and associate producer Edward Summer began a concerted effort to get the film made in 1975. It took them two years to obtain the film rights, after which they recruited Schwarzenegger for the lead role and Stone to draft a script. Pressman lacked capital for the endeavor. In 1979, after having his proposals for investments rejected by the major studios, he sold the project to Dino De Laurentiis; his daughter Raffaella produced the film. Milius was appointed as director and he rewrote Stone's script. The final screenplay integrated elements from various Howard stories, as well as the Japanese films Seven Samurai (1954) and Kwaidan (1965). Filming took place in Spain over five months in the regions around Madrid and the province of Almería. The sets, designed by Ron Cobb, were based on Dark Age cultures and Frank Frazetta's paintings of Conan. Milius eschewed optical effects, preferring to realize his ideas with mechanical constructs and optical illusions. Schwarzenegger performed most of his own stunts, and two types of sword, costing $10,000 each, were forged for his character. The editing process took over a year, and several violent scenes were cut out. (Full article...)
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  The indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in the Florida peninsula of what is now the United States approximately 14,000 to 15,000 years ago, probably following large game. The Paleo-Indians found an arid landscape that supported plants and animals adapted to prairie and xeric scrub conditions. Large animals became extinct in Florida around 11,000 years ago.
  
  Climate changes 6,500 years ago brought a wetter landscape. The Paleo-Indians slowly adapted to the new conditions. Archaeologists call the cultures that resulted from the adaptations Archaic peoples. They were better suited for environmental changes than their ancestors, and created many tools with the resources they had. Approximately 5,000 years ago, the climate shifted again to cause the regular flooding from Lake Okeechobee that gave rise to the Everglades ecosystems. (Full article...)
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  The Indian Head cent, also known as an Indian Head penny, was a one-cent coin ($0.01) produced by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1859 to 1909. It was designed by James Barton Longacre, the Chief Engraver at the Philadelphia Mint.
  
  From 1793 to 1857, the cent was a copper coin about the size of a half dollar. The discovery of gold in California caused a large inflation in prices. As gold became more abundant, the price of copper rose. Cent and half-cent manufacture was one of the only profit centers for the Mint and by 1850 it began looking for alternatives. In 1857, the Mint reduced the size of the cent and changed the composition to 12% nickel and 88% copper (copper-nickel), issuing a new design, the Flying Eagle cent. The new pieces were identical in diameter to modern cents, though thicker. This was the first use of copper-nickel for United States coins. The copper-nickel made them look brighter and they began to be called "White cent" or "Nicks". (Full article...)
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  Sheet music cover (1897)

  
  "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" is a song written and composed by the American songwriter Paul Dresser in 1897. It is among the best-selling songs of the 19th century, earning over $100,000 from sheet-music revenues. Written and composed by American songwriter Paul Dresser, it was published by the Tin Pan Alley firm of Howley, Haviland and Company in October 1897. The lyrics of the ballad reminisce about life near Dresser's childhood home by the Wabash River in Indiana, United States. The song remained popular for decades, and the Indiana General Assembly adopted it as the official state song on March 14, 1913. The song was the basis for a 1923 film of the same title. Its longtime popularity led to the emergence of several lyrical versions, including an 1898 anti-war song and a Swedish version that was a number-one hit.
  
  The song was composed during a transitory time in musical history when songs first began to be recorded for the phonograph. It was among the earliest pieces of popular music to be recorded. Dresser's inability to control the distribution of phonograph cylinders led him and his company to join other composers to petition the United States Congress to expand federal copyright protections over the new technology. (Full article...)
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  Seen from the east in 2010

  
  1 Wall Street (also known as the Irving Trust Company Building, the Bank of New York Building, and the BNY Mellon Building) is a 654-foot-tall (199 m) Art Deco skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The building, which occupies a full city block, consists of two sections. The original 50-story building was designed by Ralph Thomas Walker of the firm Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker and constructed between 1929 and 1931 for Irving Trust, an early-20th-century American bank. A 28-story annex to the south (later expanded to 36 stories) was designed by the successor firm Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines and built between 1963 and 1965.
  
  The limestone facade consists of slight inwardly-curved bays with fluting to resemble curtains. On the lower stories are narrow windows and elaborate entrances. The massing of 1 Wall Street incorporates numerous small setbacks, and there are chamfers at the corners of the original building. The top of the original building consists of a freestanding tower with fluted windowless bays. The facade of the annex is crafted in a style reminiscent of the original structure. The original building has an ornate lobby, known as the Red Room, with colored mosaics. The 10th through 45th floors were originally rented to tenants, while the other floors contained offices, lounges, and other spaces for Irving Trust. After 1 Wall Street was converted to a residential building, the upper stories were divided into 566 condominium apartments. (Full article...)
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  Love, Inc. is an American television sitcom created by Andrew Secunda, which originally aired for one season on UPN from September 22, 2005, to May 11, 2006. With an ensemble cast led by Busy Philipps, Vince Vieluf, Reagan Gomez-Preston, Ion Overman and Holly Robinson Peete, the show revolves around five matchmakers working at a dating agency. The series was produced by Chase TV, the Littlefield Company, Burg/Koules Television, and Paramount Television. It was distributed by UPN in its original run and later by LivingTV and Nelonen in the United Kingdom and Finland respectively. The executive producers were Adam Chase, Warren Littlefield, Mark Burg and Oren Koules.
  
  The series was originally developed as a vehicle and sitcom debut for Shannen Doherty under the working title Wingwoman. Though picked up by UPN, Doherty was removed from the project at the request of the network due to her poor reception by preview audiences; she was replaced by Philipps. The show was set in New York City, but filming took place at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles and other locations in California. It included contemporary hip hop music and was promoted heavily by UPN to attract an urban audience, and to that end it was paired with Everybody Hates Chris as its lead-in on Thursday nights. (Full article...)
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  Casino Royale is a 2006 spy film, the twenty-first in the Eon Productions James Bond series, and the third screen adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1953 novel of the same name. Directed by Martin Campbell from a screenplay by Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis, it stars Daniel Craig in his first appearance as Bond, alongside Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, and Jeffrey Wright. In the film, Bond is on a mission to bankrupt terrorism financier Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen) in a high-stakes poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro.
  
  Following Die Another Day (2002), Eon decided to reboot the franchise, attempting to provide a realistic and darker exploration of a less experienced and more vulnerable Bond. Casting involved a widespread search for a new actor to succeed Pierce Brosnan as Bond; the choice of Craig, announced in October 2005, initially proved controversial. Principal photography took place in the Bahamas, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic, with interior sets built at Pinewood Studios and Barrandov Studios. Casino Royale features primarily practical stuntwork as opposed to the computer-generated placements seen in other Bond films. (Full article...)
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  Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, who co-wrote the script with William Wisher. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Robert Patrick, it is the sequel to The Terminator (1984) and is the second installment in the Terminator franchise. In the film, the malevolent artificial intelligence Skynet sends a Terminator—a highly advanced killing machine—back in time to 1995 to kill the future leader of the human resistance John Connor when he is a child. The resistance sends back a less advanced, reprogrammed Terminator to protect Connor and ensure the future of humanity.
  
  The Terminator was considered a significant success, enhancing Schwarzenegger's and Cameron's careers, but work on a sequel stalled because of animosity between the pair and Hemdale Film Corporation, which partially owned the film's rights. In 1990, Schwarzenegger and Cameron persuaded Carolco Pictures to purchase the rights from The Terminator producer Gale Anne Hurd and Hemdale, which was financially struggling. A release date was set for the following year, leaving Cameron and Wisher seven weeks to write the script. Principal photography lasted from October 1990 to March 1991, taking place in and around Los Angeles on an estimated $94–102 million budget, making it the most expensive film made at the time. The advanced visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which include the first use of a computer-generated main character in a blockbuster film, resulted in a schedule overrun. Theatrical prints were not delivered to theaters until the night before the picture's release on July 3, 1991. (Full article...)
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  An aerial view of Lexington on 14 October 1941

  
  USS Lexington (CV-2), nicknamed "Lady Lex", was the name ship of her class of two aircraft carriers built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. Originally designed as a Lexington-class battlecruiser, she was converted into one of the Navy's first aircraft carriers during construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which essentially terminated all new battleship and battlecruiser construction. The ship entered service in 1928 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet for her entire career. Lexington and her sister ship, Saratoga, were used to develop and refine carrier tactics in a series of annual exercises before World War II. On more than one occasion these included successfully staged surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ship's turbo-electric propulsion system allowed her to supplement the electrical supply of Tacoma, Washington, during a drought in late 1929 to early 1930. She also delivered medical personnel and relief supplies to Managua, Nicaragua, after an earthquake in 1931.
  
  Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began on 7 December 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. Her mission was canceled and she returned to Pearl Harbor a week later. After a few days, she was sent to create a diversion from the force en route to relieve the besieged Wake Island garrison by attacking Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands. The island surrendered before the relief force got close enough, and the mission was canceled. A planned attack on Wake Island in January 1942 had to be canceled when a submarine sank the oiler required to supply the fuel for the return trip. Lexington was sent to the Coral Sea the following month to block any Japanese advances into the area. The ship was spotted by Japanese search aircraft while approaching Rabaul, New Britain, but her aircraft shot down most of the Japanese bombers that attacked her. Together with the carrier Yorktown, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March. (Full article...)
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  Irataba, c. 1864

  
  Irataba (Mohave: eecheeyara tav [eːt͡ʃeːjara tav], also known as Yara tav, Yarate:va, Arateve; c. 1814 – 1874) was a leader of the Mohave Nation, known as a mediator between the Mohave and the United States. He was born near the Colorado River in present-day Arizona. Irataba was a renowned orator and one of the first Mohave to speak English, a skill he used to develop relations with the United States.
  
  Irataba first encountered European Americans in 1851, when he assisted the Sitgreaves Expedition. In 1854, he met Amiel Whipple, then leading an expedition crossing the Colorado. Several Mohave aided the group, and Irataba agreed to escort them through the territory of the Paiute to the Old Spanish Trail, which would take them to southern California. Noted for his large physical size and gentle demeanor, he later helped and protected other expeditions, earning him a reputation among whites as the most important native leader in the region. (Full article...)
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  Holmes, c. 1879

  
  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (/hoʊmz/; August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among the fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer, and inventor.
  
  Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Holmes was educated at Phillips Academy and Harvard College. After graduating from Harvard in 1829, he briefly studied law before turning to the medical profession. He began writing poetry at an early age; one of his most famous works, "Old Ironsides", was published in 1830 and was influential in the eventual preservation of the USS Constitution. Following training at the prestigious medical schools of Paris, Holmes was granted his Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School in 1836. He taught at Dartmouth Medical School before returning to teach at Harvard and, for a time, served as dean there. During his long professorship, he became an advocate for various medical reforms and notably posited the controversial idea that doctors were capable of carrying puerperal fever from patient to patient. Holmes retired from Harvard in 1882 and continued writing poetry, novels and essays until his death in 1894. (Full article...)
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  "Faces" is an episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they are stranded in the Delta Quadrant, far from the rest of the Federation. The fourteenth episode of the first season, first broadcast by UPN on May 8, 1995. "Faces", was developed from a story by Jonathan Glassner and Kenneth Biller, Biller also wrote the teleplay, which was directed by Winrich Kolbe.
  
  In this episode, a Vidiian scientist named Sulan (Brian Markinson) captures and performs medical experiments on the half-Klingon, half-human B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson). He separates her into a full-blooded Klingon and a full-blooded human to find a cure for a disease, known as the Phage. The Voyager crew rescues Torres and restores her to her original state, while she attempts to reconcile with her identity as a half-human half-Klingon. The episode guest stars Rob LaBelle as an unnamed Talaxian prisoner. Actress Joy Kilpatrick was cast as Dawson's photo double to avoid a reliance on split screen. (Full article...)
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  Congress by Charles Ware, 1816

  
  USS Congress was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. James Hackett built her at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and she was launched on 15 August 1799. She was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized. The name "Congress" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed.Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Congress and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than the standard frigates of the period.
  
  Her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War. During the War of 1812 she made several extended length cruises in company with her sister ship President and captured, or assisted in the capture of twenty British merchant ships. At the end of 1813, due to a lack of materials to repair her, she was placed in ordinary for the remainder of the war. In 1815 she returned to service for the Second Barbary War and made patrols through 1816. In the 1820s she helped suppress piracy in the West Indies, made several voyages to South America, and was the first U.S. warship to visit China. Congress spent her last ten years of service as a receiving ship until ordered broken up in 1834. (Full article...)
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  A B-52H bomber taking off from Minot Air Force Base in August 2007

  
  On 29 August 2007, six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded onto a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52H heavy bomber at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and transported to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The nuclear warheads in the missiles were supposed to have been removed before the missiles were taken from their storage bunker. The missiles with the nuclear warheads were not reported missing and remained mounted to the aircraft at both Minot and Barksdale for 36 hours. During this period, the warheads were not protected by the various mandatory security precautions for nuclear weapons.
  
  The incident was reported to the top levels of the United States military and referred to by observers as a Bent Spear incident, which indicates a nuclear weapon incident below the more severe Broken Arrow tier. (Full article...)
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  The Short Symphony, or Symphony No. 2, is a symphony written by the American composer Aaron Copland from 1931 to 1933. The name derives from the symphony's short length of only 15 minutes. The work is dedicated to Copland's friend, the Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez. The symphony's first movement is in sonata-allegro form, and its slow second movement follows an adapted ternary form. The third movement resembles the sonata-allegro but has indications of cyclic form. The composition contains complex rhythms and polyharmonies, and it incorporates the composer's emerging interest in serialism as well as influences from Mexican music and German cinema. The symphony includes scoring for a heckelphone and a piano while omitting trombones and a percussion section. Copland later arranged the symphony as a sextet.
  
  The symphony was not widely performed during Copland's lifetime, largely due to the piece's challenging rhythmic variations. After Serge Koussevitzky and Leopold Stokowski both declined to conduct the premiere, Chávez agreed to deliver it in 1934 in Mexico City. The symphony eventually received its U.S. premiere in 1944, with subsequent concert performances in the 1950s. The piece's first recording was made in 1969 with Copland conducting. Though Copland thought of the Short Symphony as "one of the best things I ever wrote", some critics found it to be fragmented and cacophonous. Others agreed with Copland's assessment, describing the symphony as a masterpiece and a significant work in both Copland's career and the development of modernist music. (Full article...)
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  The American aircraft carrier USS Lexington explodes on 8 May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.

  
  The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the battle was the first naval action in which the opposing fleets neither sighted nor fired upon one another, attacking over the horizon from aircraft carriers instead. It was also the first military battle between two aircraft carriers.
  
  To strengthen their defensive position in the South Pacific, the Japanese decided to invade and occupy Port Moresby (in New Guinea) and Tulagi (in the southeastern Solomon Islands). The plan, Operation MO, involved several major units of Japan's Combined Fleet. Two fleet carriers and a light carrier were assigned to provide air cover for the invasion forces, under the overall command of Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue. The U.S. learned of the Japanese plan through signals intelligence and sent two U.S. Navy carrier task forces and a joint Australian-American cruiser force to oppose the offensive, under the overall command of U.S. Admiral Frank J. Fletcher. (Full article...)
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  The Turban Head eagle, also known as the Capped Bust eagle, was a ten-dollar gold piece, or eagle, struck by the United States Mint from 1795 to 1804. The piece was designed by Robert Scot, and was the first in the eagle series, which continued until the Mint ceased striking gold coins for circulation in 1933. The common name is a misnomer; Liberty does not wear a turban but a cap, believed by some to be a pileus or Phrygian cap (Liberty cap): her hair twisting around the headgear makes it resemble a turban.
  
  The eagle was the largest denomination authorized by the Mint Act of 1792, which established the Bureau of the Mint. It was not struck until 1795, as the Mint at first struck copper and silver coins. The number of stars on the obverse was initially intended to be equal to the number of states in the Union, but with the number at 16, that idea was abandoned in favor of using 13 stars in honor of the original states. The initial reverse, featuring an eagle with a wreath in its mouth, proved unpopular and was replaced by a heraldic eagle. (Full article...)
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  Shoulder sleeve insignia of the 13th Airborne Division.

  
  The 13th Airborne Division was an airborne forces formation of division-size of the United States Army that was active during World War II. The division was commanded for most of its existence by Major General Elbridge G. Chapman. It was officially activated in the United States in August 1943 at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, remaining active until February 1946, however it never saw combat.
  
  After activation the division remained in the United States to complete its training. This training was completed by September 1944, but had to be extended by a further four months when the division provided replacements for the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The division also encountered delays in mounting large-scale training exercises due to a lack of transport aircraft in the United States. This shortage was caused by the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions taking priority over the 13th in terms of equipment due to the two divisions serving in combat in Europe. As a consequence of these delays the division was not fully trained and combat-ready until January 1945, and was transferred to France and the European Theater of Operations in February. (Full article...)
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  Large crowd looking at the burned body of Washington

  
  Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fryer, the wife of his employer in rural Robinson, Texas. He was chained by his neck and dragged out of the county court by observers. He was then paraded through the street, all while being stabbed and beaten, before being held down and castrated. He was then lynched in front of Waco's city hall.
  
  Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack. There was a celebratory atmosphere among the people at the spectacle of the murder, and many children attended during their lunch hour. Members of the mob cut off his fingers and hung him over a bonfire after saturating him with coal oil. He was repeatedly lowered and raised over the fire for about two hours. After the fire was extinguished, his charred torso was dragged through the town. A professional photographer took pictures as the event unfolded, providing rare imagery of a lynching in progress. The pictures were printed and sold as postcards in Waco. (Full article...)
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  Male

  
  The American goldfinch (Spinus tristis) is a small North American bird in the finch family. It is migratory, ranging from mid-Alberta to North Carolina during the breeding season, and from just south of the Canada–United States border to Mexico during the winter.
  
  The only finch in its subfamily to undergo a complete molt, the American goldfinch displays sexual dichromatism: the male is a vibrant yellow in the summer and an olive color during the winter, while the female is a dull yellow-brown shade which brightens only slightly during the summer. The male displays brightly colored plumage during the breeding season to attract a mate. (Full article...)
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  La Salle's Expedition to Louisiana in 1684, painted in 1844 by Theodore Gudin. La Belle is on the left, Le Joly is in the middle, and L'Aimable is grounded in the distance, right.

  
  The French colonization of Texas started when Robert Cavelier de La Salle intended to found the colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River, but inaccurate maps and navigational errors caused his ships to anchor instead 400 miles (640 km) to the west, off the coast of Texas. The colony survived until 1688. The present-day town of Inez is near the fort's site. The colony faced numerous difficulties during its brief existence, including Native American raids, epidemics, and harsh conditions. From that base, La Salle led several expeditions to find the Mississippi River. These did not succeed, but La Salle did explore much of the Rio Grande and parts of East Texas.
  
  During one of his absences in 1686, the colony's last ship was wrecked, leaving the colonists unable to obtain resources from the French colonies of the Caribbean. As conditions deteriorated, La Salle realized the colony could survive only with help from the French settlements in Illinois Country to the north, along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. La Salle's last expedition ended along the Brazos River in early 1687, when he and five of his men were murdered during a mutiny. Although a handful of men reached Illinois Country, help never made it to the fort. Most of the remaining members of the colony were killed during a Karankawa raid in late 1688, though four children survived after being adopted as captives. Although the colony lasted only three years, it established France's claim to possession of the region that is now Texas. The United States later claimed, unsuccessfully, this region as part of the Louisiana Purchase because of the early French colony. (Full article...)
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  Interstate 205 (I-205) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon and Washington, United States. The north–south freeway serves as a bypass route of I-5 along the east side of Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. It intersects several major highways and serves Portland International Airport.
  
  The freeway is 37 miles (60 km) long and connects to I-5 at both of its termini: to the south in Tualatin, Oregon, and to the north in Salmon Creek, Washington. I-205 is named the Veterans Memorial Highway and East Portland Freeway No. 64 in Oregon (see Oregon highways and routes). From Oregon City to Vancouver, the corridor is paralleled by a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian trail, as well as portions of the MAX Light Rail system between Clackamas and northeastern Portland. (Full article...)
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  Official portrait, 1972

  
  Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.
  
  Nixon was born into a poor family of Quakers in Yorba Linda, Southern California. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Whittier College in 1934 and a Juris Doctor from Duke University in 1937, practiced law in California, and then moved with his wife Pat to Washington, D.C., in 1942 to work for the federal government. After serving active duty in the Naval Reserve during World War II, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. His work on the Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist. In 1950, he was elected to the Senate. Nixon was the running mate of Eisenhower, the Republican Party's presidential nominee in the 1952 election, and served for eight years as vice president. He narrowly lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy. After his loss in the 1962 race for governor of California, he announced his retirement from politics. However, in 1968, he made another run for the presidency and narrowly defeated the Democratic incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey. (Full article...)
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  Fort Rosalie was destroyed in the 1729 massacre; its ruins now lie within Natchez National Historical Park.

  
  The Natchez revolt, or the Natchez massacre, was an attack by the Natchez Native American people on French colonists near present-day Natchez, Mississippi, on November 28, 1729. The Natchez and French had lived alongside each other in the Louisiana colony for more than a decade prior to the incident, mostly conducting peaceful trade and occasionally intermarrying. After a period of deteriorating relations and warring, Natchez leaders were provoked to revolt when the French colonial commandant, Sieur de Chépart, demanded land from a Natchez village for his own plantation near Fort Rosalie. The Natchez plotted their attack over several days and managed to conceal their plans from most of the French; colonists who overheard and warned Chépart of an attack were considered untruthful and were punished. In a coordinated attack on the fort and the homesteads, the Natchez killed almost all of the Frenchmen, while sparing most of the women and enslaved Africans. Approximately 230 colonists were killed overall, and the fort and homes were burned to the ground.
  
  When the French in New Orleans, the colonial capital, heard the news of the massacre, they feared a general Indian uprising and were concerned that the Natchez might have conspired with other tribes. They first responded by ordering a massacre of the Chaouacha people – who had played no role in the revolt – and wiped out their entire village. The French and their Choctaw allies then retaliated against the Natchez villages, capturing hundreds of Natchez and selling them into slavery, although many managed to escape to the north and take refuge among the Chickasaw people. The Natchez waged low-intensity warfare against the French over the following years, but retaliatory expeditions against Natchez refugees among the Chickasaw in 1730 and 1731 forced them to move on and live as refugees among the Creek and Cherokee tribes. By 1741, the Natchez had established a town in the northern parts of the Upper Creek Nation. There, with permission from the Abihka, they reconstituted their town and were signatories in the 1790 Treaty of New York and the 1796 Treaty of Colerain. They remain a constituent tribe of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that at the time, the Battle of Shiloh was the largest battle fought in the United States, with nearly 24,000 casualties?
• ... that, upon ordination, Earl K. Fernandes will be the first Indian-American Latin Catholic bishop in the United States?
• ... that children's writer Patricia MacLachlan kept a small bag of dirt from the prairies as a reminder of her Wyoming roots?
• ... that the Hosanna Meeting House was a station on the Underground Railroad and had a secret chamber to conceal fugitive slaves beneath its floorboards?
• ... that John Oliver has been credited with influencing United States law and culture, a phenomenon dubbed the "John Oliver effect"?
• ... that in 2017 Ivanka Trump became the first Jewish member of a U.S. first family?
• ... that channel 31 in Denver was planned to broadcast in Spanish – until the 1980 United States census figures came out?
• ... that Russia's Unfriendly Countries List includes the United States, the European Union, and San Marino?

Selected society biography -

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected in November 1962, he was elected nine times and served for 46 years in the U.S. Senate. At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, and the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. For many years the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he was the son of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassinations, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

Selected image -

• 
  Bodie, California

  Photo credit: Jon Sullivan

  A street corner in the ghost town of Bodie, California, named after William S. Bodey who discovered gold in the area in 1859. By 1880 Bodie had a population of nearly 10,000. Bodie is also notable for a hydroelectric plant built 13 miles (21 km) away in 1893, one of the first transmissions of electricity over long distance. The town was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and has been in a state of arrested decay ever since.
• 
  Internment of Japanese Americans

  Photograph: Dorothea Lange; Restoration: Bammesk

  The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps in the western interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
  
  This picture shows members of the Mochida family in Hayward, California, waiting for an evacuation bus to take them to an internment center.
• 
  Watergate scandal

  Photo credit: U.S. News & World Report

  U.S. President Gerald Ford appearing at an October 1974 House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing regarding his pardon of Richard Nixon. Nixon had resigned due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal, which began with an attempted break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex on June 17, 1972.
• 
  LG-118A Peacekeeper

  Photo credit: U.S. Army Forces Strategic Command

  The LG-118A Peacekeeper missile system being tested at the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The Peacekeeper can carry up to ten re-entry vehicles, each armed with a nuclear warhead with the explosive power of up to 300 kilotons, 25 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II). Under the unratified START II treaty, all are to be removed from service by 2005.
• 
  Andrew Johnson

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

  Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson assumed the presidency as he was vice president of the United States at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. Although his ranking has fluctuated over time, he is generally considered among the worst American presidents.
• 
  L-to-R: Allan Pinkerton, Abraham Lincoln, Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand

  Photo credit: Alexander Gardner

  Allan Pinkerton (left), President Abraham Lincoln (center), and Major General John A. McClernand (right). This photo was taken not long after the Civil War's first battle on northern soil in Antietam, Maryland, on October 3, 1862. Pinkerton was the head of Union Intelligence Services at the time. He also, allegedly, foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. His wartime work was critical in Pinkerton's development, which he later used to pioneer the American private detective industry when he formed the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
• 
  First cabinet of Barack Obama

  Photograph: Chuck Kennedy

  The first cabinet of Barack Obama, photographed in the White House East Room in September 2009. Consisting of the heads of the sixteen United States federal executive departments and seven additional members, the Cabinet of the United States acts as an advisory body to the President. Of the persons shown, five (Gary Locke, Peter R. Orszag, Christina Romer, Rahm Emanuel, and Robert Gates) left the Obama administration before the end of the president's first term.
• 
  Millard Fillmore

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

  Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, succeeding to the presidency in July 1850 upon the death of the incumbent Zachary Taylor. Born into poverty with little formal education, he became a successful attorney and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1832. Never an advocate of slavery, he felt duty-bound as president to support the Compromise of 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states. He sought election to a full term in 1852, but was passed over by the Whigs in favor of Winfield Scott. This line engraving of Fillmore was produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents.
• 
  William Grant Still

  Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam Cuerden

  William Grant Still (1895–1978) was an American composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies and nine operas. Often referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers", Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. His first symphony, entitled Afro-American Symphony, was until 1950 the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and was a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and later Edgard Varèse. Still was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra and the first to have an opera performed on national television. Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, he is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance movement.
  
  This picture of Still was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1949; the photograph is in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
• 
  Operation Ivy

  Photo: United States Department of Energy

  The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been.
• 
  New Kensington, Pennsylvania

  Lithograph: Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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

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

  James Monroe (1758–1831) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fifth President of the United States from 1817 to 1825. Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty, and his presidency ushered in what is known as the Era of Good Feelings. An anti-federalist, Monroe had opposed ratification of the United States Constitution, claiming it gave too much power to the central government. After time as a senator in the first United States Congress and as Governor of Virginia, Monroe was easily elected president in 1816, winning over 80 percent of the electoral vote and becoming the last president during the First Party System era of American politics. During his presidency, he sought to ease partisan tensions and extend the country's reach from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He also supported the founding of colonies in Africa for freed slaves, and his declaration of the Monroe Doctrine became a landmark in American foreign policy.
• 
  Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk

  Photograph credit: Aaron Allmon II

  The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a semi-retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth and attack aircraft that was developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force. Its maiden flight took place in 1981, and it was the first operational aircraft to be designed around stealth technology. This F-117 was photographed flying over Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
• 
  Theodore Roosevelt

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

  Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He had previously been the 33rd governor of New York, from 1899 to 1900, and then the 25th vice president of the United States, from March to September 1901. As a leader of the Republican Party, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. In 1912, he ran for a third term as president. When he could not secure the Republican nomination, he formed his own party, the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party, which drew enough votes away from the Republican nominee, incumbent President William Howard Taft, to give their Democratic opponent Woodrow Wilson a large victory in the electoral vote. Roosevelt was a distant cousin of the 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the uncle of Franklin's wife Eleanor Roosevelt. His face is depicted on Mount Rushmore, alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
  
  This picture is a line engraving of Roosevelt, 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.

Selected culture biography -

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969) is an American R&B/pop singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut, in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola, in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia Records' highest-selling act.

In a career spanning over two decades, Carey has sold more than 200 million albums, singles and videos worldwide, according to Island Def Jam, which makes her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Carey was cited as the world’s best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the 1998 World Music Awards and was also named the best-selling female artist of the millennium by the same award-giving body in 2000. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the third-best-selling female artist, with shipments of 63 million albums. In 2008, Carey earned her eighteenth number one single on the Hot 100, the most by any solo artist. Aside from her commercial accomplishments, she has earned five Grammy Awards and is known for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and use of the whistle register.

Selected location -

Cleveland is the second most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the 53rd most populous city in the nation. It was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and became a manufacturing center owing to its location at the head of numerous canals and railroad lines. With the decline of heavy manufacturing, Cleveland's businesses have diversified into the service economy, including the financial services, insurance, and healthcare sectors. Cleveland is also noted for its association with rock music; the city is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

As of the 2000 census, the city proper had a total population of 478,403 and is the center of Greater Cleveland, the largest metropolitan area in Ohio.

In studies conducted by The Economist in 2005, Cleveland and Pittsburgh were ranked as the most livable cities in the United States, and the city was ranked as the best city for business meetings in the continental U.S. The city faces continuing challenges, in particular from concentrated poverty in some neighborhoods and difficulties in the funding and delivery of high-quality public education.

Selected quote -

Anniversaries for February 17

• 1819 – The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise (illustration pictured).
• 1933 – The magazine Newsweek is published for the first time.
• 1933 – The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.
• 1963 – Michael Jordan, considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, is born.
• 1965 – The Ranger 8 probe, part of Project Ranger, launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
• 1992 – A court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin sentences serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to life in prison.

Selected cuisines, dishes and foods -

Dishes typical of Creole food

Louisiana Creole cuisine (French: cuisine créole, Louisiana Creole: manjé kréyòl, Spanish: cocina criolla) is a style of cooking originating in Louisiana, United States, which blends West African, French, Spanish, and Native American influences, as well as influences from the general cuisine of the Southern United States. (Full article...)

Selected panorama -

View of the Midtown Manhattan skyline, looking north from the Empire State Building.

View of the Midtown Manhattan skyline, looking north from the Empire State Building.

More did you know? -

• ...that the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver, (pictured) the second named for an African American, was sponsored by singer Lena Horne and constructed in 42 days from start to delivery?

• ...that Jacob Piatt Dunn in 1886 wrote the first scholarly history concerning the Indian Wars?

• ...that the Delaware at-large congressional district is the oldest congressional district in the country?

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