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Anglican Communion Network

Anglican Communion Network

The Anglican Communion Network (officially the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes) is a theologically conservative network of dioceses and parishes that are currently a part of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA). It was officially formed in January 2004 at a conference in Plano, Texas attended by several hundred priests and lay leaders, including 12 Episcopal bishops. Its main intent is to provide a system to supply theologically conservative leadership and church oversight to Anglicans in the United States and Canada. While the group is not presently seeking to split from ECUSA or the Anglican Church of Canada, some have suggested that the network represents a possible embryonic autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, either alongside those churches or as successor to them if they ever leave or are removed from the Anglican Communion. The ACN was formed in response to suggestions by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, in the wake of the controversy regarding Anglican views of homosexuality. In the United States, the flashpoint for the controversy was the consecration of the openly non-celibate homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. In Canada, the main trigger was the approval of same-sex unions by the Diocese of New Westminster. Most of the work in establishing the ACN was performed by the American Anglican Council, a group of theologically-conservative congregations within the Episcopal Church. The current ACN Moderator is Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. Fourteen Anglican primates from the developing world, representing over half of the world's Anglicans, have officially endorsed the creation of the ACN. Many of these primates have expressed concern over the recent actions of ECUSA, and some have taken initial steps toward breaking communion with ECUSA.

External links

- [http://www.anglicancommunionnetwork.org Official site] Category:Anglicanism

Diocese

Stephen Alencastre as fifth Apostolic Vicar of the Hawaiian Islands in a Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace window. In Catholicism, the pope is the bishop of the diocese of Rome. He creates the other dioceses throughout the world and chooses their bishops.]] In some Christian churches, the diocese is an administrative territorial unit governed by a bishop, sometimes also referred to as a bishopric or episcopal see, though more often the term episcopal see means the office held by the bishop. In the Roman Catholic Church, an important diocese is called an archdiocese (usually due to size, historical significance, or both), which is governed by an Archbishop. As of 2003, there are approximately 569 Roman Catholic archdioceses and 2014 dioceses. Some Protestant churches, such as the Church of England, inherited this diocesan structure after the Protestant Reformation formally divided new Christian sects from the Roman Catholic Church. In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. (Latin dioecesis, from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning "administration"). The Catholic Church adopted the Roman diocesan structure of authority during the 5th and 6th centuries, as each bishop fully assumed the role of the former Roman praefectus. This transfer of authority from secular officials to ecclesiastical leaders was facilitated by the Christian practice of establishing areas of ecclesiastical administration that coincided with those of the Roman civil administration. In modern times, many an ancient diocese, though later divided among several dioceses, has preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division. See also: Bishops and civil government.

In the Roman Empire

The earliest use of 'diocese' as an administrative unit was in the Greek-speaking East. Three districts— Cibyra, Apamea and Synnada— were added to the province of Cilicia in the time of Cicero, who mentions the fact in his familiar letters (EB 1911). The word 'diocese', which at that time was equivalent to a tax-collecting district, came to be applied to the territory itself. The reorganization of the Empire, which began under the rule of Diocletian, divided the Empire's vast lands into twelve dioceses. The largest, Oriens, included sixteen provinces, and the smallest, Britain, was comprised of only four provinces. A list of Roman dioceses as they existed in 395 CE can be found at the entry for Roman provinces. Each diocese of the Empire was governed by a praetor vicarius who in turn served an imperioal praefectus. Between the 4th and 6th centuries, as the older administrative structure began to crumble, the role of the bishops in the western lands of the Empire enabled those lands and their peoples to maintain a semblance of civilisation as the authority of Rome vanished. The senatorial aristocracy, especially in the provinces, continued in many places to serve as sources of local authority to complement the authority assumed by the Church. At that time, ecclesiastical political power was often vested in the spiritual offices of the bishops in each region. It is, therefore, unsurprising that, as the Catholic, and later the Eastern Orthodox, churches began to define their respective administrative structures, they relied on the older Roman terminology and methods to describe administrative units and hierarchy, which caused the division between ecclesiastical and secular authority to often disappear. In the Eastern Empire, this became fundamental doctrine: see Caesaropapism.

Christian hierarchy

Modern Christian usage of 'diocese' tends to refer to the sphere of a bishop's jurisdiction. This became commonplace during the self-conscious "classicizing" structural evolution of the Carolingian empire in the 9th century, but this usage had itself been evolving from the much earlier parochia ("parish"), dating from the increasingly formalised Christian authority structure in the 4th century (see EB 1911). In English-speaking countries, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses the term ward, rather than parish, to refer to the jurisdiction of the bishop and his counselors. However, the ward is not equal in size to a Catholic diocese; rather, a stake is.

External links

- [http://5.1911encyclopedia.org/D/DI/DIOCESE.htm Encyclopedia Britannica 1911]
- [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/ Virtually complete list of current and historical Catholic dioceses worldwide]
- [http://www.katolsk.no/utenriks/index_en.htm Another such list, in English and Norwegian]
- [http://anglican.org/domain/admin/bydiocese.html List of current Anglican/Episcopalian dioceses] Category:Christian group structuring

Episcopal Church in the United States of America

is the national cathedral of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.]] The Episcopal Church or the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is the American national church of the Anglican Communion. It includes 108 dioceses in the United States, the US Virgin Islands, Haiti, Taiwan, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Honduras, and has an extra-provincial relationship with the dioceses of Puerto Rico and Venezuela. It is sometimes known as the Episcopal Church in the USA, abbreviated ECUSA. The main church of the Episcopal Church is the Washington National Cathedral, which also serves as a gathering place for the nation, under charter by Congress. Episcopal church buildings are often recognizable by their trademark red doors.

History

The Episcopal Church was founded in 1789 after the American colonies proclaimed independence from Great Britain. Prior to the American Revolutionary War, the Episcopal Church was part of the Church of England, whose clergy are required to accept the supremacy of the British monarch. When the clergy of Connecticut elected Samuel Seabury as their bishop, he sought consecration in England. The Oath of Supremacy proved too difficult a problem, so he went to Scotland, where the Scottish bishops (at the time being persecuted by the state) consecrated him in Aberdeen on November 14, 1784, the first Anglican bishop outside the British Isles. The American bishops thus descend in the Apostolic succession from the bishops of Scotland, and to this day the nine crosses which symbolise ECUSA's nine original dioceses in its arms form a St Andrew's cross, commemorating the Scottish link. In Scotland, the Episcopal Church is so known because unlike the national state Church of Scotland (which is Presbyterian, i.e. governed by Elders), it is governed by bishops (in Latin episcopi). The word "Anglican" comes from the Latin word Anglicana which literally means English.

The Church

Presbyterian Other than the name difference the national churches are roughly the same, however the different groups (i.e., High Church, Broad Church, and Low Church) within the national branches of the Church may be proportionally different in numbers. Like many other Anglican churches, it has entered into full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In the United States the Church has a membership of approximately 3 million, and has had such notable members as more than a quarter of all presidents of the United States and Supreme Court chief justices as well as roughly half of the members of Congress and Supreme Court associate justices. The full legal name of the national church corporate body is "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America", but this name is rarely used.

Provinces

The Episcopal Church in the United States has nine provinces, numbered as follows #New England #New York, New Jersey, Haiti, United States Virgin Islands, and Convocation of American Churches in Europe #Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia #Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, eastern Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee #Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, eastern Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin #Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming #Arkansas, Kansas, western Louisiana, western Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, #Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai'i, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Taiwan, Washington #Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela Each province is subdivided into dioceses. See: Dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America

The Book of Common Prayer

The Episcopal Church publishes its own Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which was last updated in 1979. The BCP contains the worship services or liturgies for all Episcopalians. The BCP is a primary source for the theology of Episcopalians. Other BCPs were issued in 1789, 1892, and 1928. A proposed BCP was issued in 1786 but not adopted. The BCP is public domain; however, any new revisions of the BCP are copyrighted until they are approved by the General Convention. After this happens, the BCP is placed into the public domain. The text is controlled by the Custodian of the Standard Book of Common Prayer.

Church Polity

The basic unit of governance in the Episcopal Church is the diocese. The ordained leader of the diocese is a bishop. Other ordained leaders include priests (or presbyters) and deacons. Laity participate fully in the life and governance of the Church. The Church holds its General Convention every three years. The General Convention is bicameral. There is the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, the latter being made up of both priests and lay persons. Each diocese elects four clergy and four laypeople as deputies. The head of the House of Bishops is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The head of the House of Deputies is the president who is either a lay person or priest. The last General Convention was held in 2003. The next one will be held in 2006, in Columbus, Ohio.

Congregations

Each diocese is composed of congregations of various kinds: cathedrals, parishes, missions and chapels. A cathedrals acts as the mother church of the diocese, and, usually, as a parish as well. Most dioceses have a cathedral, though many do not. A few have two cathedrals or a cathedral and a pro-cathedral. Others designate a conference or retreat centre chapel as a cathedral. Usually a cathedral is led by a priest called a dean. A cathedral's lay governing body is known as a chapter, although some cathedrals have a vestry as well. Most congregations are parishes. A parish is a self-sustaining congregation, not supported by the diocese. The ordained leader of a parish is a priest, usually called a rector. Two primary lay leaders of every congregation are the wardens, sometimes referred to as senior and junior. In addition to the rector and wardens, there are additional lay persons elected to support the mission and ministry of the congregation. The rector, the wardens, and these laity comprise what is known as the vestry. The number of these additional laity vary depending on the size of the congregation. A mission is a congregation supported in part by the diocese. It is governed similarly to a parish but is more directly responsible to its diocese and bishop. A mission is led by a clergyperson usually called a vicar. Instead of a vestry, a mission's lay leadership is called either a mission committee or a bishop's committee. A chapel may be connected to another institution, such as a school or hospital or it may be a congregation that is active for only part of the year. The latter are usually found in resort areas and are often called "summer chapels". The clergyperson in charge of a chapel is usually a chaplain, but a summer chapel may instead have a vicar.

Colleges Affiliated with the Episcopal Church

- Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
- Clarkson College, Omaha, Nebraska
- Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York
- Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
- St. Augustine College, Chicago, Illinois
- St. Augustine's College, Raleigh, North Carolina
- St. Paul's College, Lawrenceville, Virginia
- University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
- Voorhees College, Denmark, South Carolina

Seminaries of the Episcopal Church

- Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut
- Bexley Hall (Seminary), Rochester, New York and Columbus, Ohio
- The Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California
- Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas
- General Theological Seminary, New York City
- Nashotah House, Nashotah, Wisconsin
- Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois
- School of Theology at University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
- Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, Pennsylvania
- Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia

External links

- [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ The Episcopal Church]
- [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/gc/ Executive Offices of the General Convention]
- [http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/bcp.htm 1979 Book of Common Prayer]
- [http://www.cuac.org/53810_43981_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=menu53912/ Association of Episcopal Colleges]
- United States of America, Episcopal Church Category:Churches of North America ja:米国聖公会

Plano, Texas

Plano is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Collin County. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 222,030, making it the ninth largest city in Texas. Plano is within the Dallas–Plano–Irving metropolitan division of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area, a title designated by the U.S. Census, and is colloquially referred to as the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The city is home to many corporate headquarters, including Dr Pepper, Electronic Data Systems, Frito-Lay and JCPenney.

History

In the early 1840s, several settlers came to the area around Plano. Several nearby facilities including a sawmill, gristmill and a store brought more people to the area. Mail service was established and after rejecting several names for the budding town (including naming it in honor of then-President Millard Fillmore), the locals suggested the name Plano, which they incorrectly believed to be the Spanish word for "plain," a reference to the terrain of the area (the actual word for plain in the Spanish language is llano). The name was accepted by the Post Office and Plano was born. In 1872, the completion of the Houston and Texas Railroad helped to grow the city, increasing the population to more than 500 by 1874. In 1873, the city officially incorporated. In 1881, a fire raged through the central business district, destroying most of the buildings: 51 in all. However, the town rebuilt itself and business again flourished through the 1880s. Unlike many of the other Dallas suburbs, which were closer to Dallas itself, the population of Plano initially grew slowly, reaching 1,304 in 1900 and increasing to 3,695 in 1960. By 1970, however, Plano began to feel some of the boom its neighbors experienced following World War II. A series of public works projects and a change in taxes that removed the farming community from the town helped to increase the overall population of Plano. In 1970, the population reached 17,872 and by 1980, the population had exploded to 72,000 people. Almost unbelievably the sewers, schools and street development kept easy pace with this massive increase largely due to Plano's flat topography, grid layout and excellent planning. During the 1980s, many large corporations moved their headquarters to Plano, including JC Penney and Frito-Lay, which helped to further grow the city as more people desired to move closer to where they worked. By 1990, the population had reached 128,713 and now dwarfed the county seat of McKinney. In 1994 the city was recognized as an All-America City. By 2000, the population nearly doubled again to 222,030, making it one of the largest suburbs in the Dallas area. However, the area's suburban sprawl has pushed beyond Plano and the city's population is stabilizing. Plano is completely locked in by other municipalities and cannot expand in area, and there is little undeveloped land remaining within the city limits.

Famous people from Plano

- Lance Armstrong, seven-time Tour de France winner
- Greg Buis, contestant from the first season in the reality TV show, Survivor.
- John Benjamin Hickey, actor
- Keech Rainwater, drummer for the country music group Lonestar.
- Alan Tudyk, actor

Geography

Plano is located at 33°3'1" North, 96°44'45" West (33.050374, -96.745935). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 185.5 km² (71.6 mi²). 185.4 km² (71.6 mi²) of it is land and 0.2 km² (0.1 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 0.08% water.

Transportation

Plano is one of many cities in the Dallas area that opts into the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) public transportation system. During most of its membership in DART, Plano was lightly served by bus lines, but in recent years, DART's successful light rail project, the Red Line, has opened stations in downtown Plano and at Parker Road. These stations enjoy heavy usage by people commuting to work elsewhere in the Dallas area. Plano was the first of many cities in Collin County to adopt a master plan for their road system. The Plano grid makes traveling inside the city easy and hassle-free. Usage of divided highways for all major roads allows for higher speed limits on those thoroughfares, generally 40 MPH but sometimes up to 55 MPH. Plano is served directly by several major roadways and freeways, including U.S. Highway 75, the Dallas North Tollway, the President George Bush Turnpike, and SH 121 (which is currently under construction to be made into another area toll road). Preston Road or State Highway 289 is also a major thoroughfare that runs through the city. Though not a freeway, it is perhaps, arguably, the most "important" road in Dallas. For reference to other regional freeways, see List of Dallas freeways.

Business

Plano is the corporate headquarters for some of the country's largest and most-recognized companies. The street Legacy Drive on the northwest side of town, between Preston Road and State Highway 121, is full of corporate campuses. The following lists companies with their headquarters in Plano:
- Electronic Data Systems
- JCPenney
- Dr Pepper
- Frito Lay
- Cinemark Theatres Plano also has a large number of semiconductor and telecommunications companies due to its proximity to the Telecom Corridor. The list includes:
- Alcatel
- Raytheon
- Texas Instruments Plano is also a frequent destination for business travelers; 80% of out-of-area visitors visit for this purpose, due to the city's proximity to Dallas, as well as the corporations it is home to. Plano also has a large convention center.

Education

The Plano Independent School District is the main school district for Plano. Plano is the home to two campuses of the Collin County Community College District, one at the Courtyard Center on Preston Park Boulevard and the larger Spring Creek Campus on Spring Creek Parkway at Jupiter.

Plano Students and National Headlines

Plano students achieved notoriety following a cluster of nine suicides in 1983 that raised national awareness about suburban teenage depression and drug abuse. The drug specifically cited by many was heroin. This heroin problem resurfaced in the late 1990's, culminating in coverage by several major news outlets such as NBC's Dateline. In July 2003, Taylor Hooton, a student athlete at Plano West Senior High School, committed suicide which many believed was connected to depression caused by the use of steroids used for performance enhancement. Much like the city's suicide and heroin issues of the 1980's and 1990's, this incident drew national focus to the issues of high school athletes and steroid use. Chris Wash was featured on the cover of the December 20, 2004, Newsweek magazine wearing a Plano West Senior High School shirt in an article about the use of steroids in high schools. On March 10, 2005, Don Hooton (the father of Taylor) testified before a Congressional Subcommittee about the use of steroids in high school. This was a widely covered event as several prominent baseball players including Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire testified as well.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 222,030 people, 80,875 households, and 60,575 families residing in the city. The population density is 1,197.8/km² (3,102.4/mi²). There are 86,078 housing units at an average density of 464.4/km² (1,202.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 78.26% White, 5.02% African American, 0.36% Native American, 10.18% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 3.86% from other races, and 2.28% from two or more races. 10.07% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 80,875 households out of which 42.0% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 64.3% are married couples living together, 7.5% have a female householder with no husband present, and 25.1% are non-families. 20.2% of all households are made up of individuals and 2.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.73 and the average family size is 3.18. In the city the population is spread out with 28.7% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 36.5% from 25 to 44, 22.9% from 45 to 64, and 4.9% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 99.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 97.2 males. The median income for a household in the city is $78,722, and the median income for a family is $91,162. Males have a median income of $64,668 versus $39,617 for females. The per capita income for the city is $36,514. 4.3% of the population and 3.0% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 4.6% of those under the age of 18 and 7.8% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. Plano was the highest income place with a population of 130,000 or more in 2000.

External links

- [http://www.planotx.org/ Official web site]
- [http://www.planoonline.com/ PlanoOnline.com - Plano Online is a community resource for everything Plano.]
- [http://www.texas-counties/plano-texas-county Plano Texas County] - News and information. Category:Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex Category:Cities in Texas Category:Collin County, Texas Category:Boomburbs ja:プラーノ

United States

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

Geography and climate

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

History

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

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

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

Federal government

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

The Congress

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

The President

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

The Courts

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

State and local governments

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

Political divisions

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

Foreign relations and military

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

Largest cities

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

Economy

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

Transportation

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

Society

Demographics

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

Ethnicity and race

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

Religion

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

Education

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

Canada

Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of area, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean with claims extending to the North Pole. The northern-most country on the mainland of North America, Canada has land borders only with the United States. Governed as a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, Canada is a federation of ten provinces with three territories. Initially constituted in 1867, the country's constitution was patriated in 1982 from the United Kingdom. Canada's head of state is its monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, who is represented in Canada by the Governor General, presently Michaëlle Jean. The head of government is the Prime Minister, currently Paul Martin; his minority government recently lost a vote of non-confidence in the Canadian House of Commons and asked for the dissolution of the Parliament by the Governor General, who then issued a Royal proclamation authorising the issue of election writs, and stating a federal election will take place on 2006 January 23. Canada's official languages are English and French. As of 2005, its official population estimate is approximately 32.4 million ^{[http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/clock/population.htm]}.

Overview

The capital city is Ottawa, Ontario, the seat of Canada's Parliament. The Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Loyal Opposition, and the Speaker of the House of Commons have official residences in the National Capital Region.National Capital Region, Ontario.]] Originally a union of British colonies with significant French influence and entitled as a "dominion", Canada is a founding member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, and La Francophonie. Canada defines itself as a bilingual and multicultural nation:
- English is the official (and majority) language in most provinces of Canada.
- French is the official language of Quebec, an official language of New Brunswick, and is spoken in various areas throughout the country.
- Several Aboriginal languages have official status in the Northwest Territories; Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut and has official status there. Canada is a technologically advanced and industrialized nation. It is a net exporter of energy because of its large fossil fuel deposits, nuclear energy generation, and hydroelectric power capacity. Its diversified economy relies heavily on an abundance of natural resources and trade, particularly with the United States, with which it has had a long and complex relationship. Canada has ten provinces and three territories: Canada's major cities that are not capital cities include Montreal, Quebec; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Calgary, Alberta.

Canada's name

The name Canada is believed to come from the Huron-Iroquois word kanata, which means "village" or "settlement". In 1535, locals used the word to tell Jacques Cartier the way to Stadacona, site of present-day Quebec City. Cartier used Canada to refer not only to Stadacona, but also to the entire area subject to Donnacona, Chief at Stadacona; by 1547, maps began referring to this and the surrounding area as Canada.

History

Aboriginal tradition holds that the First Peoples have inhabited parts of what is now called Canada since the dawn of time. Archaeological records show that these lands have been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. Several Viking expeditions occurred circa AD 1000, with evidence of settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. British claims to North America date from 1497, when John Cabot reached what he called Newfoundland, though it is unclear whether Cabot landed in current Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, or Maine. French claims date from explorations by Jacques Cartier (from 1534) and Samuel de Champlain (from 1603). Neither Cabot's nor Cartier's explorations left any permanent settlers behind. On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1604, French settlers were the first Europeans to settle permanently in what is now Canada. After an unsuccessful winter in St. Croix Island (today in Maine), they settled Port-Royal in what is now the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, but moved to found Quebec City in 1608. The current Acadians are descendants of settlers who came later in the same century and re-founded Port-Royal. New France was generally the name given to the French colonies of Canada and Acadia (and later Louisiana).Louisiana, depicts British General Wolfe's final moments during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759.]] British settlements were established along the Atlantic seaboard and around Hudson Bay. As these colonies expanded, a struggle for control of North America took place between 1689 and 1763 (see French and Indian Wars), exacerbated by wars in Europe between France and Great Britain. France progressively lost territory to Great Britain, surrendering peninsular Nova Scotia in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and the remainder of New France including what was left of Acadia in the Treaty of Paris (1763). During and after the American Revolution approximately 70,000 [http://www.uelac.org/whatis.html] Loyalists fled the Thirteen Colonies. Of these, roughly 50,000 United Empire Loyalists [http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0850061.html] settled in the British North American colonies which then consisted of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Province of Quebec, and Prince Edward Island (created 1769). To accommodate the Loyalists, Britain created the colony of New Brunswick in 1784 from part of Nova Scotia, and divided Quebec into Lower Canada and Upper Canada under the Constitutional Act of 1791. The War of 1812 began when the U.S. attacked British forces in Canada in an attempt to end British influence in North America (and particularly, the British seizures of American merchant ships in the Atlantic). In April 1813, U.S. forces burned York (now Toronto). The British/Canadians retaliated with the burning of Washington (DC) in a surprise attack in August 1814, but were subsequently turned back at Plattsburgh, Baltimore, and New Orleans. The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December 1814. It was only after the French and Napoleonic wars ended in Europe that large-scale immigration to Canada resumed. The Canadas were merged into a single colony, the United Province of Canada, with the Act of Union (1840) in an attempt to assimilate the French Canadians. Once the U.S. agreed to the 49th parallel north as its border with western British North America, the British government created the colonies of British Columbia in 1848 and Vancouver Island in 1849. By the late 1850s, politicians in the Province of Canada had launched a series of western exploratory expeditions with the intention of assuming control of Rupert's Land (administered by the Hudson's Bay Company) and the