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John Dillinger

John Dillinger

John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American bank robber, considered by some to be a notorious and dangerous criminal, while others considered him a Robin Hood-like hero. He gained this reputation for his graceful movement during bank heists, e.g. leaping over the counter, and narrow getaways from police. His exploits, along with those of other criminals of the 1930s Depression era, such as Bonnie and Clyde and Ma Barker, dominated the attentions of the American press and its readers during what is sometimes referred to as the public enemy era, between 1931 and 1935, a period which led to the further development of the modern and more sophisticated FBI.

Early days

Dillinger, the son of a grocer, was born on June 22, 1903, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and grew up in nearby Mooresville. In 1923, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, but deserted within a few months. Dillinger returned to Indiana where he married and attempted to settle down. But things did not go well. He had difficulty holding a job and his marriage disintegrated. One night in 1924, while out on a drinking binge, Dillinger assaulted and robbed a well-known local citizen. He was soon captured, convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison, despite having no prior criminal record.

Robbery career

The experience embittered Dillinger. He embraced the criminal lifestyle behind bars, learning the ropes from seasoned bank robbers like Harry Pierpont. The two planned heists that they would commit just as soon as they were released. Others in the Dillinger gang would include Charles Makley, Homer Van Meter, John "Red" Hamilton, and even Lester Gillis (a.k.a. George Baby Face Nelson), who joined the gang late in their year-long robbery spree. Together they would rob about a dozen banks in that time and steal over $300,000, an enormous sum in the Depression era. Dillinger served time in Indiana prisons until 1933, when he was paroled. Within four months, he was back in prison in Lima, Ohio. His gang sprang him, killing the jail sheriff Jessie Sarber, but he was captured again by the end of the year in Tucson, Arizona, and sent back to prison in Crown Point, Indiana. He was to face trial for the suspected killing of Officer William O'Malley during a bank shootout in East Chicago, Indiana, some time after his rescue from jail. During this time on trial, the famous photograph was taken of Dillinger putting his arm on prosecutor Robert Estill's shoulder when suggested to him by reporters. On March 3, 1934, Dillinger escaped from "escape-proof" (as it was dubbed by local authorities at the time) Crown Point, Indiana county jail which was guarded by many police and national guardsmen. Newspapers reported that Dillinger had escaped using a wooden gun blackened with shoe polish. It is far more likely that Dillinger bribed his captors and the gun was invented as a cover story. In any case, Dillinger, along with fellow inmate named Herbert Youngblood, captured and locked up several guards, disabled vehicles in the motor pool, and escaped in the sheriff's car. Driving across the Indiana-Illinois state line in a stolen vehicle, Dillinger violated a federal law and thus caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An investigation concerning the facts of the escape was carried out some time later by the Hargrave Secret Service of Chicago, Illinois on the orders of the Illinois Governor. The governor and Illinois state Attorney General Philip Lutz eventually chose not to release information because they did not want Dillinger to know of the informants with whom they spoke. As a result the findings about the gun in the escape were never made public, and this, coupled with Dillinger himself actively perpetuating the wooden gun story as an ego boost, is a reason many believe the "wooden gun" escape was real. The truth behind the infamous gun may never be known. Once out of prison, he continued to rob banks and was eventually named Public Enemy Number One by the FBI. The United States Department of Justice offered a $10,000 reward on June 23 for Dillinger's capture, or $5,000 for information leading to his apprehension. In April, the gang settled at a lodge hideout called Little Bohemia owned by Emil Wanatka, in the northern Wisconsin town of Manitowish Waters. The gang assured the owners that they would give no trouble, but the owners monitored the gang whenever they left or spoke on the phone. Emil's wife Nan and her brother managed to evade Baby Face Nelson, who was tailing them, and mailed a letter of warning to a U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago, which later contacted the FBI. Days later, nearly a score of FBI agents led by Hugh Clegg and Melvin Purvis approached the lodge in the early morning dark. Two barking watchdogs announced their arrival, but the gang was so used to Nan Wanatka's dogs that they did not bother to inspect the disturbance. It was only after the FBI mistakenly gunned down 3 innocents thought to be members of the gang as they were about to drive away in their car that the Dillinger gang awoke. Gunfire between the groups lasted only momentarily, but the whole gang managed to escape in various ways despite the FBI's efforts to surround and storm the lodge.

Death

Dillinger's last day of freedom was July 22, 1934. Dillinger attended the film Manhattan Melodrama at the Biograph Theater in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago with his girlfriend, Polly Hamilton, and brothel owner Ana Cumpanas (.a.k.a. Anna Sage), who was facing deportation charges. Sage worked out a deal with Purvis and the FBI to set up an ambush for Dillinger and drop the deportation charges against her. When they exited the theater that night, Sage tipped off the FBI who opened fire into the back of Dillinger, killing him. Sage had identified herself to agent Melvin Purvis by wearing an agreed-upon orange and white dress, which despite the coloring, led to the enduring notion of the "Lady in Red" as a betraying character. Though she had delivered Dillinger as promised, Sage was still deported to her home country of Romania in 1936, where she remained until her death 11 years later. To this day, loyal fans continue to observe "John Dillinger Day" (July 22) as a way to remember the fabled bank robber. Even at the scene of his death outside the theater, several witnesses soaked their handkerchiefs in his blood as a sort of souvenir of the legend. Members of the "John Dillinger Died for You Society" traditionally gather at the Biograph Theater on the anniversary of Dillinger's death and retrace his last walk to the alley where he died, following a bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace".

Was it Dillinger?

To this day, there are doubts whether Dillinger actually died on July 22, 1934. Some researchers (chief among them famed Chicago crime writer Jay Robert Nash) believe that the dead man was in truth a petty criminal from Wisconsin named Jimmy Lawrence, who had dated Dillinger's sometime girlfriend Billie Frechette and bore a close resemblance to the famed bank robber. Some people who knew him said they did not recognize the body; in fact, Dillinger's father had suddenly exclaimed when first seeing his son's corpse, "That's not my boy!" After all, John Dillinger did receive rather crude plastic surgery some time before his death. Moreover, if indeed the agents did mistake Lawrence for Dillinger, the FBI would have had a strong incentive to cover up such a blunder, since J. Edgar Hoover was on the verge of being fired as Bureau director in the wake of the extensive public outrage over the earlier Little Bohemia incident. An autopsy contained information that was controversial, such as:
- None of his scars were mentioned in the report. (Actually, the dead man was positively identified as John Dillinger by his sister Audrey, by a scar on his leg received in childhood.)
- The corpse had brown eyes. Dillinger's were grey, according to police files. (This may have been an error on the part of the coroner, resulting from eye discoloration caused by a traumatic head wound.)
- The body showed signs of some childhood illness, which Dillinger never had. (This may be another error. The dead man had a rheumatic heart condition. So did John Dillinger, according to the later testimony of Dr. Patrick Weeks, who had been Dillinger's physician at Indiana State Prison.) However, one disturbing fact does remain. The small Colt semiautomatic pistol that Dillinger had allegedly drawn on the approaching FBI agents outside the Biograph (and was for years shown in a display case at FBI Headquarters along with Dillinger's death mask) was not his; it in fact had been manufactured five months after Dillinger's death, which supports the claim that the FBI agents, without warning, shot and killed an unarmed Dillinger. In 1969 the newspaper The Indianapolis Star received a letter from a person called "John Dillinger". The letter contained a photo of a man who looked like a more aged Dillinger. The letter was bogus. The FBI has at least two sets of post mortem fingerprints of the dead man. Though scarred by acid, the prints were clearly identifiable as those of John Dillinger.

Legends

A lot of legends surround John Dillinger. One of the rumors that followed his death was that he had a very large penis. This legend is the result of the photograph of his corpse; the bulge caused by his arm, stiff from rigor mortis, covered with a sheet; some who saw grainy newsprint copies of the photo mistakenly believed it to be his unnaturally large erect penis. While considered a great bank robber, he was not the most successful of that era. Harvey Bailey is credited as being the greatest bank robber of the 1920s and 1930s, but is largely forgotten today. John Dillinger is one of the main characters in the science fiction series of books, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which plays off the rumor that Dillinger was not the man gunned down outside the Biograph. New Jersey mathcore band, The Dillinger Escape Plan, named themselves in honour of Dillinger. Stephen King also wrote a short story called "The Death Of Jack Hamilton", in which Dillinger was a main character. It also plays off the rumor that Dillinger was not gunned down.

External links


- [http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/dillinger/dillinger.htm FBI's famous cases: "John Dillinger"]
- [http://www.celebritymorgue.com/john-dillinger/ Pictures of postmortem Dillinger, including that featuring the arm in rigor mortis] Dillinger, John Dillinger, John Dillinger, John Dillinger, John Dillinger, John Dillinger, John Dillinger, John

June 22

June 22 is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 192 days remaining.

Events


- 217 BC - Battle of Raphia: Ptolemy IV of Egypt defeats Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom
- 168 BC - Battle of Pydna: Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeat and capture Macedonian King Perseus, ending the Third Macedonian War
- 1593 - Battle of Sisak: Slovene - Croat troops defeat the Turks
- 1633 - The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his scientific view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe.
- 1825 - British Parliament abolishes feudalism and the seigneurial system in British North America.
- 1866 - Battle of Custoza: an Austrian army defeats the Italian army during the Austro-Prussian War.
- 1893 - The Royal Navy battleship HMS Camperdown accidentally rams the British Mediterranean Fleet flagship HMS Victoria which sinks taking 358 crew with her, including the fleet's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.
- 1898 - Spanish-American War: United States Marines land in Cuba.
- 1911 - George V is crowned King of the United Kingdom, succeeding his father, Edward VII.
- 1937 - Camille Chautemps becomes Prime Minister of France
- 1940 - France forced to sign armistice with Nazi Germany.
- 1941 - Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, one of the most dramatic turning points of World War II.
- 1941 - First Croatian anti-fascist armed unit (partisans) founded near Sisak, Croatia.
- 1941 - The Lithuanian 1941 independence begins
- 1944 - Opening day of the Soviet Union's Operation Bagration against Army Group Centre
- 1950 - The longship replica [http://web.telia.com/~u57013916/index.htm Ormen Friske], en route from Birka to Rotterdam, broke apart in the North Sea because of improper construction. All 15 crew members drowned.
- 1962 - An Air France Boeing 707 jet crashes in bad weather in Guadeloupe, West Indies killing 113
- 1963 - Pope Paul VI elected by College of Cardinals.
- 1976 - Canadian House of Commons abolishes capital punishment.
- 1978 - Charon, a satellite of the planet Pluto, is discovered.
- 1984 - William Schnoebelen and his wife Sharon are "saved" by a tract from Chick Publications. There is some debate over the reliability of this, however.
- 1986 - Argentine footballer Diego Maradona scored both the Hand of God goal and the Goal of the Century against England during the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City.
- 1986 - The All Jharkhand Students Union is founded, in order to fight for autonomy for tribal peoples in India.
- 1989 - Dublin City University and University of Limerick are established in Ireland.
- 1993 - Dr. Charles Epstein of Tiburon, California, USA is injured by a mail bomb sent by the Unabomber.
- 1996 - The Quake computer game is released.
- 2002 - An earthquake in western Iran measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale kills more than 261 people
- 2003 - The largest hailstone ever recorded falls from a thunderstorm in Aurora, Nebraska, USA.
- 2003 - Bill Clinton releases his memoirs, entitled My Life

Births


- 1680 - Ebenezer Erskine, Scottish religious dissenter (d. 1754)
- 1684 - Francesco Manfredini, Italian baroque composer (d. 1762)
- 1704 - John Taylor, English classical scholar (d. 1766)
- 1713 - Lord John Philip Sackville, English cricketer (d. 1765)
- 1757 - George Vancouver, British explorer (d. 1798)
- 1767 - Wilhelm von Humboldt, German philosopher and statesman (d. 1835)
- 1837 - Paul Morphy, American chess player (d. 1884)
- 1856 - H. Rider Haggard, English author (d. 1925)
- 1885 - Milan Vidmar, Slovenian engineer and chess player (d. 1962)
- 1887 - Julian Huxley, British biologist (d. 1975)
- 1897 - Norbert Elias, German sociologist (d. 1990)
- 1898 - Erich Maria Remarque, German writer (d. 1970)
- 1899 - Michał Kalecki, Polish economist
- 1903 - Carl Hubbell, baseball player (d. 1988)
- 1903 - John Dillinger, American bank robber (d. 1934)
- 1906 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author and pilot (d. 2001)
- 1906 - Billy Wilder, Austrian-born director (d. 2002)
- 1910 - Peter Pears, English tenor (d. 1986)
- 1910 - Konrad Zuse, German engineer (d. 1995)
- 1920 - Paul Frees, American voice actor (d. 1986)
- 1921 - Joseph Papp, American director and producer (d. 1991)
- 1930 - Yuri Artyukhin, cosmonaut (d. 1998)
- 1930 - Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and murder victim (d. 1932)
- 1930 - John Joseph Scanlan, Irish-born Catholic prelate (d. 1997)
- 1933 - Dianne Feinstein, Mayor of San Francisco and U.S. Senator
- 1936 - Kris Kristofferson, American singer, songwriter, and actor
- 1936 - Hermeto Pascoal, Brazilian musician
- 1941 - Ed Bradley, American journalist
- 1943 - Brit Hume, American news anchor and commentator
- 1944 - Klaus Maria Brandauer, Austrian actor
- 1947 - David Lander, American actor and baseball scout
- 1948 - Todd Rundgren, American singer, songwriter, and record producer
- 1948 - Pete Maravich, American basketball player (d. 1988)
- 1949 - Meryl Streep, American actress
- 1949 - Lindsay Wagner, American actress
- 1949 - Alan Osmond, American singer
- 1952 - Graham Greene, Canadian actor
- 1953 - Cyndi Lauper, American singer
- 1954 - Freddie Prinze, American actor and comedian (d. 1977)
- 1958 - Bruce Campbell, American actor
- 1961 - Stephen Batchelor, British field hockey player
- 1964 - Dan Brown, American author
- 1964 - Dicky Barrett, American singer (Mighty Mighty Bosstones)
- 1966 - Michael Park, WRC co-pilot (d. 2005)
- 1968 - Zaw Moe Tun, Myanmar Programmer
- 1970 - Steven Page, Canadian singer (Barenaked Ladies)
- 1971 - Kurt Warner, American football player
- 1971 - Mary Lynn Rajskub, American actress
- 1973 - Carson Daly, American television personality
- 1978 - Champ Bailey, American football player
- 1978 - Dan Wheldon, American race car driver

Deaths


- 431 - Paulinus of Nola, Roman poet
- 1276 - Pope Innocent V
- 1429 - Ghiyath al-Kashi, Persian astronomer and mathematician (b. 1380)
- 1535 - John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (executed)
- 1632 - James Whitelocke, English judge (b. 1570)
- 1634 - Johann Graf von Aldringen, Austrian soldier (b. 1588)
- 1699 - Josiah Child, English Governor of the East India Company (b. 1630)
- 1714 - Matthew Henry, English non-conformist minister (b. 1662)
- 1868 - Heber C. Kimball, American religious leader (b. 1801)
- 1905 - Francis Lubbock, Governor of Texas (b. 1815)
- 1928 - A. B. Frost, American illustrator (b. 1851)
- 1931 - Armand Fallières, French president (b. 1841)
- 1959 - Hermann Brill, German politician (b. 1895)
- 1965 - David O. Selznick, American film producer (b. 1902)
- 1969 - Judy Garland, American singer and actress (b. 1922)
- 1974 - Darius Milhaud, French composer (b. 1892)
- 1987 - Fred Astaire, American dancer and actor (b. 1899)
- 1988 - Dennis Day, American singer and actor (b. 1918)
- 1990 - Ilya Frank, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
- 1992 - Chuck Mitchell, American actor (b. 1927)
- 1993 - Pat Nixon, First Lady of the United States (b. 1912)
- 1995 - Al Hansen, American artist (b. 1927)
- 1997 - Gérard Pelletier, French journalist, politician, and diplomat (b. 1919)
- 2002 - Darryl Kile, baseball player (b. 1968)
- 2002 - Ann Landers, American columnist (b. 1918)
- 2004 - Mattie Stepanek, American poet (b. 1990)
- 2004 - Bob Bemer, computer scientist (b. 1920)

See also


- The 22 June song

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/22 BBC: On This Day] ---- June 21 - June 23 - May 22 - July 22 -- listing of all days ko:6월 22일 ms:22 Jun ja:6月22日 simple:June 22 th:22 มิถุนายน

July 22

22 July is the 203rd day (204th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 162 days remaining.

Events


- 1298 - Battle of Falkirk - Edward I (Longshanks) of England and his longbowmen defeat William Wallace and his scottish schiltrons outside the town.
- 1499 - Battle of Dornach - The Swiss decisively defeat the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I.
- 1587 - Colony of Roanoke: A second group of English settlers arrive on Roanoke Island off of North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.
- 1793 - Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico.
- 1796 - Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.
- 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: War of the Third Coalition - inconclusive battle of Cape Finisterre fought between a combined French and Spanish fleets under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve of Spain and a British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder.
- 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Peninsular War - Battle of Salamanca - British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeat French troops near Salamanca, Spain.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Atlanta - Outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill.
- 1908 - Albert Fisher establishes the Fisher Body Company to manufacture carriage and automobile bodies.
- 1916 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40.
- 1933 - Wiley Post becomes first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.
- 1934 - Outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.
- 1937 - New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
- 1942 - The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.
- 1942 - Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.
- 1943 - Allied forces capture the Italian city of Palermo.
- 1944 - The Polish Committee of National Liberation publishes its manifesto, starting the period of Communist rule in Poland
- 1946 - King David Hotel bombing: Irgun bombs King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British civil and military administration, killing 90.
- 1962 - Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.
- 1977 - Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power.
- 1991 - Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested after the remains of 11 men and boys are found in his Milwaukee apartment.
- 1992 - Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison fearing extradition to the United States.
- 1997 - The second Blue Water Bridge opens between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.
- 2002 - Israel assasinates Salah Shahade, the Commander-in-Chief of Hamas's military arm, Ezzedeen-al-qassam Brigades, along with 14 civilians.
- 2003 - Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year old son, and a bodyguard.
- 2005 - A man is shot dead by police as the hunt begins for the London Bombers. See 7 July 2005 London bombings and 21 July 2005 London bombings
- 2005 - Microsoft releases the final name for its next-gen operating system, Longhorn. The name will be "Windows Vista".

Births


- 1210 - Joan of England, queen of Alexander II of Scotland (d. 1238)
- 1478 - King Philip I of Castile (d. 1506)
- 1510 - Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence (d. 1537)
- 1519 - Pope Innocent IX (d. 1591)
- 1535 - Katarina Stenbock, queen of Gustav I of Sweden (d. 1621)
- 1559 - Lawrence of Brindisi, Italian monk (d. 1619)
- 1621 - Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, English politician (d. 1683)
- 1711 - Georg Wilhelm Richmann, Russian physicist (d. 1753)
- 1713 - Jacques-Germain Soufflot, French architect (d. 1780)
- 1733 - Mikhail Shcherbatov, Russian philosopher and writer (d. 1790)
- 1784 - Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (d. 1846)
- 1822 - Gregor Mendel, Austrian geneticist (d. 1884)
- 1844 - William Archibald Spooner, English priest and scholar (d. 1930)
- 1859 - Emma Lazarus, American poet (d. 1887)
- 1882 - Edward Hopper, American painter (d. 1967)
- 1887 - Gustav Ludwig Hertz, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
- 1888 - Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1973)
- 1893 - James Whale, English film director (d. 1957)
- 1898 - Stephen Vincent Benét, American author (d. 1943)
- 1898 - Alexander Calder, American artist (d. 1976)
- 1905 - Doc Cramer, baseball player (d. 1990)
- 1908 - Amy Vanderbilt, American author on etiquette (d. 1974)
- 1913 - Gorni Kramer, Italian bandleader and songwriter
- 1916 - Marcel Cerdan, French boxer (d. 1949)
- 1921 - William Roth, U.S. Senator (d. 2003)
- 1923 - Bob Dole, U.S. Senator from Kansas and Presidential candidate
- 1923 - Mukesh, Indian singer (d. 1976)
- 1924 - Margaret Whiting, singer
- 1928 - Orson Bean, American film actor
- 1932 - Oscar De la Renta, Dominican-born fashion designer
- 1934 - Louise Fletcher, American actress
- 1936 - Tom Robbins, American author
- 1939 - Terence Stamp, English actor
- 1940 - Alex Trebek, Canadian-born game show host
- 1941 - George Clinton, American musician
- 1941 - Ron Turcotte, Canadian jockey
- 1943 - Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Senator from Texas
- 1944 - Estelle Bennett, American singer (Ronettes)
- 1944 - Rick Davies, British musician (Supertramp)
- 1944 - Sparky Lyle, baseball player
- 1946 - Mireille Mathieu, French singer
- 1946 - Stephen M. Wolownik, Russian musician (d. 2000)
- 1947 - Albert Brooks, American comedian
- 1947 - Danny Glover, American actor
- 1947 - Don Henley, American drummer, singer, and songwriter (Eagles)
- 1948 - S.E. Hinton, American author
- 1948 - Otto Waalkes, German comedian
- 1949 - Alan Menken, American composer
- 1949 - Lasse Virén, Finnish athlete
- 1954 - Lonette McKee, American actress
- 1954 - Al Di Meola, American guitarist
- 1955 - Willem Dafoe, American actor
- 1961 - Keith Sweat, American singer
- 1964 - Patrick Labyorteaux, American actor
- 1964 - John Leguizamo, Colombian actor
- 1964 - David Spade, American actor, comedian, and producer
- 1965 - Shawn Michaels, American professional wrestler
- 1966 - Tim Brown, American football player
- 1971 - Kristine Lilly, American soccer player
- 1972 - Keyshawn Johnson, American football player
- 1973 - Mike Sweeney, baseball player
- 1973 - Rufus Wainwright, American singer and songwriter
- 1974 - Daddy Kev, American record producer and engineer
- 1974 - Franka Potente, German actress
- 1978 - Dennis Rommedahl, Danish footballer
- 1980 - Scott Dixon, New Zealand race car driver
- 1980 - Dirk Kuyt, Dutch football striker
- 1983 - Shelby Belle, Canadian actress

Deaths


- 1362 - Louis of Durazzo, Italian soldier (poisoned) (b. 1324)
- 1387 - Franz Ackerman, Flemish statesman (b. 1330)
- 1461 - King Charles VII of France (b. 1403)
- 1525 - Richard Wingfield, English diplomat
- 1619 - Lawrence of Brindisi, Italian monk (b. 1559)
- 1645 - Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, Count-Duke of Olivares, Spanish statesman (b. 1587)
- 1676 - Pope Clement X (b. 1590)
- 1713 - Jacques-Germain Soufflot, French architect (d. 1780)
- 1734 - Peter King, 1st Baron King, Lord Chancellor of England
- 1789 - Joseph-François Foulon, French administrator (executed) (b. 1715)
- 1802 - Marie François Xavier Bichat, French anatomist (b. 1771)
- 1832 - Emperor Napoleon II of France (b. 1811)
- 1852 - Auguste Marmont, French marshal (b. 1774)
- 1904 - Wilson Barrett, English actor (b. 1846)
- 1908 - William Randal Cremer, English politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1828)
- 1916 - James Whitcomb Riley, American author and poet (b. 1849)
- 1922 - Jokichi Takamine, Japanese chemist (b. 1854)
- 1932 - Errico Malatesta, Italian anarchist (b. 1853)
- 1932 - Florenz Ziegfeld, theatrical producer (b. 1867)
- 1934 - John Dillinger, American bank robber (shot) (b. 1903)
- 1950 - William Lyon Mackenzie King, tenth Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1874)
- 1958 - Mikhail Zoshchenko, Russian writer (b. 1895)
- 1967 - Carl Sandburg, American poet (b. 1878)
- 1974 - Wayne Morse, U.S. Senator from Oregon (b. 1900)
- 1979 - Sándor Kocsis, Hungarian footballer (b. 1929)
- 1989 - Martti Talvela, Finnish bass (b. 1935)
- 1990 - Manuel Puig, Argentinian writer (b. 1932)
- 1998 - Hermann Prey, German bass-baritone (b. 1929)
- 2000 - Eric Christmas, British actor (b. 1916)
- 2003 - Qusay Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein (b. 1966)
- 2003 - Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein (b. 1964)
- 2003 - Wahome Muthahi, Kenyan humourist
- 2004 - Sacha Distel, French singer (b. 1933)
- 2004 - George Kidd, Canadian diplomat (b. 1917)
- 2005 - Jean Charles de Menezes, Brazilian electrician (shot) (b. 1978)

Holidays and observances


- Saint Mary Magdalene
- Swaziland - Birthday of former King Sobhuza II
- Pi Approximation Day
- Ratcatcher's Day. See:The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/22 BBC: On This Day] ---- 21 July - 23 July - 22 June - 22 August -- listing of all days ko:7월 22일 ms:22 Julai ja:7月22日 simple:July 22 th:22 กรกฎาคม

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