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John F. Kennedy Space Center

John F. Kennedy Space Center

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) at Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site is midway between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. It is 55 km long and around 10 km wide, covering 567 km². Around 17,000 people work at the site. There is a visitor center and public tours and KSC is a major tourist destination for visitors to Florida. Because much of KSC is off limits to development, the site also serves as an important wildlife sanctuary. Operations are currently controlled from Launch complex 39, the location of the Vehicle Assembly Building. 6 km to the east of the assembly building are the two launch pads. 8 km south is the KSC Industrial Area, where many of the Center's support facilities are located and the administrative headquarters. Kennedy Space Center's only launch operations are at Launch Complex 39. All other launch operations take place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) which is operated by the U.S. Air Force.

History

The area had been used by the government since 1949 when President Harry S. Truman established the Joint Long Range Proving Grounds at Cape Canaveral to test missiles. The location was ideal for this purpose as it allowed for launches out toward the Atlantic Ocean, and it was closer to the equator than most other parts of the United States allowing for rockets to get a boost from the earth's rotation. In 1951 the U.S. Air Force established the Air Force Missile Test Center at nearby Banana River Naval Air Station. The first American sub-orbital rocket flights were achieved at Cape Canaveral in 1949. Following Sputnik, the first Soviet attempt at an orbiting satellite, the U.S. Navy's Vanguard, blew-up on December 6, 1957. NASA was founded in 1958 and the site was transformed into a major launch site. Redstone, Jupiter IRBM, Jupiter-C, Pershing, Polaris, Thor, Atlas, Titan and Minuteman missiles were all tested from the site, the Thor becoming the basis for the expendable launch vehicle (ELV) Delta rocket, which launched Telstar 1 in July 1962. The announcement of the lunar program led to an expansion of operations from the Cape to the adjacent Merritt Island. NASA began acquisition in 1962, taking title to 340 km² by outright purchase and negotiating with the state of Florida for an additional 226 km². In July 1962 the site was named the Launch Operations Center. It was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center in November 1963, after the recently assassinated president John F. Kennedy. The surrounding Cape Canaveral was also renamed Cape Kennedy, but this change was unpopular with the local people and the name reverted in 1973. The lunar project had three stages—Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The objective of Mercury was to orbit and retrieve a manned Earth satellite. The project started in October 1957 using the Atlas ICBM as the base to carry the Mercury payload. but early testing used the Redstone rocket for a series of suborbital flights including the 15-minute flights of Alan Shepard on May 5 and Virgil Grissom on July 21, 1961. The first human carried by an Atlas was John Glenn on February 20, 1962. 1962]] From the knowledge gained through Mercury the more complex two-man capsules of Gemini were prepared as was a new launcher based on the Titan II ICBM. The first manned flight took place on March 23, 1965 with John Young and Virgil Grissom. Gemini 4 featured the first extravehicular activity, by Edward H. White. There were twelve Gemini launches from KSC. The Apollo program had another new launcher—the three-stage Saturn V (111 m high and 10 m in diameter), built by Boeing (first stage), North American Aviation (engines and second stage) and Douglas Aircraft (third stage). North American Aviation also made the command and service modules while Grumman Aircraft Engineering constructed the lunar lander. IBM, MIT and GE provided instrumentation. At KSC a $800 million massive new launch centre was built to take this new launcher—Launch Complex 39. It included a hangar to hold four Saturn V rockets, the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB, 3.68 million m³); a transportation system from the hangar to the launch pad, capable of carrying 5440 tonnes; a 136 meter movable service structure and a control center. construction began in November 1962, the launch pads were completed by October 1965, the VAB was completed in June 1965, and the infrastucure by late 1966. From 1967 through 1973, there were 13 Saturn V launches from Complex 39. Prior to the Saturn V launches there were a series of smaller Saturn I and IB launches to test the men and equipment from Complex 34 on the Cape Canaveral site. The death of three astronauts by fire on Apollo-Saturn 204 (later designated Apollo 1) on January 27, 1967 occurred at Complex 34. The first Saturn V test launch, Apollo 4 (Apollo-Saturn 501) began its 104 hour countdown on October 30, 1967 and, after delays, was launched on November 9. Apollo 7 was the first manned test on October 11, 1968. Apollo 8 made 10 lunar orbits on December 24-25, 1968. Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 tested the lunar lander. Apollo 11 was launched on July 16, 1969 and the Moon was walked on at 10.56 pm, July 20. The Apollo program continued at KSC, through Apollo 14 (1971), the 24th American manned space flight (40th in the world), until Apollo 17 of December 1972. The Air Force chose to expand the capabilites of the Titan launch vehicles for its heavy lift capabilities. It constructed Launch Complexes 40 and 41 to launch Titan III and Titan IV rockets at CCAFS, just south of Kennedy Space Center. A Titan III has about the same payload capacity as a Saturn IB at a considerable cost savings. Launch Complex 40 and 41 has been used to launch defense reconnaissance, communications and weather satellites and NASA planetary missions. The Air Force also planned to launch two Air Force manned space projects from LC 40 and 41. They were the Dyna-Soar, a manned orbital rocket plane (cancelled in 1963) and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a manned reconnaissance space station (cancelled in 1969). Manned Orbiting Laboratory ELV rocket development also continued at KSC—prior to Apollo, an Atlas-Centaur launched from Launch Complex 36 had put the first American Surveyor lander softly on the Moon on May 30, 1966. A further five out of seven Surveyor craft were also successfully transferred to the Moon. From 1974-1977 the powerful Titan-Centaur became the new heavy lift vehicle for NASA, launching the Viking and Voyager series of spacecraft from Launch Complex 41, a Air Force site lent to NASA. Complex 41 later became the launch site for the most powerful unmanned U.S. rocket, the Titan IV, developed for the Air Force. The Saturn V was also used to put the Skylab space station in orbit in 1973. Launchpad 39B was slightly modified for Saturn IB use, and launched three manned missions to Skylab in 1973, as well as the Apollo component of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. KSC was also the launch site for the Space Shuttle, reusing the Complex 39 Apollo infrastructure, as well as the landing site, with a 4.6 km runway built as the Shuttle Landing Facility. The first launch was of Columbia on April 12, 1981. Twenty-five flights had been completed by September 1988, with a large hiatus from January 28, 1986, to September 29, 1988, following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (which was the first shuttle launch from Pad 39B). In September 2004, parts of Kennedy Space Center were damaged by Hurricane Frances. The Vehicle Assembly Building lost 1,000 exterior panels, each 1.2 x 3 meters in size. This exposed 3,700 m² of the building to the elements. Damage occurred to the south and east sides of the VAB. The Space Shuttle tile manufacturing facility suffered extensive damage. The roof was partially torn off and the interior suffered extensive water damage. Tile manufacturing will probably be moved to the Palmdale, California backup facility. Further damage to KSC was caused by Hurricane Wilma on October 2005.

Visitor Complex

2005 The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, operated by Delaware North Companies at no taxpayer expense, is home to a number of museums, two IMAX theatres, and various bus tours allowing visitors a closer look at various restricted areas that would otherwise not be possible. Included in the base admission is tour-bus transportation into the restricted area to an observation gantry on the grounds of Launch complex 39, and to the Apollo-Saturn V Center. The observation gantry provides unobstructed views of both launch pads and all of Kennedy Space Center property. The Apollo-Saturn V Center is a large museum built around its centerpiece exhibit, a restored Saturn V launch vehicle, and features other space related exhibits, including an Apollo capsule. Two theaters allow the visitor to relive parts of the Apollo program. One simulates the environment inside an Apollo-era firing room during an Apollo launch, and another simulates the Apollo 11 landing. The Visitor Complex also includes two facilities run by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation. The most visible of these is the Space Mirror Memorial, a huge black granite mirror through-engraved with the names of all astronauts who died in the line of duty. These names are constantly illuminated from behind, with natural light when possible, and artificial light when necessary. The glowing names seem to float in a reflection of the sky. Supplemental displays nearby give the details of the lives and deaths of the astronauts memorialized. Elsewhere on the Visitor Complex grounds is the Foundation's Center for Space Education, which includes a resource center for teachers, among other facilities.

See also


- List of Merritt Island launch sites

External links


- [http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ Kennedy Space Center Home Page]
- [http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/ Visitor Complex Home Page]
- [http://www.amfcse.org/ Astronauts Memorial Foundation Home Page]
- [http://www.astronautix.com/sites/capveral.htm John F. Kennedy Space Center] from Encyclopedia Astronautica
- [https://www.patrick.af.mil/45sw/ccafs/ Cape Canaveral 45th Spacewing Home Page]
- [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.608298,-80.603878&spn=0.013458,0.020262&t=k&hl=en Launch Complex 39A] (Google Maps)
- [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.586067,-80.651064&spn=0.006730,0.009693&t=k&hl=en Vehicle Assembly Building] (Google Maps) Category:Big Science Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center Category:Florida landmarks Category:Rocket launch sites Category:Brevard County, Florida ja:ケネディ宇宙センター



Cape Canaveral

Cape Canaveral is a strip of land in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of that state's Atlantic coast. It is part of a region known as the Space Coast, and is the site of the Kennedy Space Center, and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Most United States spacecraft are launched from either one of these sites. It sits due east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River. From 1963 to 1973 it was called Cape Kennedy: President John F. Kennedy was an enthusiastic backer of the space program, and after his assassination in 1963, his widow Jacqueline Kennedy suggested to President Lyndon Johnson that renaming the Cape Canaveral space facility would be an appropriate memorial. However, Johnson recommended the renaming not just of the facility, but of the entire cape. Accordingly, Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy. Although the name change was approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names of the Interior Department in 1964, it was not popular in Florida and in 1973 the state passed a law restoring the former 400-year-old name and the Board went along. The people of the city of Cape Canaveral, Florida, had particularly pressed to change it back. The Kennedy family issued a letter stating they "understood the decision"; Jacqueline Kennedy also stated if she had known that the Canaveral name had existed for 400 years, she never would have supported changing the name of the Cape. The space center retains the name Kennedy. In addition to the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral is the site of an air force base, a nineteenth-century lighthouse, and the city of Cape Canaveral. The first rocket launch from the Cape was Bumper 8 from Launch Pad 3 on 24 July, 1950. On February 6, 1959 the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile was accomplished here. All manned US spaceflights have launched from Cape Canaveral. Cape Canaveral was chosen for rocket launches to take advantage of the earth's rotation. At the equator, the centrifugal force of earth's rotation is the maximum. The direction of earth's rotation is such that to take advantage of the rotation, rockets should be launched eastward. It is also highly desirable to have the downrange area sparsely populated, ideally an ocean, in case of accidents. Thus rockets should be launched from a continent's east coast as close to the equator as possible. For the United States, Florida is the most southerly east coast location. The name "Canaveral" (Cañaveral in Spanish) was given to the area by Spanish explorers, and it literally means "canebrake". It can be interpreted as "Cape of Canes."

Seen in

Cape Canaveral has been seen in The Simpsons and in Fur Fighters, known as Cape Canardo.

External links


- [http://www.spaceline.org/capehistory.html History of Cape Canaveral]
- [http://www.myflorida.com/cape/ City of Cape Canaveral, FL]
- [http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=16&Z=17&X=42&Y=245&W=1&qs=%7cCape+Canaveral%7c%7c Microsoft Terra Server image of Cape Canaveral and surroundings]
- [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Cape+Canaveral,+FL&ll=28.467636,-80.553474&spn=0.156384,0.225563&t=k Google Maps imagery]
- [http://www.discoverbrevard.com/CapeCanaveral.php/ Discover Cape Canaveral, FL]
- [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_440.html The Straight Dope: Why did they change the name of Cape Kennedy back to Cape Canaveral?] Canaveral th:แหลมแคนาเวอรัล

Merritt Island, Florida

Merritt Island is:
- An island in Brevard County, Florida, on Florida's Atlantic coast
- a heavily residential, with centralized light commercial, and light industrial areas located on the island
- Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center are located on the northern part of the Island.

The Island

Merritt Island was originally an island and is still referred to as one. Because of the construction of the Crawlerway for the NASA Space Shuttle to move to the launch pad over the Banana Creek in the north, it has been connected to a mainland peninsula. To the west and south it is separated by the Indian River Lagoon and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The east side of Merritt Island splits and is divided by Syke's Creek and New Found Harbour. They, in turn, are separated by the Banana River Lagoon from Cocoa Beach, Florida. To the north, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, along with a narrow barrier island that make up Canaveral National Seashore, are an unpopulated protected buffer area for the space shuttle launching site of Kennedy Space Center. The area is a wildlife magnet drawing huge sums of migratory birds and more resident wildlife including, alligators, manatees, dolphins, sea turtles, bald eagles, ospreys, bobcats, and the rumor of the elusive Florida panther. To its south and east, the Island is linked by the Merritt Island Causeway and the NASA Causeway to the beaches of the barrier island that run from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station opposite the southside of the Kennedy Space Center, past the cruise ship docks at Port Canaveral onward to Cocoa Beach, Florida and Indian Harbour Beach, Florida. To the west, the island connects to mainland Brevard County by the Max A. Brewer Causeway to Titusville, Florida and by the Emory L. Bennett Causeway and Merritt Island Causeway to Cocoa, Florida, and Pineda Causeway, just north of Melbourne, Florida. Merritt Island's recent history dates back into the mid-1800s and centers around the growth of citrus, stressing the cultivation of pineapples and oranges. The famous Indian River oranges and grapefruits come from this sandy area. The Island became a huge draw in the 1950s and '60s as the Space Race took off and NASA expanded. The construction of a barge canal to the Intracoastal Waterway from the Atlantic Ocean cut off the northern half of the Island for many years and to this day remains slightly rural with cattle pastures still holding on to some land. Now though a 4-lane highway connects to the Space Center, moving workers rapidly from the more densly populated central and southern sections of the Island. The small towns of Merritt Island vanished with the coming of the Space Age, towns like Georgiana, Courtney, Tropic, Fairyland, Orsino, Angel City, Wilson and Indianola now only live on in the names of streets and historic churches. The area now belongs to no official city, however the central part of Merritt Island is home to the majority of the population and includes the local high school, library, and shopping district. With the lack of a municipal government Merritt Island is subject to the care of Brevard County and the double-edged sword that it provides. There are no city taxes and only minimal county police coverage. However, without a local governing body developers have transformed much of the character of the wetlands, coastal marshes, and orange groves that were so dominant even just 15 years ago. Today there is a lack of local parks, public space, and road infrastructure and improvements are far behind schedule for an area of this size. With Merritt Island's central location within Brevard County the region is a commercial economic hub with the crowded Beaches to the east and the older mainland cities of Rockledge and Cocoa to the west.

Airports

Merritt Island Airport is a public general aviation airport located on South Merritt Island and run by the Titusville-Cocoa (TICO) Airport Authority.

The Area

As of the 2000 census, the CDP had a total population of 36,090.

Geography

2000 Merritt Island is located at 28°21'28" North, 80°41'5" West (28.357901, -80.684734). According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 121.9 km² (47.0 mi²). 45.7 km² (17.6 mi²) of it is land and 76.1 km² (29.4 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 62.49% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 36,090 people, 14,955 households, and 10,049 families residing in the CDP. The population density is 789.5/km² (2,044.6/mi²). There are 15,813 housing units at an average density of 345.9/km² (895.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the CDP is 90.22% White, 5.31% African American, 0.41% Native American, 1.65% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.68% from other races, and 1.66% from two or more races. 3.83% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 14,955 households out of which 27.1% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.9% are married couples living together, 10.7% have a female householder with no husband present, and 32.8% are non-families. 26.8% of all households are made up of individuals and 11.4% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.36 and the average family size is 2.86. In the CDP the population is spread out with 21.8% under the age of 18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 26.1% from 25 to 44, 26.2% from 45 to 64, and 19.8% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 43 years. For every 100 females there are 95.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 92.3 males. The median income for a household in the CDP is $43,532, and the median income for a family is $52,388. Males have a median income of $41,393 versus $25,787 for females. The per capita income for the CDP is $23,961. 9.4% of the population and 7.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 13.8% of those under the age of 18 and 7.0% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

See also


- List of Merritt Island launch sites

External links

Category:Brevard County, Florida Category:Census-designated places in Florida

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

Miami, Florida

Miami is a major city located in the southeast corner of the U.S. state of Florida. Miami and the surrounding metropolitan area sits between the Miami River, Biscayne Bay, the Everglades and the Atlantic Ocean. It is the second largest city in Florida and the county seat (and largest city) of Miami-Dade County. It is also the largest city in the South Florida metropolitan area, which is comprised of Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Palm Beach County making up the largest metropolitan area in the Southeastern United States. Miami was officially incorporated as a city on July 28, 1896 with a population of just over 300. In 1940, 172,172 people lived in Miami, Florida. Today, the city of Miami has a population of 362,470 according to the 2000 census, while the larger metropolitan area has a population over 5 million. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 379,724 [http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2004-04-12.xls 1]. Miami-Dade County is comprised of thirty-four other incorporated municipalities, including Miami Beach, Aventura, Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Island, Biscayne Park, Coral Gables, Cutler Ridge, Doral, El Portal, Florida City, Golden Beach, Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens, Homestead, Indian Creek, Islandia, Key Biscayne, Medley, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, Miami Shores, Miami Springs, North Bay Village, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Opa-Locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, Sunny Isles, Surfside, Sweetwater, Virginia Gardens, and West Miami. Some of the larger unincorporated areas include Fairlawn, Flagami, Kendall, and Westchester; the largest of which is Kendall. Miami's explosive population growth in recent years been driven by internal migration from other parts of the country as well as by immigration. Greater Miami is regarded as a cultural melting pot, heavily influenced both by its very large population of ethnic Latin Americans and Caribbean islanders (many of them Spanish- or Haitian Creole-speaking). The region's importance as an international financial and cultural center has elevated Miami to the status of world city; because of its cultural and linguistic ties to North, South, Central America, and the Caribbean it is sometimes called "the capital of the Americas." Two vessels of the U.S. Navy have been named USS Miami in honor of the city.

History

Early history

The origin of the name Miami is unknown. One possibility is that it comes from a Native American word for "sweet water." The area was a concentration of water because the Miami River is essentially a funnel for water from the Everglades to the Atlantic Ocean. Another theory is that the name comes from the original name of Lake Okeechobee, Lake Mayaimi, named after the Mayaimi Indian tribe that had once lived in the Lake Okeechobee area. The lake's name was replaced with the Hitchiti Indian tribe's words oka (water) and chobi (big), "big water." There is no evidence that there was any connection between the Miami Indian tribes and the southeastern United States, let alone in south Florida. Native Americans are known to have settled in the Miami region for about 10,000 years. Its most noteworthy early inhabitants were the Tequesta people, who controlled an area covering much of Southeastern Florida including what is now Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the southern parts of Palm Beach County. Ponce de Leon attempted to settle the area in the early 1500s, but his men could not defend the territory against the natives, so they kept to the more sparsely populated north. For most of the colonial period, the Miami area was only briefly visited by traveling Europeans when it was visited at all.

American settlement

Pedro Menendez de Avilés and his men visited the Tequesta settlement in 1566. Spanish settlers built a mission at the mouth of the Miami River by 1567. They built a fort in 1743. Many Spanish colonists, along with residents of other lands, established homes and farms along the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. People came from the Bahamas to South Florida and the Keys to hunt for treasure from the ships that crashed onto the treacherous Great Florida reef. Some accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River. At about the same time, the Seminole Indians arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. In the 1830s, Richard Fitzpatrick bought land on the Miami River from the Bahamians. He operated a successful plantation where he cultivated sugar cane, bananas, corn, and tropical fruit. Fort Dallas was located on Fitzpatrick’s Plantation on the north bank of the river. The area became a war zone during the Second Seminole War. Most non-Indian residents were soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas. It was the most devastating Indian war in American history. It caused almost a total loss of population in the Miami area. After the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, Fitzpatrick’s nephew, William English, reestablished the plantation in Miami. He charted the “Village of Miami” on the south bank of the Miami River and sold several plots of land. The Third Seminole War (1855-1858) was not as destructive as the second one. Even so, it slowed down the settlement of southeast Florida. At the end of the war, a few of the soldiers stayed. Some of the Seminole remained in the Everglades. However as late as the 1890s, only a handful of families made their homes in Miami. In 1891, a wealthy Cleveland, Ohio woman named Julia Tuttle purchased an enormous citrus plantation in the area. She initially pressured railroad magnate Henry Flagler to expand his rail line, the Florida East Coast Railroad southward to the area, but he initially declined the offer. In 1894, however, Florida was struck by a terrible winter that destroyed virtually all of the citrus crop in the northern half of the state. Fortunately, unlike the rest of the state, Miami was unaffected, and Tuttle's citrus became the only citrus on the market that year. She wrote to Flagler again, persuading him to visit the area and see it for himself: he did so, and concluded at the end of his first day that the area was ripe for expansion. Initially, most residents wanted to name the city "Flagler". Henry Flagler was adamant that new city would not be named after himself. So on July 28, 1896, the City of Miami was incorporated with 444 citizens (243 of which were identified as white and 181 as black). In 1900, 1,681 people lived in Miami, Florida; in 1910, 5,471; and in 1920, 29,549.

Early growth

Miami's growth up to World War II was astronomical: During the early 1920s, the authorities in Miami allowed gambling and were very lax in regulating Prohibition, and so thousands of people migrated from the northern United States to the Miami region, creating a construction boom and building a skyline of high-rise buildings where none had existed before. Some early developments were razed ten years after their initial construction to make way for even larger buildings. This speculation boom started to waver because of building construction delays caused by bulk of building materials overloading the transport system into the area. Sometimes a ship bringing these supplies in ran aground, blocking the port. These delays gave investors a chance to think again. Finally this transport choke-up got so bad that Miami's mayor declared an embargo on all incoming goods except food. This economic bubble was already collapsing when the catastrophic Great Miami Hurricane in 1926 ended this what was left of this boom. The Great Depression followed. In the mid-1930s, the Art Deco district of Miami Beach was developed. During World War II, the U.S. government constructed many training, supply, and communications facilities around Miami, taking advantage of its strategic location at the southeastern corner of the country. Many servicemen and women returned to Miami after the war, pushing the population up to half a million by 1950. 1950

Immigrant influx

Following the 1959 revolution that unseated Fulgencio Batista and brought Fidel Castro to power, Cuban exiles began traveling to Florida en masse. In 1965 alone, 100,000 Cubans packed into the twice-daily "freedom flights" between Havana and Miami. Many of the exiles who escaped were middle class to upper class people who had all of their possessions taken from them, and they arrived in the U.S. with very little. The city, for the most part, welcomed the Cuban exiles. Most of the exiles settled into the Riverside neighborhood, which began to take on the new name of "Little Havana." This area emerged as a predominantly Spanish-speaking community, and Spanish speakers elsewhere in the city could conduct most of their daily business in their native tongue. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Attorney General’s authority was used to grant special permission (called “parole”) to allow Cubans to enter the country. However, parole only allows an individual permission to enter the country, not to stay permanently. In the case of Cubans, this dilemma was resolved by the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966. The Act provides that the immigration status of any Cuban who arrived since 1959 and has been physically present in the United States for at least a year “may be adjusted by the Attorney General…to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence” (green card holder). The individual must be admissible to the United States (i.e., not disqualified on criminal or other grounds). Later, the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 brought 150,000 Cubans to Miami in a single flotilla, the largest in civilian history. Unlike the previous exodus of the 1960's, most of the Cuban refugees arriving were poor. Castro used the boatlift as a way of purging his country of many criminals and the mentally ill. During this time, many of the middle class non-Hispanic whites in the community emigrated out of the city, often referred to as "white flight." In 1960, Miami was 90% non-Hispanic white; by 1990 it was only about 10% non-Hispanic white. In the 1980s, Miami started to see an increase in immigrants from other nations such as Haiti. As the Haitian population grew, the area known today as Little Haiti emerged, centered around Northeast Second Avenue and 54th Street. In the 1990s, the presence of Haitians was acknowledged with Haitian Creole language signs in public places and ballots during voting. Another major Cuban exodus occurred in 1994. To prevent it from becoming another Mariel Boatlift, the Clinton Administration announced a significant change in U.S. policy. In a controversial action, the administration announced that Cubans interdicted at sea would not be brought to the United States but instead would be taken by the Coast Guard to U.S. military installations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (or to Panama). During an eight-month period beginning in the summer of 1994, over 30,000 Cubans and more than 20,000 Haitians were interdicted and sent to live in camps outside the United States. Guantanamo Bay On September 9, 1994, the United States and Cuba agreed to “normalize” migration between the two countries. The agreement codified the new U.S. policy of placing Cuban refugees in safe havens outside the United States, while obtaining a commitment from Cuba to discourage Cubans from sailing to America. In addition, the United States committed to admitting a minimum of 20,000 Cuban immigrants per year. That number is in addition to the admission of immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. On May 2, 1995, a second agreement with the Castro government paved the way for the admission to the United States of the Cubans housed at Guantanamo, who were counted primarily against the first year of the 20,000 annual admissions committed to by the Clinton Administration. It also established a new policy of directly repatriating Cubans interdicted at sea to Cuba. In the agreement, the Cuban government pledged not to retaliate against those who are repatriated. These agreements with the Cuban government led to what has been called the Wet Foot-Dry Foot Policy, whereby Cubans who make it to shore can stay in the United States – likely becoming eligible to adjust to permanent residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act. However, those who do not make it to dry land ultimately are repatriated unless they can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to Cuba. However, because it was stated that Cubans were escaping for political reasons, this policy did not apply to Haitians, who the government claimed were seeking asylum for economic reasons. Since then, the Latin and Caribbean-friendly atmosphere in Miami has made it a popular destination for tourists and immigrants from all over the world, and the third-biggest immigration port in the country after New York City and Los Angeles. In addition, large immigrant communities have settled in Miami from around the globe, including Europe, Africa, and Asia. The majority of Miami's European immigrant communities are recent immigrants, many living in the city seasonally, with a high disposable income. For example, Miami's Italian-born community numbers only around 45,000, but it is the wealthiest Italian American community in the United States. Today there are sizable legal and illegal populations of Argentinians, Bahamians, Barbadians, Brazilians, Colombians, Cubans, Dominicans, Dutch, Ecuadorians, French, Haitians, Jamaicans, Israelis, Italians, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, Russians, South Africans, Turks, and Venezuelans throughout the metropolitan area. While commonly thought of as mainly a city of Hispanic and Caribbean immigrants, the Miami area is home to the largest Finnish, French, and South African immigrant communities in the United States; as well as one of the largest Israeli, Russian, and Turkish communities.

Miami Vice

Turkish In the 1980s, Miami became the United States' largest transshipment point for cocaine from Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. Again, geography played a major role: Miami was the closest U.S. port to the point of origin, so it was the most logical destination for smugglers. The drug industry brought billions of dollars into Miami, which were quickly funneled through dummy businesses and into the local economy. Luxury car dealerships, five-star hotels, condominium developments, swanky nightclubs, and other signs of prosperity began rising all over the city. As the money arrived, so did a violent crime wave that lasted through the early 1990s and that has only begun to die down in the 21st century. A classic fictional example of this is the 1983 gangster film, Scarface. The popular television program Miami Vice, which dealt with counter-narcotics agents in an idyllic upper-class rendition of Miami, spread the city's image as America's most glamorous tropical paradise. This image began to draw the entertainment industry to Miami, and the city remains a hub of fashion, filmmaking, and music. In the 1990s, various crises struck South Florida: drug wars, tourist shootings, Hurricane Andrew, the Elián González uproar, and, most recently, the controversial 2003 FTAA negotiations.

Geography and climate

Geography

The City of Miami and its suburbs are located on a broad plain between the Florida Everglades and Biscayne Bay that also extends from Florida Bay north to Lake Okeechobee. The elevation of the area never rises above 15ft (4.5m) and averages at around 3ft (0.91m) above sea level in most neighborhoods especially near the coast. The main portion of the city lies on the shores of Biscayne Bay which contains several hundred natural and artificially created barrier islands, the largest of which contains the city of Miami Beach and its famous South Beach district. These islands are geologically considered to be part of the Florida Keys, but are not politically related to them. The Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current, runs northward just 15 miles (24.1km) off the coast, allowing the city's climate to stay warm and mild all year. Beneath the plain lies the Biscayne Aquifer [http://capp.water.usgs.gov/gwa/ch_g/G-text4.html], a natural underground river that extends from southern Palm Beach County to Florida Bay, with its highest point peaking around the cities of Miami Springs and Hialeah. Most of the South Florida metropolitan area obtains its drinking water from this aquifer. As a result of the aquifer, it is not possible to dig more than 15 to 20ft (4.57 to 6.1m) beneath the city without hitting water, impeding underground construction. Most of the western fringes of the city extend into the Everglades, a