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Jorn Barger

Jorn Barger

Jorn Barger (born 1953 in Yellow Springs, Ohio) is a American blogger, best known today as editor of Robot Wisdom, an influential early weblog. Barger coined the term weblog to describe the process of "logging the web" as he surfed.

Biography

Barger's first computer in 1964 was one of the first programmable digital computers available, a Minivac 601 designed by Claude Shannon and advertised in Scientific American. In high school Barger specialized in math and science, but also read Freud and James Joyce. Before graduating (a year early, as valedictorian), he decided his life's goal would be to solve the riddles of the human psyche. He spent the first half of the 1970s rejecting traditional approaches to psychology, one by one, with Jiddu Krishnamurti providing the ultimate rationale for a pathless approach. In the late 1970s, he developed a new methodology that demanded hypotheses be expressed as computer simulations, and that the simulations be refined by analyzing literary descriptions of human behavior. He called this method "cybernetic psychology", or "Robot Wisdom." Around 1978 he lived for a time at The Farm, Stephen Gaskin's intentional community in Tennessee. In 1979 he discovered a set of "semantic primes" that could be combined to describe hundreds of nuances in human behavior. He called this system "Anti-Math." In the early 1980s he compiled a database of behavioral nuances in the form of a long poem called "Brainfeathers," and then discovered that the basic structure of the poem was identical with Joyce's Finnegans Wake. During the first half of the 1980s he programmed games and educational software for the Apple II, the Commodore 64, and the Atari 800. Barger is an expert on James Joyce and artificial intelligence (AI). His resources on James Joyce are extensive and are referenced in academic websites. He has referred to Joyce as an early pioneer of artificial intelligence and as the master of descriptive psychology. At one time Barger worked at Northwestern University's Institute for the Learning Sciences under the leading AI researcher Roger Schank, eventually departing over philosophical differences. An active participant in Usenet during the 1990s, he wrote early FAQs on ASCII art, Kate Bush, Thomas Pynchon, and James Joyce. In 1994 he formulated an "Inverse Law of Usenet Bandwidth": "The more interesting your life becomes, the less you post... and vice versa."

Weblog

On December 17, 1997, Barger began posting short comments and links on his own Robot Wisdom website, thus pioneering the "weblog" as it is known today. His site soon included interlinked weblog sections titled "Fun," "Art," "Issues," "Net," "Tech," "Science," "History," "Search," and "Shop." One of the first weblog controversies revolved around his political comments and the wording of his weblog's headlines linking to articles concerning the history of Judaism, policies of Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some participants in a 1997 Web forum discussion Barger moderated on these issues accused him of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. By 2000 he felt he had exhausted the formal possibilities of weblogs, and began instead to explore the timeline format, annotating each timeline entry with a link to a relevant resource. Meanwhile Robot Wisdom was evolving to include information and essays on James Joyce, AI, history, Internet culture, hypertext design, and technology trends, among the topics Barger covered. Announcements of plans for a future "hardcopy edition" of Robot Wisdom for purchase began appearing at the foot of some of the site's pages. He occasionally posted comments about trying to find types of employment that did not conflict with his philosophical ideals. The maxim "You can't serve God and Mammon" appeared at the top of his "issues.literate" weblog section. By December 2001, he was experiencing financial difficulties that he announced would cause an interruption in keeping Robot Wisdom online. Before taking the weblog offline a couple of months, he posted comments mentioning an interest in employment by telecommute but noting his philosophical concerns: "I have a gigantic psychological block against Mammon-in-general, and no longterm ideas how to overcome it. Alternative currency? Retreat to a cave?" Previously a longtime resident of the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago, Barger was living in Socorro, New Mexico as of late 2003. Several bloggers initiated an outpouring of concern and speculation in December 2003 when Barger had not been seen online for some months. However, Barger had been known to take unexplained absences from the Internet before, and his departure turned out again to be temporary; Robot Wisdom returned in February 2005. In a July 2005 Wired magazine item, writer Paul Boutin reported encountering a "homeless and broke" Barger walking with a mutual friend in San Francisco, California. The article said that Barger, "living on less than a dollar a day," had allowed his weblog's domain registration to lapse, but that Boutin found Robot Wisdom back online a few weeks later. Boutin claimed in the story that upon subsequently meeting him at a pub, Barger told him that the previous time they had met he had been carrying a panhandling sign he had not shown him. Barger reportedly told him the sign had read, "Coined the term 'weblog', never made a dime." Barger has since said that the Boutin article was mostly "fiction." For his part, Boutin published a clarification in his own weblog, saying the headline Wired had chosen might have misled readers into thinking Barger was "living on the street," rather than staying with friends.

References


- Barger, Jorn (July 31, 1998). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/netlit/issues.html "Issues.literate weblog section."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn (March 2002). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/judaism.html "Judaism timeline."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn (March 2005). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/science/logarithmic.html "Logarithmic timeline of the universe."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn (December 17–December 29, 1997). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/log1997m12.html "Robot Wisdom WebLog for December 1997."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn. [http://www.robotwisdom.com/jorn/index.html "The saga of Jorn."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn (May 2001). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/timeline.html "Timeline of James Joyce's life."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn, ed. (December 27, 2000–December 19, 2002). [http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=004ImF "What is 'Racism'?"] Robot Wisdom forum discussion at Greenspun.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn. (December 2000). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/tech/futures.html "What Will Your Harddrive Hold in Ten Years?"] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Barger, Jorn. (December 13, 2001). [http://www.robotwisdom.com/weblogs/yafc.html "Yet another financial crisis."] Robotwisdom.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Battey, Jim (November 1, 1999). [http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/hotsites/hotextra991101.htm "Weblogs mix creative expression with practical information ."] InfoWorld. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- [http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/39866 "The Black is Back."] MetaFilter discussion (February 23, 2005). Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Boutin, Paul (July 3, 2005). [http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/2005/07/03#a1235 "Jorn Barger lost, found, lost again."] Paul Boutin blog. Retrieved Jul. 14, 2005.
- Boutin, Paul (July 2005). [http://wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/posts.html?pg=6 "Robot Wisdom on the Street."] Wired magazine issue 13.07. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Bunn, Austin (September 2–September 8, 1998). [http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9836,bunn,3421,8.html "Signal and Noise: Web Surgery."] The Village Voice. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Carnell, Brian (December 10, 2000). [http://brian.carnell.com/archives/years/2000/12/000027.html "Flexible Database-Driven System + Creativity = Awesome Web Building Power."] Brian.Carnell.Com weblog. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Carnell, Brian (September 28, 2001. [http://brian.carnell.com/discussion/fullthread$msgnum=1384 "Is Jorn Barger a Racist?"] Brian.Carnell.Com weblog. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Dibbell, Julian (May 3, 2000). [http://web.archive.org/web/20000510161001/www.feedmag.com/feature/cx329.shtml "Idée Fixe: Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Man."] Feed magazine. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- [http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/29966 "Jorn Barger missing."] MetaFilter discussion (December 2, 2003). Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Kahney, Leander (December 5, 2003). [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,61458,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3 "Jorn Barger Has Left the Building."] Wired News. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Orlowski, Andrew (July 29, 2002). [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/07/29/the_greatness_of_robot_wisdom/ "The Greatness of Robot Wisdom."] The Register. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Power, Max (April 10 2002). [http://maxpower.blogspot.com/2002_04_07_maxpower_archive.html "Jorn Barger Shows True Colors."] The Sound and Fury blog. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Rhodes, John S. (September 27, 1999). [http://www.webword.com/interviews/barger.html "The Human Behind Robot Wisdom."] Webword.com. Article temporarily offline Jul. 12, 2005; author states will return online within two weeks.
- Rosenberg, Scott (May 28, 1999). [http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/1999/05/28/weblogs/index1.html "Technology: Fear of Links."] Salon.com. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.
- Safire, William (July 28, 2002). [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/magazine/28ONLANGUAGE.html "On Language: Blog"]. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved Jul. 12, 2005.

External links


- [http://www.robotwisdom.com/home.html Robot Wisdom homepage]
- [http://www.robotwisdom.com Robot Wisdom Weblog] Barger, Jorn Barger, Jorn Barger, Jorn Barger, Jorn Barger, Jorn Barger, Jorn

1953

1953 (MCMLIII) is a common year starting on Thursday.

Events

January


- January 7 - President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.
- January 12 - Estonian emigres find a government in exile in Oslo
- January 13 - Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugoslavia
- January 15 - Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying
- January 20 - Change of US presidency from Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) to Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961).
- January 22 - The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opens on Broadway
- January 24 – Mau Mau rebels in Kenya kill Ruck family – father, mother and a 6-year-old son
- January 26 - Walter Ulbricht announces that the agriculture will be collectivized in East Germany
- January 28 - Derek Bentley is executed for murder in Wandsworth Prison
- January 31-February 1 - North Sea flood of 1953 kills 1,835 people in the southwestern Netherlands (especially Zeeland), 307 in the United Kingdom and several hundred at sea, including 132 on the ferry Princess Victoria in the Irish Sea

February


- February 1 - Surge of North Sea Flood of 1953 continues from the previous day.
- February 5 - The movie Peter Pan premieres (Roxy Theatre, New York City).
- February 11 - President Eisenhower refuses clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
- February 11 - The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel.
- February 13 - Transsexual Christine Jorgenson returns to New York after successful sexual reassignment surgery in Denmark
- February 18 - The first 3D film, Bwana Devil opens.
- February 19 - Censorship: Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States
- February 28 - James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA.

March-April


- March 1 - After an all-night dinner with Soviet Union interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin collapses, having suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.
- March 1 - Bernard Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg made the deputy constable and lieutenant governor of Windsor Castle
- March 5 - After 29 years of ruling the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin dies.
- March 6 - Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Josef Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- March 11 - U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Fortunately it fails to detonate.
- March 13 - United Nations Security Council nominates Dag Hammarskjöld as United Nations Secretary General
- March 14 - Nikita Khruschev selected general secretary of the Soviet communist party
- March 17 - Nuclear test in Nevada - with 1620 spectators in 3.4 km
- March 18 - An earthquake hits western Turkey killing 250.
- March 25-26 – Lari Massacre in Kenya – Mau Mau rebels kill up to 150 kikuyu
- March 26 - Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
- April 7 - Dag Hammarskjöld is elected United Nations Secretary General.
- April 8 – Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced for seven years in prison for alleged organization of Mau Mau Rebellion
- April 13 - Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale in the United Kingdom
- April 25 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish their description of the double helix structure of DNA.(::Watson, J. D. and Crick, F. H. C. (1953). [http://www.nature.com/genomics/human/watson-crick/index.html Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid]. Nature 171, 737-738.)

May

DNA
- May 2 - Hussein is crowned King of Jordan.
- May 2 - 38-year-old Stanley Matthews finally wins the FA Cup at his third attempt, in the famous 'Matthews Final'
- May 9 – France agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia with the king Norodom Sihanouk
- May 10 - Town of Chemnitz in East Germany becomes Karl Marx Stadt
- May 11 - The Waco Tornado: A F5 tornado hits in the downtown section of Waco, Texas killing 114.
- May 18 - At Rogers Dry Lake, California Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier (she flew in a F-86 Sabrejet at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour).
- May 25 - Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
- May 29 - Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay perform the first successful ascent to the summit of Mount Everest.

June-July

Mount Everest
- June 2 - Coronation of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey.
- June 8 - Flint-Worcester Tornadoes: A tornado hits in Flint, Michigan and kills 115. This is the last tornado to claim more than 100 lives.
- June 8 - Austria and Soviet Union form diplomatic relations
- June 9 - CIA Technical Services Staff head Sidney Gottlieb approves of the use of LSD in a MKULTRA subproject.
- June 9 - Flint-Worcester Tornadoes: A tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts killing 94.
- June 12 - Currency reform causes riots in Czechoslovakia
- June 13 - Hungarian Prime Minister Mátyás Rákosi is replaced by Imre Nagy.
- June 16 - Soviet Union and Yugoslavia form diplomatic relations
- June 17 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a Division (military) of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
- June 18 - Egypt declares a republic
- June 19 - Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
- June 30 - The first Chevrolet Corvette is built at Flint (Michigan)
- July 4 - Strikes and riots in coal mining regions in Poland
- July 5 - First meeting of the assembly of the European Economic Community in Strasbourg, France
- July 10 – Soviet official paper Pravda announces that Lavrenti Beria has been deposed from his positions as a head of NKVD
- July 18 - Flood in the Hodno island in Japan - 1700 dead, 7000 injured
- July 26 - Fidel Castro and his brother lead a disastrous assault on the Moncada Barracks - preliminary to the Cuban Revolution.
- July 27 - Korean War ends: The United States, People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea sign an armistice agreement.

August-October


- August 5 - Operation Big Switch, operation to repatriate prisoners of war after the Korean War
- August 7 - Ohio admitted as a U. S. state, retroactive to 1803.
- August 8 - Soviet prime minister Georgi Malenkov announces that Soviet Union has a hydrogen bomb
- August 11 - Earthquake devastates islands of the Ionian Sea
- August 13 - 4 million workers go on strike in France to protest austerity measures
- August 17 - Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California, see October 5.
- August 18 - Kinsey report
- August 19 - Cold War: The CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and retain Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne (see: Operation Ajax).
- August 20 - French government oust the sultan of Morocco and exiles him to Corsica
- August 20 - USA gives West Germany 382 ships it captured during World War Two
- August 25 - General strike ends in France
- September 3 - Birthday, Cheryl Tutson, 1953
- September 5 - United Nations does not accept Soviet Union's suggestion to accept China as a member
- September 7 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes head of the Soviet Central Committee.
- September 25 - Hurricane in South-East Asia - over 1000 dead
- September 25 - First German prisoners of war return from Soviet Union to West Germany
- September 26 - Rationing of sugar ends in the United Kingdom
- October - The UNIVAC 1103 is the first commercial computer to use random access memory.
- October 5 - First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous (first planning session was held August 17)
- October 9 - Konrad Adenauer is re-elected as a German chancellor
- October 12 - "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" opens at Plymouth Theatre, New York.
- October 30 - Cold War: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

November-December


- November 5 - David Ben Gurion resigns as a prime minister of Israel
- November 9 - Cambodia becomes independent from France.
- November 9 - King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia dies
- November 21 - Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce that the skull of the "Piltdown Man", one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax.
- November 23 - Moscow announces that Lavrenti Beria has been executed
- November 25 - England lose 6-3 to Hungary at Wembley Stadium, their first ever loss to a continental team at home
- November 29 - French paratroopers take Dien Bien Phu
- December 2 - United Kingdom and Iran reform diplomatic relations
- December 8 - US president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his Atoms for Peace address to the UN General Assembly in New York City
- December 23 – Soviet Union announces officially that Lavrenti Beria has been executed
- December 24 - 153 people die as a result of the Tangiwai disaster when the railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River
- December 30 - The first color television sets go on sale for about $1,175 (American dollars).

Births

January-February


- January 4 - George Tenet, American Central Intelligence Agency director
- January 8 - Bruce Sutter, baseball player
- January 10 - Pat Benatar, American singer
- January 10 - Bobby Rahal, American race car driver
- January 19 - Desi Arnaz Jr., American actor
- January 21 - Paul Allen, American entrepreneur
- January 22 - Jim Jarmusch, American director
- January 26 - Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark
- February 7 - Dan Quisenberry, baseball player (d. 1998)
- February 8 - Mary Steenburgen, American actress
- February 11 - Philip Anglim, American actor
- February 11 - Jeb Bush, brother of President George W Bush and son of George H.W. Bush and Barbara Pierce Bush
- February 11 - Alan Rubin, American musician
- February 17 - Norman Pace, British actor and comedian
- February 21 - William Petersen, American actor
- February 25 - José María Aznar, Spanish politician
- February 25 - Martin Kippenberger, German artist

March-May


- March 1 - Richard Bruton, Irish politician and economist
- March 6 - Jan Kjærstad, Norwegian author
- March 6 - Jacklyn Zeman, American actress
- March 12 - Carl Hiaasen, American author
- March 12 - Ron Jeremy, American actor
- March 16 - Isabelle Huppert, French actress
- March 16 - Richard Stallman, American free software proponent
- March 23 - Chaka Khan, American singer
- March 26 - Elaine Chao, U.S. Secretary of Labor
- April 1 - Barry Sonnenfeld, American film producer and director
- April 11 - Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium
- April 11 - Andrew Wiles, British-born mathematician
- April 16 - J. Neil Schulman, American writer and activist
- May 6 - Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- May 15 - George Brett, baseball player
- May 15 - Mike Oldfield, English composer
- May 16 - Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor
- May 19 - Victoria Wood, British comic actress
- May 20 - Robert Doyle, Australian politician
- May 24 - Alfred Molina, English actor
- May 26 - Michael Portillo, English politician
- May 29 - Danny Elfman, American composer
- May 30 - Colm Meaney, Irish actor

June-August


- June 1 - David Berkowitz, American serial killer
- June 8 - Bonnie Tyler, Welsh singer
- June 13 - Tim Allen, American actor
- June 21 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan
- July 14 - Bebe Buell, American model and singer
- July 15 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti
- July 15 - Mila Pivnicki, First Lady of Canada
- July 29 - Geddy Lee, Canadian musician (Rush)
- August 5 - Rick Mahler, baseball player (d. 2005)
- August 9 - Robert Cray, American musician
- August 11 - Hulk Hogan, American professional wrestler
- August 18 - Louie Gohmert, American politician
- August 19 - Benoît Régent, French actor (d. 1994)
- August 31 - György Károly, Hungarian author

October-December


- October 2 - Brandon Wilson, American author and explorer
- October 7 - Christopher Norris, British actress
- October 7 - Tico Torres, American musician (Bon Jovi)
- October 9 - Tony Shalhoub, American actor
- October 12 - Serge Lepeltier, French politician
- October 12 - Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
- October 22 - Jeff Goldblum, American actor
- October 27 - Robert Picardo, American actor
- October 27 - Peter Firth, British actor
- October 31 - Michael J. Anderson, American actor
- November 4 - Carlos Gutierrez, American politician
- November 14 - Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister of France
- November 18 - Alan Moore, English writer and magician
- November 19 - Robert Beltran, American actor
- November 19 - Tom Villard, American actor (d. 1994)
- November 28 - Ben Bolt, American guitarist
- November 23 - Francis Cabrel, French singer
- November 29 - Alex Grey, American artist
- December 6 - Gary Ward, baseball player
- December 8 - Kim Basinger, American actress
- December 13 - Ben Bernanke, American economist
- December 13 - Bob Gainey, Canadian hockey player
- December 29 - Stanley Williams, a notorious Crips street gangs (d. 2005)

Deaths


- January 1 - Hank Williams, American musician (b. 1923)
- January 28 - James Scullin, ninth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1876)
- March 2 - Jim Lightbody, American runner (b. 1882)
- March 5 - Herman J. Mankiewicz, American writer and producer (b. 1897)
- March 5 - Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (b. 1891)
- March 5 - Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader (b. 1879)
- March 24 - Queen Mary the Dowager Queen Mother, queen of George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1867)
- March 28 - Jim Thorpe, American athlete (b. 1887)
- May 29 - Man Mountain Dean, American professional wrestler (b. 1891)
- July 26 - Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b. 1883)
- July 29 - Richard William Pearse, New Zealand airplane pioneer (b. 1877)
- August 22 - Jim Tabor, baseball player (b. 1916)
- September 2 - General Jonathan Wainwright, U.S. Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1883)
- September 8 - Fred M. Vinson, Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1890)
- September 28 - Edwin Hubble, American astronomer (b. 1889)
- October 3 - Arnold Bax, English composer (b. 1887)
- October 8 - Kathleen Ferrier, British contralto (b. 1912)
- October 25 - Holger Pedersen, Dutch linguist (b. 1867)
- October 27 - Thomas Wass, English cricketer (b. 1873)
- November 8 - Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1870)
- November 8 - John van Melle, Dutch-born author (b. 1883)
- November 9 - Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and author (b. 1914)
- November 21 - Larry Shields, American musician (b. 1893)
- November 27 - Eugene O'Neill, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
- November 28 - Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
- November 29 - Sam De Grasse, Canadian actor (b. 1875)
- November 30 - Francis Picabia, French painter and poet (b. 1879)
- December 18 - Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868)
- December 27 - Julian Tuwim, Polish poet (b. 1894)

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - Frits (Frederik) Zernike
- Chemistry - Hermann Staudinger
- Medicine - Hans Adolf Krebs, Fritz Albert Lipmann
- Literature - Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- Peace - George Catlett Marshall Category:1953 ko:1953년 ms:1953 ja:1953年 simple:1953 th:พ.ศ. 2496

US

: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 (