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New York Hall Of Science

New York Hall of Science

The New York Hall of Science occupies one of the few remaining structures of the 1964 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City (USA). Today, it stands as New York City's only hands-on science and technology center. The more than 400 hands-on exhibits explore biology, chemistry, and physics.

External links

- [http://www.nyhallsci.org/ Official website] Category:Museums in New York City Category:New York City World's Fairs Category:Science museums

1964 New York World's Fair

The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the second World's Fair to be held at Flushing Meadows Park in the Borough of Queens, New York in the twentieth century. It opened on April 22, 1964 and ran for two six-month seasons concluding on October 17, 1965. It was the largest World's Fair ever to be held in the United States, occupying nearly a square mile (2.6 km²) of land. Truly a "Universal and International" exposition, the Fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe." The theme was symbolized by a twelve-story high, stainless-steel model of the earth called Unisphere. More important to this world exposition than international participation was extensive involvement of United States corporations as exhibitors. By the time the gates closed more than fifty-one million people had attended the show, a respectable attendance for a World's Fair but less than three-quarters of the projected attendance of seventy million. Today the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair is best remembered as a showcase of mid-twentieth century American corporate culture. It represents an era best known as "The Space Age" when mankind took its first steps toward space exploration and it seemed that technology could provide the answers to all of the world's problems. The exhibits at the Fair echoed the early twentieth century's blind sense of optimism in the future that lost credibility shortly after the Fair.

Controversial beginnings

The 1964/1965 Fair was conceived by a group of New York businessmen who fondly remembered their childhood experiences at the 1939/1940 New York World's Fair and wanted to provide that same experience for their children and grandchildren. Thoughts of an economic boom to the city as the result of increased tourism was also a major reason for holding another Fair a scant twenty-five years after the 1939/1940 extravaganza. World's Fairs in the United States are not government financed. Organizers must turn to private financing and the sale of bonds to pay the huge costs to stage them. The organizers hired New York's "Master Builder," Robert Moses, to head the corporation established to run the Fair because he was experienced in raising money for vast public projects. Moses had been a formidable figure in the city since coming to power in the 1930s. He was responsible for the construction of much of the city's highway infrastructure and, as Parks Commissioner for decades, the creation of much of the city's park system. In the mid-1930s Moses oversaw the conversion of a vast Queens garbage dump into the glittering fairgrounds that hosted the 1939/1940 World's Fair. Called Flushing Meadows Park, it was Moses' grandest park scheme. He envisioned this vast park, comprising some 1300 acres (5 km²) of land and located in the geographical center of the city, as a major recreational playground for New Yorkers. When the 1939/1940 World's Fair ended in financial failure Moses did not have the available funds to complete work on his project. He saw the 1964/1965 Fair as a means to finish what the earlier Fair had begun. To ensure profits to complete the Park, Fair organizers knew they would have to maximize receipts from the Fair. An attendance of seventy million people would be needed in order to turn a profit and, for an attendance that large to be feasible, the Fair would need to be held for two years. The World's Fair Corporation also decided to charge site rental fees to all exhibitors who wished to construct pavilions on the Fairgrounds. These seemingly prudent decisions caused the Fair to come to blows with the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the international body headquartered in Paris that sanctions World's Fairs. The United States was not a member of the BIE at the time but Fair organizers understood that a sanction by the BIE would assure that its nearly forty member nations would participate in the Fair. BIE rules state that an international exposition may run for one six-month period only, no rent may be charged to exhibitors who wish to participate and only one exposition may be held in any given country within a 10-year period. Both Seattle, Washington and Montreal, Canada had already been sanctioned by the BIE to host World's Fairs in 1962 and 1967 respectively at the time New York put their World's Fair bid before the BIE in 1960. Robert Moses, undaunted by these rules, journeyed to Paris to seek official approval for the New York Fair. When the BIE balked at New York's bid, Moses, used to having his way in New York, angered the BIE delegates by taking his case to the press, publicly stating his disdain for their organization and their rules. The BIE retaliated by taking the action of formally requesting their member nations not to participate in the New York Fair. The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair thus became the only significant World's Fair in history to be held without BIE endorsement.

International participation

The BIE decision was nearly a disaster for the Fair. The absence of Canada, Australia, most of the major European nations and the Soviet Union, all members of the BIE, tarnished the image of the Fair. Additionally, New York was forced to compete with both Seattle and Montreal for international participants, with many nations choosing the officially sanctioned World's Fairs of those cities over the New York Fair. The Fair turned to trade and tourism organizations within many countries to host national exhibits in lieu of official government sponsorship of pavilions. New York City, in the middle of the 20th century, was at a zenith of economic power and world prestige. Unconcerned by BIE rules, smaller nations saw it as an honor to host an exhibit at the Fair in the world's most prestigious city. Therefore smaller nations and so-called third-world countries made up the majority of the international participation. In the end, only Spain and Vatican City hosted a major national presence at the Fair. Other international participants included Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Thailand, Philippines, Greece and Pakistan, to name a few. One of the Fair's most popular exhibits was the Vatican pavilion where Michelangelo's Pietà was displayed. A recreation of a medieval Belgian village proved to be very popular also. There, Fairgoers were treated to a new taste sensation in the form of the "Bel-Gem Waffle" — a combination of waffle, strawberries and whipped cream. Elsewhere emerging African nations displayed their wares in the Africa Pavilion. Controversy broke out when the Jordanian pavilion displayed a mural emphasizing the plight of the Palestinian people. The city of Berlin, a Cold War hotspot, hosted a popular display.

American industry takes the spotlight

At the 1939/1940 World's Fair, industrial exhibitors played a major role by hosting huge, elaborate exhibits. Many of them returned to the 1964/1965 Fair with even more elaborate versions of the shows they had presented twenty-five years earlier. The most notable of these was General Motors whose Futurama, a show in which visitors seated in three-abreast moving armchairs glided past detailed dioramas showing what life might be like in the "near-future," proved to be the Fair's most popular exhibit. Nearly twenty-six million people took the journey into the future during the Fair's two-year run. Other popular exhibits included that of the IBM Corporation where a giant five hundred-seat grandstand was pushed by hydraulic rams high up into an ovoid-shaped rooftop theater. There, a nine-screen film showed the workings of computer logic. The Bell System hosted a fifteen-minute ride in moving armchairs depicting the history of communications in dioramas and film. DuPont presented a musical review by composer Michael Brown called "The Wonderful World of Chemistry." At Parker Pen, a computer would make a match to a world-wide pen-pal. The surprise hit of the Fair was a non-commercial movie short presented by the SC Johnson Company (S.C. Johnson Wax) called "To be alive!" The film celebrated the joy of life found worldwide and in all cultures. The movie went on to win an Academy Award in 1966. The Fair is remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney used to design and perfect the system of "audio-animatronics," in which a combination of sound and computers control the movement of life-like robots to act out scenes. Disney Studios was responsible for the creation of four shows at the Fair. In the "it's a small world" attraction at the Pepsi-Cola pavilion, animated dolls and animals frolicked in a spirit of international unity on a boat-ride around the world. General Electric sponsored the "Carousel of Progress" where an audience seated in a revolving auditorium saw an audio-animatronics presentation of the progress of electricity in the home. Ford Motor Company presented Disney's "The Magic Skyway" featuring life-sized audio-animatronic dinosaurs and cavemen. And at the Illinois pavilion, a life-like Abraham Lincoln recited his famous speeches in "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln." Disney relocated many of these these exhibits to Disneyland following the Fair (and subsequently to other Disney Theme Parks) where they continued to delight audiences for years.

Federal and state exhibits

The Federal exhibit was titled "Challenge to Greatness" and focused on President Johnson's "Great Society" proposals. The main show in the multi-million dollar pavilion was a fifteen-minute ride through a filmed presentation of American history. Visitors seated in moving grandstands rode past movie screens that slid in, out and over the path of the traveling audience. Elsewhere, there were tributes to President John F. Kennedy, who had broken ground for the pavilion back in December 1962 but had been assassinated in November 1963 before the fair opened. New York State played host to the Fair at its six million dollar open-air pavilion called the "Tent of Tomorrow." Designed by famed modernist architect Philip Johnson, the pavilion also boasted the Fair's high spot observation towers. Wisconsin exhibited the "World's Largest Cheese." Florida brought a porpoise show and water skiers to New York. Oklahoma gave weary Fairgoers a restful park to relax in. Missouri displayed the state's space-related industries. At the New York City pavilion, a huge scale model of the City of New York was on display complete with a simulated helicopter ride for easy viewing. Visitors could dine at Hawaii's "Five Volcanoes" restaurant.

Controversial ending

The Fair came to a close embroiled in controversy over allegations of financial mismanagement. Controversy had plagued it during much of its two-year run mainly due to Robert Moses' inability to get along with the press. As a result the press seemed unduly harsh on the Fair, criticising everything from a perceived lack of fine arts displays to the prices charged for admission to charges that the Fair smacked of crass commercialism. It was no secret that the attendance had been disappointing. Only twenty-four million people attended the Fair by the close of the 1964 season. Whether the attitude of the press played a part in poor attendance or whether the apathy of New Yorkers toward the Fair gave the press an additional excuse to attack it is open to debate. But it was a gross accounting error brought to light at the close of the 1964 season that gave the press their most destructive ammunition. The Fair Corporation had taken in millions of dollars in advance ticket sales for both the 1964 and 1965 seasons. However, the receipts of these sales were booked entirely against the first season of the Fair. This made it appear that the Fair had plenty of operating cash up to and including the first season when, in fact, they were inadvertently borrowing from the second season's gate to pay the bills. Before and during the 1964 season, the Fair spent lavishly despite attendance that was considerably below expectations, simply because there was apparently so much money in the coffers. By the end of the 1964 season Moses, and the press, began to realize that there would not be enough money to pay the bills and the Fair teetered on bankruptcy. There would be millions of people attending in 1965 who had tickets to enter but whose receipts had already been spent. The press, and soon the City of New York, began to demand accountability for what they considered gross mismanagement of the Fair. The Fair was eventually able to limp through the second season without having to declare bankruptcy because of emergency monies provided by the city, an increase in ticket prices and a surge in attendance as the Fair drew to a close. However, the financial crisis further tarnished the image of the Fair and of Robert Moses who was seen to be taking personal advantage of the Fair after the escrow account guaranteeing his one million dollar salary was discovered and made known to the public by the New York press.

Epilogue

bankruptcy Like its predecessor, the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair lost money. It was unable to repay its financial backers their investment and it became embroiled in legal disputes with its creditors until 1970, when the books were finally closed and the New York World's Fair 1964-1965 Corporation was dissolved. Most of the pavilions constructed for the Fair were demolished within six months following the Fair's close. While only a handful of pavilions survived, some of them traveled great distances and found reuse following the Fair:
- The Austria pavilion became a ski lodge in western New York.
- The Wisconsin pavilion became a radio station in Neillsville, Wisconsin.
- The US Royal Tire-shaped Ferris Wheel was relocated to become a road sign along Interstate 94 near Detroit, Michigan.
- The Pavilion of Spain relocated to St. Louis, Missouri and is now a part of a Marriott Hotel.
- The Parker Pen pavilion became offices for the Lodge of Four Seasons in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.
- The Johnson Wax disc-shaped theater was reworked and became part of the S.C. Johnson office complex in Racine, Wisconsin.
- The Christian Science pavilion became a church in Poway, California. New York City was left with a much improved Flushing Meadows Park following the Fair, taking possession of the Park from the Fair Corporation in June, 1967. At the center of the park stands the symbol of "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe" – the Fair's Unisphere symbol, depicting our earth of "The Space Age." (The Unisphere later was made famous again in 1997 when it was featured in the film Men in Black.) The city also received a multi-million dollar Science Museum and Space Park exhibiting the rockets and vehicles used in America's early space exploration projects. Both the New York State pavilion and the Federal pavilion were retained for future use. No reuse was ever found for the Federal pavilion and it became severely deteriorated and vandalized before being demolished in 1977. The New York State pavilion also found no residual use (other than as a movie set for The Wiz and a backdrop for Men in Black) in the decades after the Fair closed and remains an abandoned and badly neglected relic of the Fair. The Space Park deteriorated due to neglect, but the surviving rockets were restored and placed back on display in 2004. It is presently open again as part of the New York Hall of Science, whose building is also one of the remnants of the Fair. The Fair's Heliport has found reuse as a banquet/catering facility called "Terrace on the Park." In 1978, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, as it is now called, became the home of the US Tennis Association and the US Open tennis tournament is played there annually. The former New York City building is home to the Queens Museum of Art and continues to display the multi-million dollar model of the city of New York.

Sources

Text

- International Participation in the New York World's Fair 1964-1965 Sharyn Elise Jackson. ^{[http://nywf64.com/intpar00.01.shtml]}
- Third Supplemental Report on New York World's Fair 1964 -1965 Corporation Covering Operations from Inception to December 31, 1966. October 26, 1967. ^{[http://nywf64.com/farewell06.shtml]}
- World's Fair Legacies William P. Young. ^{[http://nywf64.com/legacies01.shtml]}
- Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Today William P. Young. ^{[http://nywf64.com/fmcp01.shtml]}
- Editors, Time-Life Books Official Guide: 1964-1965 New York World's Fair . Book Sales: 1963-1965.

Photographs

- Fairgrounds view from the observation towers of the NY State Pavilion Photograph by Max Mordecai (deceased). Donated to GNU by son, Glen Mordecai, July 19, 2005. ^{[http://nywf64.com/building20.shtml]}
- Aerial View of Relics of the Fair Source: Unknown (not placed by the author). GNU Public Domain Photograph

External links

- [http://www.nywf64.com/ 1964/1965 New York World's Fair]
- [http://www.peacethroughunderstanding.org/ 1964-65 New York World's Fair Community]
- [http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/ny64fair/ New York 1964 1965 World's Fair] Category:New York City World's Fairs Category:1964

Queens

:This is about the New York City borough. For the monarchs, see queen. queen Queens is the largest of the five boroughs of New York City in area. It is coterminous with Queens County in the U.S. state of New York and is located on western Long Island. It is the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. Established on November 1, 1683, it was named for the then-queen consort, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. As of 2000, the population is 2,229,379. Its county seat is the district of Jamaica, a neighborhood of New York City. The United States Postal Service divides the borough into four "towns": Long Island City, Jamaica, Flushing, and Far Rockaway; mail addressed to a residence or business in Queens includes the name of the applicable neighborhood (such as Ozone Park) on the next line below the street address—rather than "Queens, New York"—followed by the ZIP Code. Note that these ZIP codes do not necessarily accurately determine neighborhood names and boundaries, as "East Elmhurst" was largely coined by the United States Postal Service. Most neighborhoods have no solid boundaries and at times residents are left guessing to what neighborhood they belong. Queens is a particularly interesting borough because of the diversity of suburban and urban areas. Neighborhoods in the eastern part of the borough are similar to towns in western Nassau County, having a more suburban look, while neighborhoods in the western and central sections loosely resemble The Bronx (particularly the eastern Bronx) and Brooklyn (particularly northeastern Brooklyn, which borders Queens), having more urban characteristics. Queens' characterization as a suburb is not especially accurate, or least not so since the 1960s.

Geography

urban Queens County is in the western part of Long Island and includes a few smaller islands, most of which are in Jamaica Bay and form part of Gateway National Recreation Area. The tallest tree in the New York metropolitan area, called the Queens Giant, is also the oldest living thing in the New York metro area. It is located in northeastern Queens, and is 450 years old and 134 feet tall as of 2005. According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 461.7 km² (178.3 mi²). 282.9 km² (109.2 mi²) of it is land and 178.8 km² (69.0 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 38.73% water.

History

The borough of Queens was originally named after Queen Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of King Charles II of England. Originally, Queens County included the adjacent area now comprising Nassau County. It was an original county of New York State, one of twelve created in 1683. By 1870 Queens County consisted of six towns: Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica, North Hempstead, Hempstead, and Oyster Bay. In 1870, the city of Long Island City was incorporated, consisting of what had been the Village of Astoria and some unincorporated areas in the Town of Newtown. Long Island City, Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica, and the Rockaway Peninsula of the Town of Hempstead became the borough of Queens in Greater New York on January 1, 1898. The part of Queens County that was not annexed to New York City, consisting of the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay and all of the Town of Hempstead except the Rockaway Peninsula, was constituted as the new Nassau County in 1899.

Neighborhoods

1899 The borough of Queens is a patchwork quilt of dozens of unique neighborhoods, each with its own distinct identity. Residents of Queens have been known to identify more with their neighborhood than with the borough as a whole. Howard Beach and Middle Village are home to large Italian-American populations, Rockaway Beach has a large Irish-American population, Astoria, in the northwest, is traditionally home to one of the largest Greek populations outside of Greece, and is home to a growing population of young professionals from Manhattan, and nearby Long Island City, in the southwest, is a major manufacturing and commercial center, as well as being the location of the Queensbridge housing project, with its infamous Hip Hop history and large proportion of famous rappers; Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona make up an enormous conglomeration of Hispanic and Asian communities; Flushing, in the north-central part of the borough, is a major commercial hub for Chinese and Korean businesses; Richmond Hill, in the south, has the largest population of Indian Sikhs outside of India; Forest Hills and Kew Gardens, in central Queens, have traditionally large Jewish populations as well as large hispanic populations while Jamaica is a major business and transportation hub for the borough, and also home to large African-American and Caribbean populations. There are also middle class African-American, Latino and Caribbean neighborhoods such as Saint Albans, Cambria Heights, Queens Village, Rosedale and Laurelton along East and Southeast Queens.Together, these neighborhoods comprise the most diverse county in the US, and easily provide the richest cultural experience found anywhere in the world. Some Queens neighborhoods, such as Ozone Park, Bayside, Maspeth and Woodside are home to a very diverse mix of many different nationalities. ZIP Codes in Queens range from 11351 to 11499 and from 11101 to 11120. The borough is politically divided into 14 community boards :
- 1 : Astoria, Long Island City, Queensbridge, Ditmars, Ravenswood, Steinway, and Woodside
- 2 : Long Island City, Woodside, and Sunnyside
- 3 : Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst
- 4 : Elmhurst, Corona, Lefrak City, Flushing Meadows
- 5 : Ridgewood, Glendale, Middle Village, Maspeth
- 6 : Forest Hills and Rego Park
- 7 : Flushing, Bay Terrace, College Point, Whitestone, Malba, Beechhurst, Queensboro Hill and Willets Point
- 8 : Fresh Meadows, Cunningham Heights, Hilltop Village, Pomonak Houses, Jamaica Estates, Holliswood, Utopia, Kew Gardens Hills, and Briarwood
- 9 : Richmond Hill, Woodhaven, Ozone Park, and Kew Gardens
- 10 : Howard Beach, South Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Tudor Village, and Lindenwood
- 11 : Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Auburndale, East Flushing, Oakland Gardens, and Hollis Hills
- 12 : Jamaica, Hollis, Saint Albans, Springfield Gardens, Rochdale Village, and South Jamaica
- 13 : Queens Village, Glen Oaks, New Hyde Park, Bellerose, Cambria Heights, Laurelton, Rosedale, Floral Park, and Brookville
- 14 : Breezy Point, Belle Harbor, Neponsit, Arverne, Bayswater, Edgemere, Rockaway Park, Rockaway and Far Rockaway See: List of Queens neighborhoods

Economy

List of Queens neighborhoods The economy of Queens is based on tourism, industry, and trade. Queens has two of the busiest airports in the world, John F. Kennedy International Airport, located in Jamaica, and La Guardia Airport, in Flushing. Queens is increasingly attracting film studios — a return of an industry that had departed decades earlier — notably the Kaufman Studios in Astoria, where a number of television shows are made. Western Queens is becoming an artistic hub, including the Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Museum for African Art, and the American Museum of the Moving Image. The current poet laureate of Queens is Ishle Yi Park. The Queens Museum of Art and the New York Hall of Science are further east, in Flushing Meadows Park — site of both the 1939 New York World's Fair, the 1964 New York World's Fair and the annual US Open tennis tournament. Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets baseball team, is just north of the park. Several large companies have their headquarters in Queens. They include Bulova, Glacéau, JetBlue and Steinway & Sons.

Law, government, and politics

Queens is a borough of New York City. The current borough president is Democrat Helen Marshall. Queens is considered a volatile swing county in New York politics. Although it is heavily Democratic, Republicans who do well in Queens usually win statewide or citywide, like former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, current Mayor Michael Bloomberg and current New York Governor George Pataki. Despite being largely liberal, Queens is the home of State Senator Serphin Maltese, a conservative Republican who represents a huge chunk of central and southern Queens Hence, Queens residents voted for Michael Bloomberg for Mayor in 2001 by 210,432 votes to 163,528 to his Democratic opponent Mark Green. In 2002, they voted against George Pataki for Governor with a slim 45.01% (155,599) to 46.50% (160,746) for its democratic opponent Carl McCall. Queens residents voted for Senator Kerry for President in 2004 by 71.7% (433,835) to 21.4% (165,954) for President Bush. However, apart from Staten Island, Queens is the last borough in heavily Democratic New York City in which a majority voted Republican in a presidential election : in 1972 when Queens went for Richard Nixon. Indeed, even if Queens votes now overwhemingly democratic in Presidential election, this trend is pretty new. Until the late 80s, although being clearly a Democratic area, the borough was still a competitive one.

Transportation

The Borough of Queens has crucial importance in international and interstate air traffic. LaGuardia Airport, which handles plenty of the interstate air traffic, is located on the northern shores of Queens. Along the southern shores of Queens is where John F. Kennedy International Airport is located. Cutting through the borough is the Long Island Expressway, which serves as the main artery for traffic between the New York City and Long Island.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 2,229,379 people, 782,664 households, and 537,690 families residing in the county. The population density is 7,879.6/km² (20,409.0/mi²). There are 817,250 housing units at an average density of 2,888.5/km² (7,481.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the county is 44.08% White, 20.01% Black or African American, 0.50% Native American, 17.56% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 11.68% from other races, and 6.11% from two or more races. 24.97% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. Some main European ancestry in Queens, 2000 :
- Italian : 8.99%
- Irish : 7.05%
- German : 4.74%
- English : 1.32% According to the Census Bureau, the population increased to 2,237,216 in 2004. There are 782,664 households out of which 31.5% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.9% are married couples living together, 16.0% have a female householder with no husband present, and 31.3% are non-families. 25.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.7% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.81 and the average family size is 3.39. In the county the population is spread out with 22.8% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 33.1% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 35 years. For every 100 females there are 92.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 89.6 males. The median income for a household in the county is $42,439, and the median income for a family is $48,608. Males have a median income of $35,576 versus $31,628 for females. The per capita income for the county is $19,222. 14.6% of the population and 11.9% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 18.8% of those under the age of 18 and 13.0% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Famous people from Queens

:Kenny Anderson :Susan Anspach :Anthrax :Ron Artest :Hank Azaria - Forest Hills :Tony Bennett - Astoria :Adrien Brody :David Caruso :Cormega :Mario Cuomo - Forest Hills :Drea de Matteo - Whitestone :Fran Drescher - Flushing :Mobb Deep :Ron Eldard :Richard Feynman - Far Rockaway :Art Garfunkel :Stephen Jay Gould :Barbara Grizzuti Harrison :Carl Icahn :Jam Master Jay :Ja Rule :Ron Jeremy :Jin :LL Cool J :Cyndi Lauper - Ozone Park :Lynn Lavner :John Leguizamo - Jackson Heights :Lucy Liu - Jackson Heights :John McEnroe - Briarwood :Ethel Merman :Nas :N.O.R.E. :Carroll O'Connor - Forest Hills :Lamar Odom :Bernadette Peters :Lou Pearlman :Joey Ramone :Nancy Reagan :Ray Romano :Al Roker :Run-DMC, :Russell Simmons :Paul Simon :Nina Sky :Jerry Stiller :Cecil Taylor :George Tenet :Donald Trump :Christopher Walken - Jamaica Estates :Steven Weber :John Zorn :Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson Fictional characters include Archie Bunker, Edith Bunker, George Costanza, Fran Fine, Doug Heffernan, Vincent Chase and his friends on the HBO series Entourage, Mr. Met, and Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man.

Sports and other attractions

Queens is the home of the New York Mets baseball team, the US Open tennis tournament, and Aqueduct Racetrack. Just over the Queens line (in Nassau County) is Belmont Park Race Track, the home of the Belmont Stakes. Queens is also home to York College (New York), Queens College, Queensborough Community College and Saint John's University, which is renowned for its men's basketball and men's soccer teams.

External links

- [http://queens.about.com/ About.com's Queens site]
- [http://docs.unh.edu/NY/brkl91ne.jpg 1891 map of southwestern Queens]
- [http://docs.unh.edu/NY/brkl98ne.jpg 1898 map of southwestern Queens]
- [http://bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Map/Queens.1910.1.html 1910 map of Queens (west)]
- [http://bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Map/Queens.1910.2.html 1910 map of Queens (east)]
- [http://www.queenschamber.org/QueensInfo/NeighborhoodPages/neighborhoods.html Queens Neighborhoods] Category:New York City Category:New York counties Category:Long Island ja:クイーンズ区

USA

: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 (although

Technology

:See also: Innovation Innovation.]] Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia (τεχνολογια), techne (τεχνη) "craft" + logia (λογια) "saying". It is an encompassing term dealing with the use and knowledge of humanity's tools and crafts.
Disambiguation of technology
Depending on context, the word technology has the following definitions and uses:
- Technology as tool-In its most common usage, technology is the tools and machines that help to solve problems. In this usage, technology is a far-reaching term that can include both simple tools, such as a wooden spoon, and complex tools, such as the space station.
- Technology as technique-In this usage, technology is the current state of our knowledge of how to combine resources to produce a desired products, to solve a problem, to fulfill a need, or to satisfy a want. Technology in this sense includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. (such as artificial intelligence, building technology, or medical technology).
- Technology as culture former-a culture-forming (or destroying) activity (such as manufacturing technology, infrastructure technology, or space-travel technology). (McGinn). As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering. This is not to imply that technology is the only culture forming activity, nor that it is the primary culture-forming activity. Often, it is dominant in cultural formation; often, it is not. In addition, culture may act to form technology. Due to widespread, and sometime careless, use of technology, several other topics arise in the study of technology, including technological ethics, environmental impacts, technological by-products, and technological risk, among many other philosophical and sociological topics.

Science and technology

The lines between science and technology are not always clear. Generally, science is the reasoned investigation or study of nature, aimed at finding out the truth, generally according to the scientific method. Technology is the application of knowledge (scientific, engineering, and/or otherwise) to achieve a practical result (Roussel, et.al.). For example, science might study the flow of electrons in an electric current. This knowledge may be used to create artifacts, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of technology.

History of technology

The history of technology is as old as the history of humanity because history proper refers to what could be recorded by technological means. Mind you that other animals currently use tools and animals prior to human existence may have as well. The history of technology follows a progression from simple (low-tech) tools and simple energy sources to complex ("hi-tech") tools. The earliest technologies converted natural resources into simple tools. Processes such as carving, chipping, scraping, rolling (the wheel), and sun-baking are simple means for the conversion of raw materials into usable products. Anthropologists have uncovered many early human houses and tools made from natural resources (although birds also build nests out of dried materials and we don't consider them to have a technological society). The use, and then mastery, of fire was a key turning point in man's technological evolution providing him with simple energy. The use of fire extended the capability for the treatment of natural resources and allowed the use of natural resources that require heat to be useful. Wood and charcoal were among the first materials used as a fuel. Wood, clay, and rock (such as limestone), would be among the earliest materials shaped or treated by fire, for making weapons, pottery, bricks, and cement, among others. Continuing improvements such as the furnace enabled the ability to smelt and forge metal (such as copper, ca. 8000 BC), and eventually to the discovery of alloys, such as brass and bronze (ca. 4000 BC). The first uses of iron alloys, steel, dates to around 1400 BC.