141-603: The Revolutionary Proletarian Army , also known by the acronym RPA , was the military wing of the Revolutionary Workers' Party (Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawà ng Pilipinas) (RPM-P), a communist party that split from the Communist Party of the Philippines . The Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawà ng Pilipinas ("Revolutionary Workers' Party of the Philippines") was established after
282-428: A numeronym . For example, "i18n" abbreviates " internationalization ", a computer-science term for adapting software for worldwide use; the "18" represents the 18 letters that come between the first and the last in "internationalization". Similarly, "localization" can be abbreviated "l10n"; " multilingualization " "m17n"; and " accessibility " "a11y". In addition to the use of a specific number replacing that many letters,
423-861: A press release he branded Arturo Tabara of the RPA and Nilo dela Cruz, the head of the ABB as "scoundrels masquerading as revolutionaries". By 2003, relations between the RPA-ABB and the Communist Party of the Philippines had deteriorated to the point where the New People's Army , the CPP's military wing began launching attacks on the RPA-ABB. Arturo Tabara, RPM-P chairman, was assassinated in 2004 in Manila . In 2007, an apparent split occurred between two factions within
564-645: A single word ("television" or "transvestite", for instance), and is in general spelled without punctuation (except in the plural). Although "PS" stands for the single English word " postscript " or the Latin postscriptum , it is often spelled with periods ("P.S.") as if parsed as Latin post scriptum instead. The slash ('/', or solidus ) is sometimes used to separate the letters in an acronym, as in "N/A" ("not applicable, not available") and "c/o" ("care of"). Inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented according to their letter count as
705-520: A " Special Relationship " with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada , Australia , New Zealand , the Philippines , Japan , South Korea , Israel , and several European Union countries ( France , Italy , Germany , Spain , and Poland ). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through
846-507: A 1940 translation of a novel by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger . It is an unsettled question in English lexicography and style guides whether it is legitimate to use the word acronym to describe forms that use initials but are not pronounced as a word. While there is plenty of evidence that acronym is used widely in this way, some sources do not acknowledge this usage, reserving
987-542: A coordinated, continent-wide military effort. Finally, deteriorating relations between the British military establishment and the colonists, relations that were already less than positive, set the stage for further distrust and dislike of British troops. Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance ; one of
1128-534: A decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida . The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which
1269-625: A different meaning. Medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms, including efforts by the American Academy of Dermatology. Acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices: for example the colors of the rainbow are ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). They are also used as mental checklists: in aviation GUMPS stands for gas-undercarriage-mixture-propeller-seat belts. Other mnemonic acronyms include CAN SLIM in finance, PAVPANIC in English grammar, and PEMDAS in mathematics. It
1410-407: A few prominent industrialists , largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad , petroleum , and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry . These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality , slum conditions , and social unrest , creating
1551-666: A global reach. The U.S. is a founding member of the World Bank , Organization of American States , NATO , and the United Nations , as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council . The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan , a Continental Army aide to General George Washington , wrote to Joseph Reed , Washington's aide-de-camp , seeking to go "with full and ample powers from
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#17327727185121692-781: A medial decimal point . Particularly in British and Commonwealth English , all such punctuation marking acronyms and other capitalized abbreviations is now uncommon and considered either unnecessary or incorrect. The presence of all-capital letters is now thought sufficient to indicate the nature of the UK , the EU , and the UN . Forms such as the U.S.A. for "the United States of America " are now considered to indicate American or North American English . Even within those dialects, such punctuation
1833-572: A method of advancing its cause. Paduano resigned as national commander of the RPA-ABB and ran for Congress during the 2013 Philippine general election under the Abang Lingkod party-list . He took his oath of office in May 2014. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines issued a statement condemning his election into the Congress of the Philippines . As of 2016, the peace deal signed by
1974-598: A period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations . A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson , emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country , which would be reinforced by
2115-407: A period when the letters are pronounced individually, as in " K.G.B. ", but not when pronounced as a word, as in " NATO ". The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme. When a multiple-letter abbreviation is formed from a single word, periods are in general not used, although they may be common in informal usage. "TV", for example, may stand for
2256-405: A phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation . For some, an initialism or alphabetism , connotes this general meaning, and an acronym is a subset with a narrower definition: an initialism pronounced as a word rather than as
2397-488: A prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson 's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism . The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality . It also encouraged open defiance of
2538-526: A sense of manifest destiny . The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel . As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans,
2679-614: A sense of American identity as well. Men who otherwise never left their own colony now traveled across the continent to fight alongside men from decidedly different backgrounds but who were no less "American". British officers trained American officers for battle, most notably George Washington ; these officers would lend their skills and expertise to the colonists' cause during the American Revolutionary War to come. In addition, colonial legislatures and officials found it necessary to cooperate intensively in pursuit of
2820-480: A sequence of letters. In this sense, NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / is an acronym but USA / j uː ɛ s ˈ eɪ / is not. The broader sense of acronym , ignoring pronunciation, is its original meaning and in common use. Dictionary and style-guide editors dispute whether the term acronym can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced as words, and they do not agree on acronym spacing , casing , and punctuation . The phrase that
2961-436: A single word, such as NATO (as distinct from B-B-C )" but adds later "In everyday use, acronym is often applied to abbreviations that are technically initialisms, since they are pronounced as separate letters." The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges the complexity ("Furthermore, an acronym and initialism are occasionally combined (JPEG), and the line between initialism and acronym is not always clear") but still defines
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#17327727185123102-515: A twentieth-century phenomenon. Linguist David Wilton in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends claims that "forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth- (and now twenty-first-) century phenomenon. There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is colinderies or colinda , an acronym for
3243-471: A word, an abbreviation is not an acronym." In contrast, some style guides do support it, whether explicitly or implicitly. The 1994 edition of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage defends the usage on the basis of a claim that dictionaries do not make a distinction. The BuzzFeed style guide describes CBS and PBS as "acronyms ending in S". Acronymy, like retronymy , is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for which there
3384-677: A word. American English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster , Dictionary.com's Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary as well as the British Oxford English Dictionary and the Australian Macquarie Dictionary all include a sense in their entries for acronym equating it with initialism , although The American Heritage Dictionary criticizes it with
3525-464: A year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in
3666-488: Is a question about how to pluralize acronyms. Often a writer will add an 's' following an apostrophe, as in "PC's". However, Kate L. Turabian 's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations , writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and "URLs" but "Ph.D.'s". The style guides of
3807-721: Is becoming increasingly uncommon. Some style guides , such as that of the BBC , no longer require punctuation to show ellipsis ; some even proscribe it. Larry Trask , American author of The Penguin Guide to Punctuation , states categorically that, in British English , "this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete." Nevertheless, some influential style guides , many of them American , still require periods in certain instances. For example, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends following each segment with
3948-591: Is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture , developed agriculture , architecture , and complex societies . In the post-archaic period , the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern , eastern , and southern regions, and the Algonquian in
4089-411: Is common for grammatical contractions (e.g. don't , y'all , and ain't ) and for contractions marking unusual pronunciations (e.g. a'ight , cap'n , and fo'c'sle for "all right", "captain", and "forecastle"). By the early twentieth century, it was standard to use a full stop/period/point , especially in the cases of initialisms and acronyms. Previously, especially for Latin abbreviations , this
4230-631: Is especially important for paper media, where no search utility is available to find the first use.) It also gives students a convenient review list to memorize the important acronyms introduced in a textbook chapter. Expansion at first use and abbreviation keys originated in the print era, but they are equally useful for electronic text . While acronyms provide convenience and succinctness for specialists, they often degenerate into confusing jargon . This may be intentional, to exclude readers without domain-specific knowledge. New acronyms may also confuse when they coincide with an already existing acronym having
4371-464: Is generally said as two letters, but IPsec for Internet Protocol Security is usually pronounced as / ˌ aɪ ˈ p iː s ɛ k / or / ˈ ɪ p s ɛ k / , along with variant capitalization like "IPSEC" and "Ipsec". Pronunciation may even vary within a single speaker's vocabulary, depending on narrow contexts. As an example, the database programming language SQL is usually said as three letters, but in reference to Microsoft's implementation
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4512-498: Is known as the presidential system , in contrast to the parliamentary system , where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States , especially in the Americas. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then,
4653-459: Is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology , called a folk etymology , for a word. Such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis in historical linguistics , and are examples of language-related urban legends . For example, " cop " is commonly cited as being derived, it is presumed, from "constable on patrol", and " posh " from " port outward, starboard home ". With some of these specious expansions,
4794-438: Is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through
4935-552: Is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues . The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act . The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 34th among 180 countries in
5076-415: Is traditionally pronounced like the word sequel . In writing for a broad audience, the words of an acronym are typically written out in full at its first occurrence within a given text. Expansion At First Use (EAFU) benefits readers unfamiliar with the acronym. Another text aid is an abbreviation key which lists and expands all acronyms used, a reference for readers who skipped past the first use. (This
5217-603: The Allies of World War I , helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers . In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage . During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression , which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with
5358-553: The Atlantic slave trade . The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain , and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners . The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for
5499-817: The Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies . British colonization led to the first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution , with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in
5640-516: The Colonial and Indian Exposition held in London in that year." However, although acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the twentieth century (as Wilton points out), the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly understood (and evidently not novel) in an Edgar Allan Poe story of the 1830s, " How to Write a Blackwood Article ", which includes
5781-549: The Environmental Performance Index . The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016 and has many other environmental commitments. The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions . The U.S. is
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5922-500: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights , national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts ' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions . There is no unified "criminal justice system" in
6063-720: The Great Lakes , Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico . British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what
6204-719: The Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard , while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest . Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California . France established its own settlements along
6345-524: The House of Representatives , a lower house based on population; and the Senate , an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while the country's political culture promotes liberty , equality , individualism , personal autonomy , and limited government . One of the world's most developed countries , the United States has had
6486-596: The Midwest . At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England . During the Great Migration , millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics . African Americans endured
6627-623: The Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association prohibit apostrophes from being used to pluralize acronyms regardless of periods (so "compact discs" would be "CDs" or "C.D.s"), whereas The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage requires an apostrophe when pluralizing all abbreviations regardless of periods (preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's"). Possessive plurals that also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for example, "the C.D.'s' labels" (the labels of
6768-688: The National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States . Most of this land is protected , though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy , air and water pollution , biodiversity , logging and deforestation , and climate change . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
6909-652: The Negros Regional Party Committee of the New People's Army broke away from the Communist Party of the Philippines as a result of an ideological split in 1996. It organized its military arm two months after the split, calling it the Revolutionary Proletarian Army. The Metro Manila -based Alex Boncayao Brigade , which also broke away from the New People's Army, allied itself with the RPA the year after, forming
7050-652: The New Deal , a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations . All were intended to protect against future economic depressions. Initially neutral during World War II , the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor . The U.S. developed
7191-778: The Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement . In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia , the Marshall Islands , and Palau through the Compact of Free Association . It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India , but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014,
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#17327727185127332-648: The Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law , rechargeable lithium-ion batteries , the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait . The September 11 attacks on
7473-539: The Restoration witticism arranging the names of some members of Charles II 's Committee for Foreign Affairs to produce the "CABAL" ministry . OK , a term of disputed origin, dates back at least to the early nineteenth century and is now used around the world. Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms; some well-known examples from
7614-571: The Revolutionary Proletarian Army – Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB). The Revolutionary Proletarian Army – Alex Boncayao Brigade engaged in peace negotiations brokered by Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. with the government of Joseph Estrada in 1999; a truce was established in December 2000. This development prompted a vehement condemnation from Filemon Lagman , who once controlled the Alex Boncayao Brigade; in
7755-534: The Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower , wielding significant geopolitical influence globally . The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches : legislative , executive , and judicial . It has a bicameral national legislature composed of
7896-591: The Spanish–American War . (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War . The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside
8037-399: The cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites . This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America , while the other states remained in the Union . War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter . After
8178-413: The fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union , which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower . The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history , a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates , and advances in technology . Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web , the evolution of
8319-445: The largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of the global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and has the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness , productivity , innovation , human rights , and higher education . Its hard power and cultural influence have
8460-480: The "belief" that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue-in-cheek among many citers, as with "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" for " golf ", although many other (more credulous ) people have uncritically taken it for fact. Taboo words in particular commonly have such false etymologies: " shit " from "ship/store high in transit" or "special high-intensity training" and " fuck " from "for unlawful carnal knowledge", or "fornication under consent/command of
8601-463: The 160-character SMS limit, and to save time, acronyms such as "GF" ("girlfriend"), "LOL" ("laughing out loud"), and "DL" ("download" or "down low") have become popular. Some prescriptivists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity, or as failure to use "pure" or "proper" English. Others point out that languages have always continually changed , and argue that acronyms should be embraced as inevitable, or as innovation that adapts
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#17327727185128742-406: The 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord , igniting the American Revolutionary War . At the Second Continental Congress , the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army , and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence . Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration
8883-408: The 1775–1783 Revolutionary War , the country continued to expand westward across North America , resulting in the dispossession of native inhabitants . As more states were admitted , a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America , which fought states remaining in the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War . With the victory and preservation of
9024-461: The 18 letters between the initial "i" and the final "n"). Authors of expository writing will sometimes capitalize or otherwise distinctively format the initials of the expansion for pedagogical emphasis (for example, writing: "the onset of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)" or "the onset of c ongestive h eart f ailure (CHF)"). Capitalization like this, however, conflicts with the convention of English orthography, which generally reserves capitals in
9165-466: The 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack , when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état . The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and
9306-426: The American West have an alpine climate . The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California , and oceanic in coastal Oregon , Washington , and southern Alaska . Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar . Hawaii , the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical . States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of
9447-411: The British press may render it "Nato"), but uses lower case in " Unicef " (from "United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund") because it is more than four letters, and to style it in caps might look ungainly (flirting with the appearance of "shouting capitals"). While abbreviations typically exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to"), this is not always
9588-420: The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government , with prescribed rules. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to
9729-404: The District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km ). The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest . The Mississippi River System ,
9870-458: The Elder concluded that major military resources needed to be devoted to North America to win the war against France. For the first time, the continent became one of the main theaters of what could be termed a " world war ". The British colonies' position as an integral part of the British Empire became more apparent during the war, with British military and civilian officials becoming a more significant presence in American life. The war increased
10011-465: The January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation , many freed slaves joined the Union army . The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg , and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House . The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln , Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect
10152-523: The RPA-ABB with the Estrada administration remains to be fully implemented. Nilo dela Cruz and a group of former RPA-ABB members calling themselves "Democratic Front for Filipinism" issued a statement supporting Rodrigo Duterte 's war on drugs , and his "revolution against the oligarchs and the exploiters of the Filipino masses". Acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of
10293-463: The RPA-ABB. Nilo dela Cruz of the Alex Boncayao Brigade was expelled by the faction headed by Stephen Paduano and Veronica Tabara, Arturo Tabara's wife. Dela Cruz reciprocated the action, expelling Paduano. Both factions of the RPA-ABB carried on using the same name. In April 2013, the RPA-ABB was reported to have changed its name to Kapatiran para sa Progresong Panlipunan ("Brotherhood for Social Progress") and stated that it had renounced violence as
10434-611: The Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera , is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian , the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid . Many mountainous areas of
10575-564: The U.S. Navy, is "COMCRUDESPAC", which stands for "commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific"; it is also seen as "ComCruDesPac". Inventors are encouraged to anticipate the formation of acronyms by making new terms "YABA-compatible" ("yet another bloody acronym"), meaning the term's acronym can be pronounced and is not an offensive word: "When choosing a new name, be sure it is 'YABA-compatible'." Acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with short message service (SMS), and instant messenger (IM). To fit messages into
10716-647: The U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine ; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion . The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . The Department of Defense , which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of
10857-661: The U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons , state prisons , local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities . Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under
10998-464: The United States and the peaceful transfer of power , respectively. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained , leading to the War of 1812 , which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward , many with
11139-442: The United States are among the " alphabet agencies " (jokingly referred to as " alphabet soup ") created under the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt (himself known as "FDR"). Business and industry also coin acronyms prolifically. The rapid advance of science and technology also drives the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more pronounceable names. One representative example, from
11280-775: The United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs . The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race , which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth , urbanization , and population growth following World War II . The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming
11421-666: The United States has operated as a de facto two-party system , though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican . The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative . In the American federal system , sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in
11562-593: The United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror , and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq . The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession , the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in
11703-656: The United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette , on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence . The Second Continental Congress adopted
11844-601: The United States, slavery was abolished nationally . By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power , a status solidified after its involvement in World War I . After Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II . Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War , during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence . Following
11985-541: The United States, despite the usage of "the Americas " as the totality of North and South America. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture , which appeared around 11,000 BC,
12126-624: The United States, except Iran , North Korea , and Bhutan . Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has
12267-509: The United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems [held] almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons , civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in
12408-411: The acronym may use normal case rules, e.g. it would appear generally in lower case, but with an initial capital when starting a sentence or when in a title. Once knowledge of the words underlying such an acronym has faded from common recall, the acronym may be termed an anacronym . Examples of anacronyms are the words " scuba ", " radar ", and " laser ". The word "an acro nym" should not be confused with
12549-545: The acronym stands for is called its expansion . The meaning of an acronym includes both its expansion and the meaning of its expansion. The word acronym is formed from the Greek roots akro- , meaning 'height, summit, or tip', and -nym , 'name'. This neoclassical compound appears to have originated in German , with attestations for the German form Akronym appearing as early as 1921. Citations in English date to
12690-534: The adoption of acronyms was modern warfare, with its many highly technical terms. While there is no recorded use of military acronyms dating from the American Civil War (acronyms such as "ANV" for " Army of Northern Virginia " post-date the war itself), they became somewhat common in World War I , and by World War II they were widespread even in the slang of soldiers, who referred to themselves as G.I.s . The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across
12831-506: The apostrophe should be reserved for the possessive ("the TV's antenna"). In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the acronym is used to indicate plural words: for example, the Spanish EE.UU. , for Estados Unidos ('United States'). This old convention is still sometimes followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as SS. for Saints , pp. for
12972-1163: The case. Sometimes function words are included to make a pronounceable acronym, such as CORE ( Congress of Racial Equality ). Sometimes the letters representing these words are written in lower case, such as in the cases of "TfL" (" Transport for London ") and LotR ( The Lord of the Rings ); this usually occurs when the acronym represents a multi-word proper noun. Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal ) in names are often represented by digits rather than initial letters, as in "4GL" (" fourth generation language ") or "G77" (" Group of 77 "). Large numbers may use metric prefixes , as with " Y2K " for "Year 2000". Exceptions using initials for numbers include " TLA " ("three-letter acronym/abbreviation") and "GoF" (" Gang of Four "). Abbreviations using numbers for other purposes include repetitions, such as " A2DP " ("Advanced Audio Distribution Profile"), " W3C " ("World Wide Web Consortium"), and T3 ( Trends, Tips & Tools for Everyday Living ); pronunciation, such as " B2B " ("business to business"); and numeronyms , such as "i18n" ("internationalization"; "18" represents
13113-413: The compact discs). In some instances, however, an apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter of an abbreviation is "S", as in "SOS's" (although abbreviations ending with S can also take "-es", e.g. "SOSes"), or when pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods. A particularly rich source of options arises when the plural of an acronym would normally be indicated in a word other than
13254-457: The contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands , and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in
13395-564: The contrived acronym "P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H." The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and pre-dates modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are: The earliest example of a word derived from an acronym listed by the OED is "abjud" (now " abjad "), formed from the original first four letters of the Arabic alphabet in the late eighteenth century. Some acrostics pre-date this, however, such as
13536-556: The country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons —the second-largest share after Russia. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces . The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under
13677-469: The country's territory would expand with the admission of new states , rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances . George Washington
13818-713: The development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening , a series of Christian revivals , fueled colonial interest in religious liberty . For a century, the American colonists had been providing their own troops and materiel in conflicts with indigenous peoples allied with Britain's colonial rivals , especially France, and the Americans had begun to develop a sense of self-defense and self-reliance separate from Britain. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) took on new significance for all North American colonists after Parliament under William Pitt
13959-438: The dictionary entries and style guide recommendations regarding the term acronym through the twentieth century did not explicitly acknowledge or support the expansive sense. The Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage from 1994 is one of the earliest publications to advocate for the expansive sense, and all the major dictionary editions that include a sense of acronym equating it with initialism were first published in
14100-580: The environment for labor unions to begin to flourish . This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era , which was characterized by significant reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy ; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico , the Philippines , and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in
14241-664: The exclusive sense for acronym and its earliest citation was from 1943. In early December 2010, Duke University researcher Stephen Goranson published a citation for acronym to the American Dialect Society e-mail discussion list which refers to PGN being pronounced "pee-gee-enn", antedating English language usage of the word to 1940. Linguist Ben Zimmer then mentioned this citation in his December 16, 2010 " On Language " column about acronyms in The New York Times Magazine . By 2011,
14382-541: The federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation . The Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas
14523-763: The final word if spelled out in full. A classic example is "Member of Parliament", which in plural is "Members of Parliament". It is possible then to abbreviate this as "M's P", which was fairly common in mid-twentieth-century Australian news writing (or similar ), and used by former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley . This usage is less common than forms with "s" at the end, such as "MPs", and may appear dated or pedantic. In common usage, therefore, "weapons of mass destruction" becomes "WMDs", "prisoners of war" becomes "POWs", and "runs batted in" becomes "RBIs". Abbreviations that come from single, rather than multiple, words – such as "TV" ("television") – are usually pluralized without apostrophes ("two TVs"); most writers feel that
14664-464: The first letter of acronyms, reserving all-caps styling for initialisms, writing the pronounced acronyms "Nato" and "Aids" in mixed case, but the initialisms "USA" and "FBI" in all caps. For example, this is the style used in The Guardian , and BBC News typically edits to this style (though its official style guide, dating from 2003, still recommends all-caps ). The logic of this style is that
14805-606: The first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the " Four Policemen " who met to plan the post-war world , alongside the United Kingdom , Soviet Union , and China . The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence . After World War II,
14946-463: The integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state , and federal agencies such as
15087-435: The king". In English, abbreviations have previously been marked by a wide variety of punctuation . Obsolete forms include using an overbar or colon to show the ellipsis of letters following the initial part. The forward slash is still common in many dialects for some fixed expressions—such as in w/ for "with" or A/C for " air conditioning "—while only infrequently being used to abbreviate new terms. The apostrophe
15228-500: The label "usage problem". However, many English language dictionaries, such as the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary , Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary , Macmillan Dictionary , Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English , New Oxford American Dictionary , Webster's New World Dictionary , and Lexico from Oxford University Press do not acknowledge such a sense. Most of
15369-836: The language to changing circumstances. In this view, the modern practice is just the "proper" English of the current generation of speakers, much like the earlier abbreviation of corporation names on ticker tape or newspapers. Exact pronunciation of "word acronyms" (those pronounced as words rather than sounded out as individual letters) often vary by speaker population. These may be regional, occupational, or generational differences, or simply personal preference. For instance, there have been decades of online debate about how to pronounce GIF ( / ɡ ɪ f / or / dʒ ɪ f / ) and BIOS ( / ˈ b aɪ oʊ s / , / ˈ b aɪ oʊ z / , or / ˈ b aɪ ɒ s / ). Similarly, some letter-by-letter initialisms may become word acronyms over time, especially in combining forms: IP for Internet Protocol
15510-598: The middle of sentences for proper nouns; when following the AMA Manual of Style , this would instead be rendered as "the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)". United States The United States of America ( USA ), commonly known as the United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a country primarily located in North America . It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to
15651-482: The military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw
15792-466: The more general "x" can be used to replace an unspecified number of letters. Examples include "Crxn" for "crystallization" and the series familiar to physicians for history , diagnosis , and treatment ("hx", "dx", "tx"). Terms relating to a command structure may also sometimes use this formatting, for example gold, silver, and bronze levels of command in UK policing being referred to as Gx, Sx, and Bx. There
15933-612: The most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species : about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians , and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks , and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas , managed by
16074-662: The most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created. During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies , though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. States in the North enacted abolition laws , though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states , as inventions such as
16215-660: The north and Mexico to the south, with the states of Alaska to the northwest and the archipelagic Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean . The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands . The country has the world's third-largest land area , largest exclusive economic zone , and third-largest population , exceeding 334 million. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago , and its three most populous states are California , Texas , and Florida . Paleo-Indians migrated across
16356-729: The plural of 'pages', or mss. for manuscripts . The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms is all-uppercase ( all caps ). Small caps are sometimes used to make the run of capital letters seem less jarring to the reader. For example, the style of some American publications, including the Atlantic Monthly and USA Today , is to use small caps for acronyms longer than three letters; thus "U.S." and " FDR " in normal caps, but " nato " in small caps. The acronyms " AD " and " BC " are often smallcapped as well, as in: "From 4004 bc to ad 525 ". Where an acronym has linguistically taken on an identity as regular word,
16497-408: The policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation . An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries , allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by
16638-574: The primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen , particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them . To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association , a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in
16779-483: The pronunciation is reflected graphically by the capitalization scheme. However, it conflicts with conventional English usage of first-letter upper-casing as a marker of proper names in many cases; e.g. AIDS stands for acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome which is not a proper name, while Aids is in the style of one. Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. The New York Times , for example, keeps "NATO" in all capitals (while several guides in
16920-685: The publication of the 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary added the expansive sense to its entry for acronym and included the 1940 citation. As the Oxford English Dictionary structures the senses in order of chronological development, it now gives the "initialism" sense first. English language usage and style guides which have entries for acronym generally criticize the usage that refers to forms that are not pronounceable words. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage says that acronym "denotes abbreviations formed from initial letters of other words and pronounced as
17061-515: The rights of African Americans . National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads , spurred growth in the American frontier . From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City , and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish , Irish , and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to
17202-614: The rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua , Sonoran , and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona , carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon , a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast . The lowest and highest points in
17343-470: The sides of railroad cars (e.g., "Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad" → "RF&P"); on the sides of barrels and crates; and on ticker tape and newspaper stock listings (e.g. American Telephone and Telegraph Company → AT&T). Some well-known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include " Nabisco " ("National Biscuit Company"), " Esso " (from "S.O.", from " Standard Oil "), and " Sunoco " ("Sun Oil Company"). Another field for
17484-573: The six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army , Marine Corps , Navy , Air Force , and Space Force . The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. The United States spent $ 916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country , making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of
17625-545: The sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor . They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933 , which created the Guard and provides for
17766-543: The states are also represented by local elected governments , which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents , and further divided into municipalities . The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. . The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations . The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has
17907-510: The structure and responsibilities of the national federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest national constitution still in effect (from March 4, 1789). Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances . The three-branch system
18048-476: The term acronym only for forms pronounced as a word, and using initialism or abbreviation for those that are not. Some sources acknowledge the usage, but vary in whether they criticize or forbid it, allow it without comment, or explicitly advocate it. Some mainstream English dictionaries from across the English-speaking world affirm a sense of acronym which does not require being pronounced as
18189-502: The terms as mutually exclusive. Other guides outright deny any legitimacy to the usage: Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words says "Abbreviations that are not pronounced as words (IBM, ABC, NFL) are not acronyms; they are just abbreviations." Garner's Modern American Usage says "An acronym is made from the first letters or parts of a compound term. It's read or spoken as a single word, not letter by letter." The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says "Unless pronounced as
18330-570: The twenty-first century. The trend among dictionary editors appears to be towards including a sense defining acronym as initialism : the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added such a sense in its 11th edition in 2003, and both the Oxford English Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary added such senses in their 2011 editions. The 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary only included
18471-536: The whole range of linguistic registers is relatively new in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-twentieth century. As literacy spread and technology produced a constant stream of new and complex terms, abbreviations became increasingly convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899, but it did not come into general use until 1965, well after acronym had become common. In English, acronyms pronounced as words may be
18612-425: The word " an achro nym ", which is a type of misnomer. Words derived from an acronym by affixing are typically expressed in mixed case, so the root acronym is clear. For example, "pre-WWII politics", "post-NATO world", " DNase ". In some cases a derived acronym may also be expressed in mixed case. For example, " messenger RNA " and " transfer RNA " become "mRNA" and "tRNA". Some publications choose to capitalize only
18753-582: The world's fourth-longest river system , runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains , west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado . Farther west are
18894-583: The world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024 . It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council , and home to the United Nations headquarters . The United States is a member of the G7 , G20 , and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with
19035-444: The world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization . It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law ". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document , also establishing
19176-553: The world's tornadoes occur in the country , mainly in Tornado Alley . Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest , droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as
19317-575: Was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest . Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest . The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of
19458-759: Was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty , inalienable individual rights ; and the sovereignty of the people ; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy , aristocracy , and all hereditary political power; civic virtue ; and vilification of political corruption . The Founding Fathers of the United States , who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams , Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , John Jay , James Madison , Thomas Paine , and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman , Renaissance , and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 and established
19599-511: Was done with a full space between every full word (e.g. A. D. , i. e. , and e. g. for " Anno Domini ", " id est ", and " exempli gratia "). This even included punctuation after both Roman and Arabic numerals to indicate their use in place of the full names of each number (e.g. LII. or 52. in place of "fifty-two" and "1/4." or "1./4." to indicate "one-fourth"). Both conventions have fallen out of common use in all dialects of English, except in places where an Arabic decimal includes
19740-583: Was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in
19881-449: Was little to no naming , conscious attention, or systematic analysis until relatively recent times. Like retronymy, it became much more common in the twentieth century than it had formerly been. Ancient examples of acronymy (before the term "acronym" was invented) include the following: During the mid- to late nineteenth century, acronyms became a trend among American and European businessmen: abbreviating corporation names, such as on
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