United States of America
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Capital: Washington, D.C. Population projection, 2020: 331·43m. GNI per capita, 2015: (PPP$) 53,245 HDI/world rank, 2015: 0·920/10= Internet domain extension: .us KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS It is believed that the name America was first used on a map of the New World created by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in 1507, reputedly in recognition of the Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who had made a series of voyages to the region in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The earliest inhabitants of the north American continent can be traced back to Palaeolithic times. The Pueblo culture in modern-day Colorado and New Mexico flourished from the 11th to the 14th century AD. In the 12th century permanent settlements appeared in the east where cultivation and fishing supported major fortified towns. The first Europeans to make their presence felt were the Spanish, who based themselves in Florida before venturing north
and west. Santa Fe in New Mexico was founded in 1610. But by the mid-17th century there was competition centred on Quebec from the French who colonized the banks of the St Lawrence River. Elizabethan adventurers were eager to exploit the New World but it was not until 1607 that an English colony was established. This was at Jamestown in what is now southern Virginia. After a perilous start when disease and malnutrition carried off most of the settlers, Virginia’s population grew rapidly to meet the European demand for tobacco. Maryland, originally a refuge for persecuted Catholics, also thrived on the tobacco trade. To make up for the shortage of labour, slaves were imported from Africa. In 1620 a hundred pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock to found a Puritan enclave, which became the colony of Massachusetts. Other settlements soon followed, accommodating a broad range of Christian radicals fleeing persecution. Not all were tolerant of beliefs that differed from their own. Pennsylvania, the colony named after the Quaker William Penn, was exceptional in offering freedom of worship to ‘all persons who confess and acknowledge the one almighty and eternal God’. In 1664 the British took control of neighbouring Dutch colonies. New Amsterdam became
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
New York. Almost all of the eastern seaboard was now claimed by British settlers who were also venturing inland. Their main European rivals were the French who claimed a vast area around and to the southwest of the Great Lakes. With American Indian tribes allied to both sides, there was heavy fighting in 1744 and 1748. But within a decade British forces had captured most of the French strongholds. After the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Britain commanded the whole of North America east of the Mississippi while Spain, having surrendered Florida, gained Louisiana from France. For a brief period colonization was restricted to the area east of the Appalachians, the rest of the territory being reserved for American Indian tribes. This soon became a point of issue between th
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