Introduction
The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states, a capital district, and a few other territories. It resides mostly in central North America. The U.S. has three land borders, two with Canada and one with Mexico, and is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 50 states, only Alaska and Hawaii are not contiguous with any other state. The U.S. also has a collection of districts, territories, and possessions around the world. Each state has a high level of local autonomy according to the system of federalism. The United States traces its national origin to the declaration by 13 British colonies in 1776 that they were free and independent states. They were recognized as such by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Since then, the nation has grown to become a global superpower and exerts a high level of economic, political, military, and cultural influence.
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Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in the words of one character, love and virtue. He must choose between his love for a woman and helping her and her Czech Resistance leader husband escape from the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.
Although it was an A-list film, with established stars and first-rate writers—Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch received credit for the screenplay—no one involved with its production expected Casablanca to be anything out of the ordinary; it was just one of dozens of pictures produced by Hollywood every year. The film was a solid, if unspectacular, success in its initial run, rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier. Despite a changing assortment of screenwriters frantically adapting an unstaged play and barely keeping ahead of production, and Bogart attempting his first romantic lead role, Casablanca won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Its characters, dialogue, and music have become iconic, and Casablanca has grown in popularity to the point that it now consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films of all time.
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Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953). As vice president, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
During World War I he served as an artillery officer. After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a county judge in Missouri and eventually a United States Senator. In 1945, Roosevelt replaced Henry A. Wallace as vice president with Truman for Roosevelt's fourth term.
As president, Truman faced challenge after challenge in domestic affairs. The tumultuous reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win re-election in 1948, largely due to his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his re-election he was able to pass only one of the proposals in his Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to begin desegregation of the U.S. armed forces and to launch a system of loyalty checks to remove thousands of communist sympathizers from government office, even though he strongly opposed mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his administration was soft on communism. Truman's presidency was also eventful in foreign affairs, with the end of World War II and his decision to use nuclear weapons in combat, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the creation of NATO, and the Korean War. Corruption in Truman's administration reached the cabinet and senior White House staff. Republicans made corruption a central issue in the 1952 campaign.
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O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
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Anniversaries for December 22
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Las Vegas (, also locally ; Spanish: [laz ˈβeɣas]) officially the City of Las Vegas and often known as simply Vegas, is a city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, the county seat of Clark County, and the city proper of the Las Vegas Valley. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for gambling, shopping, fine dining and nightlife and is the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Southern Nevada.
The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous for its mega casino–hotels and associated entertainment. A growing retirement and family city, Las Vegas is the 29th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 603,488 at the 2013 United States Census Estimates. The 2013 population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area was 2,027,828. The city is one of the top three leading destinations in the United States for conventions, business, and meetings.
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Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.
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Featured content
As of 22 December 2019, there are 1,223 featured and 3,214 good articles within WikiProject United States scope. This makes up 5.47% of the articles on Wikipedia, 13.34% of all featured articles and lists, and 10.57% of all good articles. Including non-article pages, such as talk pages, redirects, categories, etcetera, there are 1,042,942 pages in the project.
Featured culture biographies:
Actors and filmmakers –
James Thomas Aubrey, Jr.
• Kroger Babb
• Eric Bana
• Joseph Barbera
• Bette Davis
• Kirsten Dunst
• Judy Garland
• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Anthony Michael Hall
• William Hanna
• Phil Hartman
• Ethan Hawke
• Katie Holmes
• Janet Jackson
• Michael Jackson
• Angelina Jolie
• Diane Keaton
• Madonna (entertainer)
• Austin Nichols
• Brad Pitt
• Nancy Reagan
• Ronald Reagan
• Aaron Sorkin
• KaDee Strickland
• Sharon Tate
• Reese Witherspoon
• Anna May Wong;
Arts and entertainment –
James Robert Baker
• William D. Boyce
• Stephen Crane
• H.D.
• Emily Dickinson
• George Washington Dixon
• Zelda Fitzgerald
• Margaret Fuller
• William Gibson
• Rufus Wilmot Griswold
• Ernest Hemingway
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
• Jenna Jameson
• James Russell Lowell
• Master Juba
• I. M. Pei
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Roman Vishniac
• Nathaniel Parker Willis;
Musicians –
Aaliyah
• Alice in Chains
• Audioslave
• Bix Beiderbecke
• Big Star
• Mariah Carey
• Damageplan
• Bob Dylan
• Flea (musician)
• Black Francis
• John Frusciante
• Godsmack
• The Greencards
• Insane Clown Posse
• Janet Jackson
• Michael Jackson
• Bradley Joseph
• Maynard James Keenan
• Frank Klepacki
• David Lovering
• Madonna (entertainer)
• John Mayer
• Metallica
• Nine Inch Nails
• Nirvana (band)
• The Notorious B.I.G.
• Leo Ornstein
• Ellis Paul
• Pearl Jam
• Pixies
• Elvis Presley
• Selena
• Slayer
• The Smashing Pumpkins
• Elliott Smith
• Gwen Stefani
• The Supremes
• Tool (band)
• Uncle Tupelo
• Wilco
• Frank Zappa;
Sports and games –
Nick Adenhart
• Shelton Benjamin
• Moe Berg
• Tim Duncan
• Bobby Eaton
• Orval Grove
• Art Houtteman
• Magic Johnson
• Michael Jordan
• Bart King
• Sandy Koufax
• Jimmy McAleer
• Bob Meusel
• Stan Musial
• Ben Paschal
• CM Punk
• J. R. Richard
• Jackie Robinson
• Bill Russell
• Sigi Schmid
• Lee Smith (baseball)
• Ozzie Smith
• Paul Stastny
• Jim Thorpe
• Tyrone Wheatley
Featured society biographies:
Military –
Daniel Boone
• James Bowie
• Simon Bolivar Buckner
• Henry Cornelius Burnett
• Frederick Russell Burnham
• Wesley Clark
• Brian Eaton
• Gerald Ford
• Winfield Scott Hancock
• Benjamin Harrison
• William Henry Harrison
• Rutherford B. Hayes
• Thomas C. Hindman
• Thomas C. Kinkaid
• Eli Lilly
• John McCain
• George B. McClellan
• Fred Moosally
• Sylvanus Morley
• Edwin Taylor Pollock
• Ronald Reagan
• Uriel Sebree
• Lawrence Sullivan Ross
• Isaac Shelby
• William Tecumseh Sherman
• Myles Standish
• Edward Teller
• Benjamin Franklin Tilley
• Stephen Trigg
• Harriet Tubman;
Politics and government –
Samuel Adams
• J. C. W. Beckham
• Daniel Boone
• William O'Connell Bradley
• Simon Bolivar Buckner
• Henry Cornelius Burnett
• Charles Carroll the Settler
• Murray Chotiner
• Wesley Clark
• Grover Cleveland
• Calvin Coolidge
• Richard Cordray
• John J. Crittenden
• Gerald Ford
• Wendell Ford
• William Goebel
• Emma Goldman
• John W. Johnston
• Franklin Knight Lane
• John McCain
• George B. McClellan
• Bob McEwen
• Thomas R. Marshall
• Harvey Milk
• Edwin P. Morrow
• Pat Nixon
• Barack Obama
• Rosa Parks
• Paul E. Patton
• Edwin Taylor Pollock
• Nancy Reagan
• Ronald Reagan
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Lawrence Sullivan Ross
• Terry Sanford
• Antonin Scalia
• Solomon P. Sharp
• Isaac Shelby
• Augustus Owsley Stanley
• Stephen Trigg
• Jerry Voorhis
• Daniel Webster
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Harry S. Truman;
Science and academia –
Edward Drinker Cope
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
• David A. Johnston
• Eli Lilly
• Glynn Lunney
• Barbara McClintock
• Sylvanus Morley
• Gerard K. O'Neill
• Hilary Putnam
• Edward Teller
• Roman Vishniac
• Otto Julius Zobel
Featured lists: There are over 230 Featured lists in the scope of United States including:
109th United States Congress
• Commandant of the Marine Corps
• Korean War Medal of Honor recipients
• Most populous counties in the United States
• National Parks of the United States
• Tallest buildings in Washington, D.C.
• U.S. state name etymologies
• U.S. states by population
• United States Secretary of Energy
• Volcanoes in the Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain
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Featured article candidatesTotal pages in content type is 9
Featured list candidatesTotal pages in content type is 1
Good article nomineesTotal pages in content type is 85
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- Portal:United States - Needs to be updated and expanded
- 2010 Census - Update articles using 2000 census data to use the 2010 data
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