47. The usa: the Northerners and the Southerners

The period of Reconstruction took place in the southern United States from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until 1877. When the Civil War ended, fundamental issues facing the nation included what role former Confederates might play in the US government, and what role freed slaves would play in American society. And the infrastructure of the South, where most of the war had been fought, also had to be rebuilt. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1868 to guarantee due process and equality before the law for all citizens, including newly-freed slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870, stated that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of race. New Republican controlled governments were instituted in the South, but were almost certainly doomed to fail. Popular sentiment in the region was obviously opposed to the political party which had been led by Abraham Lincoln. Reconstruction was, and remains, a highly controversial subject. Southerners felt that northerners were using the power of the federal government to punish the south. Northerners felt the southerners were still persecuting freed slaves through the imposition of racist laws, called "black codes." The period of Reconstruction ended in 1877 as part of the Compromise of 1877 which followed the disputed presidential election of 1876.

48. The usa: capital, system of the states

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the Territory into a single entity called the District of Columbia. It is for this reason that the city, while legally named the District of Columbia, is known as Washington, D.C. The city is located on the north bank of the Potomac River and is bordered by the states of Virginia to the southwest and Maryland to the other sides. The District has a resident population of 599,657; The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. Indigenous peoples, probably of Asian descent, have inhabited what is now the mainland United States for many thousands of years. This Native American population was greatly reduced after European contact by disease and warfare. The United States was founded by thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world's largest. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for two-fifths of global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world. Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states (August 21, 1959), and is the only state made up entirely of islands. It occupies most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia. Due to its mid-Pacific location, Hawaii has many North American and Asian influences along with a vibrant native culture. Hawaii has over a million permanent residents along with many visitors and U.S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of O’ahu.