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Facts About The United State

Ensayo en idioma inglés sobre hechos relevantes de la Historia de los Estados Unidos de América.

The United States represents a series of ideals. For most of those who have come to its shores, it means the ideal of freedom the right to worship as one chooses, to seek a job appropriate to one's skills and interests, to be judged equally before the law. It means the ideal of the frontier, of overcoming obstacles taming the West, curing diseases, voyaging to the planets. It means the ideal of progress that personal life and political, social, and economic institutions will improve through hard work, fair play, and honest endeavor. It means the ideal of democracy the right to be heard as an individual, the right to cast a ballot in a free election, the right to dream of a better life and to work toward one's goals. In order to understand the United States, it is necessary to consider the role its landscape and its ideals have played in its development.
   
The mainland United States is located between Mexico on the south and Canada on the north and between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Two of its 50 states, however, are far removed from the continental core: Hawaii lies in the Pacific Ocean, 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) from San Francisco; Alaska, in the northwestern corner of North America, is nearly 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Seattle, Wash. If the outlying states are included, the area is 3,618,770 square miles (9,372,571 square kilometers), making the United States the fourth largest country in the world. The United States also ranks fourth in population. At the 1990 census its population was 249,632,692.
 
 The American landscape has evolved over millions of years. Mountains have risen to great heights only to be worn down by the forces of erosion. Rivers have changed course. Plains and plateaus have been alternately raised and lowered. Glaciers have created new landforms and moved rich soil from one location to another. Wetlands have become deserts; arid wastes have become filled with lakes. Landscape changes have often meant extinction for native plants and animals, and their replacements have been forced to adapt to new environments. Change is an axiom of the American landscape.
Agriculture
 
  
Good fortune smiled on the early settlers in the Willamette Valley. They planted and harvested wheat, clover, and potatoes. Wheat was the prime crop. They sold it to the Russians in Alaska, to the fur traders on the Columbia River, and to Hawaiians and Californians. The valley proved excellent for general farming grain, grass, and hay and for raising livestock. In time specialty crops were introduced loganberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and cherries. They were shipped fresh to Portland and other markets, and they were canned or brined. Strawberries were perhaps the biggest money crop. Most were sold to local processing plants. Plums were grown, and prunes were dried, canned, and later frozen. Nursery products, hops, and peppermint were other specialty crops.
  
Grain and hay are the major crops today. Oats and barley replaced wheat in significance. They are fed to milk cows, as dairying is the chief source of income on many farms. Beef cattle, sheep, and poultry are also raised. Berry crops continue to be raised, as are walnuts and filberts. Oregon grapes, grown in the lee of the Coast Range, are used in the manufacture of Oregon wine. In October they are blown from the vines by helicopter downdrafts.
  
In the Puget Lowland the mild rainy winters and the long cool summers favor grazing and high milk production. Eggs are of significance. In western Washington farmers are also dairymen. Where land costs are high, fruits and vegetables are raised, including lettuce. Bulbs tulips and daffodils are grown in the rich black soil of the Puyallup Valley by farmers of Dutch origin.
Petroleum
 
  
Oil seepages were known in Alaska from the 1830s. At Katalla on the Gulf of Alaska east of Cordova, oil was refined between 1911 and 1931. President Warren G. Harding set aside 37,000 square miles (95,830 square kilometers) on the Arctic Slope as Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4. In 1957 oil was discovered on the Kenai Peninsula. In the late 1960s five fields were working in the Kenai-Cook Inlet area (nine fields were also yielding natural gas).
 
 In 1968 Atlantic Richfield brought in a monumental discovery 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) deep at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Slope. Not until passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 and Congressional approval in 1973, however, were the companies free to build the pipeline to carry the oil from the Arctic Slope to Valdez.