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National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1909 to work on behalf of African Americans. Members of the NAACP have referred to it as The National Association, confirming NAACP's pre-eminence among organizations active in the Civil Rights Movement since its origins in the first years of the 20th century; little need was felt to specify which "national association." Its name, retained in accord with tradition, is one of the last surviving uses of the term "colored people", now generally viewed as dated and derogatory.

Organization

The NAACP's headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional regional offices in California, New York, Michigan, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, and Maryland. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in the states included in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members. The NAACP is governed nationally by a 64-member board of directors led by a chairman. The board elects one person as the president and chief executive officer for the organization; Bruce S. Gordon was selected to fill this post in 2005 following the resignation of Kweisi Mfume, who had headed the organization for nine years. Civil Rights Movement activist and former Georgia state representative Julian Bond remains as chairman. Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the Branch and Field Services department and the Youth and College department. The Legal Department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education. The Washington, D.C. bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. Government; and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division is to advance healthcare for minorities through public policy initiatives and education. As of 2004, the NAACP had approximately 500,000 members.

History

As of 2004 In 1905, a group of 32 prominent, outspoken African-Americans met to discuss the challenges facing "people of color" (a term of the time used to refer to African Americans) in the U.S. and possible strategies and solutions. Because hotels in the U.S. were segregated, the men convened, under the leadership of Harvard scholar W.E.B. DuBois, at a hotel situated on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. As a result, the group came to be known as the Niagara Movement. A year later, three whites joined the group: journalist William E. Walling; social worker Mary White Ovington; and Jewish social worker Henry Moscowitz. The fledgling group struggled for a time with limited resources and decided to broaden its membership in order to increase its scope and effectiveness. Solicitations for support went out to more than 60 prominent Americans of the day, and a meeting date was set for February 12, 1909, intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln. While the meeting did not occur until three months later, this date is often cited as the founding date of the organization. The Springfield Race Riot of 1908 in Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois the previous summer had highlighted the urgent need for a large civil rights organization in the U.S. This event is often cited as the spark that initiated the formation of the NAACP. May 30, 1909, the Niagara Movement conference took place at New York City's Henry Street Settlement House, from which an organization of more than 40 individuals emerged, calling itself the National Negro Committee. DuBois played a key role in organizing the event and presided over the proceedings. Also in attendance was African-American journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett, co-founder of the NAACP. The organization held its second conference in May 1910, where members chose the name the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The name was formally adopted May 30, and the NAACP incorporated a year later, in 1911. The association's charter delineated its mission:
To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for the children, employment according to their ability and complete equality before law.
The conference resulted in a more viable, influential and diverse organization, where the leadership was predominantly white and heavily Jewish. In fact, at its founding, the NAACP had only one African American on its executive board, DuBois himself, and did not elect a black president until 1975. The Jewish community contributed greatly to the NAACP's founding and continued financing. Jewish historian Howard Sachar writes in his book A History of Jews in America of how, "In 1914, Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of the NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise." [http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Modern/Overview_The_Story_19481980/America/PWPolitics/CivilRights.htm] Early Jewish co-founders included Julius Rosenthal, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch and Wise. DuBois continued to play a pivotal role in the organization and served as editor of the association's magazine, The Crisis, which had a circulation of over 30,000.

Fighting Jim Crow

The CrisisIn its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial discrimination. In 1913, the NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy. By 1914, the group had 6,000 members and 50 branches, and was influential in winning the right of African-Americans to serve as officers in World War I. Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned and 700,000 registered for the draft. The following year the NAACP organized a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffith's silent film Birth of a Nation, a film that glamorized the Ku Klux Klan. The NAACP began playing a leading role in lawsuits targeting racial segregation and other denials of civil rights early in its history. It played a significant part in the challenge to Oklahoma's discriminatory "grandfather" rule that disenfranchised many black citizens. It persuaded the United States Supreme Court to rule in Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 that states cannot officially segregate African-Americans into separate residential districts. In 1916, when the NAACP was just seven years old, chairman Joel Spingarn invited James Weldon Johnson to serve as field secretary. Johnson was a former U.S. consul to Venezuela and a noted scholar and columnist. Within four years, Johnson was instrumental in increasing the NAACP's membership from 9,000 to almost 90,000. In 1920, Johnson was elected head of the organization. Over the next ten years under his leadership, the NAACP would escalate its lobbying and litigation efforts, becoming internationally known for its advocacy of equal rights and equal protection for the "American Negro". The NAACP devoted much of its energy between the First and Second World Wars to fighting the lynching of blacks throughout the United States. The organization sent Walter F. White to Phillips County, Arkansas, in October, 1919, to investigate the Elaine Race Riot in which more than two hundred black tenant farmers were killed by roving white vigilantes and federal troops after a deputy sheriff's attack on a union meeting of sharecroppers left one white man dead. The NAACP organized the appeals for the twelve men sentenced to death a month later, based on testimony obtained by beating and electric shocks, and obtained a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Dempsey that significantly expanded the federal courts' oversight of the states' criminal justice systems in the years to come. The NAACP also spent more than a decade seeking federal legislation barring lynching. The organization regularly displayed a black flag stating "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" from the window of its offices in New York to mark each outrage. The NAACP led the successful fight, in alliance with the American Federation of Labor to prevent the nomination of John Johnston Parker to the Supreme Court based on his support for denial of the right to vote to blacks and his anti-labor rulings. It organized support for the Scottsboro Boys, although the NAACP lost most of the internecine battles with the Communist Party and the International Labor Defense over the control of those cases and the strategy to be pursued. The organization also brought litigation to challenge the "white primary" system in the South.

Desegregation

The NAACP's legal department, headed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, undertook a campaign spanning several decades to bring about the reversal of the separate but equal doctrine announced by the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. Beginning by challenging segregation in state professional schools, then attacking Jim Crow at the college level, the campaign culminated in a unanimous Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that held that state-sponsored segregation of elementary schools was unconstitutional. Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South. Starting on December 5, 1955, NAACP activists, including E.D. Nixon, its local president, and Rosa Parks, who had served as the chapter's Secretary, helped organize a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregation on the city's buses when two-thirds of the riders were black. The boycott lasted 381 days. The State of Alabama responded by effectively barring the NAACP from operating within its borders for its refusal to divulge a list of its members, out of fear that they would be fired or face violent retaliation for their activities. While the Supreme Court eventually overturned the decision in NAACP v. Alabama, the NAACP lost its leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement during those years to organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that relied on direct action and mass mobilization, rather than litigation and legislation to advance the rights of African-Americans. Roy Wilkins, its president at that time, clashed repeatedly with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders over questions of strategy and prestige within the movement. At the same time, the NAACP used the Supreme Court's decision in Brown to press for desegregation of schools and public facilities throughout the country. Daisy Bates, president of its Arkansas state chapter, spearheaded the campaign by the Little Rock Nine to integrate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. By the mid-1960s, the NAACP had regained some of its preeminence in the Civil Rights Movement by pressing for civil rights legislation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. Congress passed a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations in 1964, followed by a voting rights act in 1965. After Kivie Kaplan died in 1975, Benjamin Hooks, a lawyer and clergyman, was elected the NAACP's executive director in 1977.

The 1990s: Crisis and restored strength

In the 1990s, the NAACP ran into debt, and the dismissal of two leading officials further added to the picture of an organization in deep crisis. In 1993 the NAACP's Board of Directors narrowly selected Reverend Benjamin Chavis over Reverend Jesse Jackson to fill the position of Executive Secretary. A controversial figure, Chavis was ousted eighteen months later by the same board that hired him, accused of using NAACP funds for an out-of-court settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit. [http://static.highbeam.com/n/newyorkamsterdamnews/october081994/betrayalthecaseagainstbenchavis] Following the dismissal of Chavis, Myrlie Evers-Williams narrowly defeated NAACP chairperson William Gibson in 1995, after Gibson was accused of overspending and mismanagement of the organization's funds. In 1996 Congressman Kweisi Mfume a Democratic Congressman from Maryland and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, was named the organization's president. Three years later strained finances forced the organization to drastically cut its staff, from 250 in 1992 to just fifty. However, in the second half of the 1990s, the organization restored its finances, permitting the NAACP National Voter Fund to launch a major get-out-the-vote offensive in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections. 10.5 million African Americans cast their ballots in the election, one million more than four years before, and the NAACP's effort was credited by observers as playing a significant role in handing Democrat Al Gore several states where the election was close, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Critics and supporters

Some critics of the NAACP, particularly conservatives, complain that the organization takes liberal positions on issues which either have no obvious relationship to the civil rights struggle or minorities, or which they believe to be at odds with the cause of freedom. For example, the NAACP strongly supports stringent gun control laws, feminist issues, gay rights issues and opposes voucher programs that have been termed "school choice". The NAACP cites the disproportionate effect of gun violence on minority communities and argues that the Second Amendment to the Constitution is intended to protect the right of states to raise and maintain citizen militias, not of individual to own and bear arms without restriction—particularly handguns and assault weapons. With regard to women's issues and gay rights, the NAACP also contends that support of equal protection under the law for women and homosexuals is wholly consistent with its history of civil rights activism and advocacy. The NAACP also has a history of supporting equal access to public education and opposes the siphoning off of federal and state education dollars by way of vouchers and other means to fund private, parochial or charter schools, arguing that citizen tax dollars should not go to such institutions— especially at the expense of funding the nation's public school systems. Further, it contends that vouchers for a relative handful of students do not, and cannot, solve the problem of failed schools and will not move the nation closer to quality education for all children.

Bush declines to speak to the NAACP

In 2004, President George W. Bush (2001—) became the first sitting U.S. president since Herbert Hoover (1929–1933) not to address the NAACP when he declined an invitation to speak. The White House originally said the president had a scheduling conflict with the NAACP convention, slated for July 10-15, 2004. However, on July 10, 2004, Bush said he declined the invitation to speak to the NAACP because of harsh statements about him by its leaders. "I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent. You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me." Bush also mentioned his admiration for some members of the NAACP and said he would seek to work with them "in other ways." The Internal Revenue Service informed the NAACP in October, 2004 that it was undertaking an investigation into its tax-exempt status, focusing on a speech given by Julian Bond at its 2004 Convention in which he criticized President George W. Bush. The NAACP has denounced the investigation as political retaliation for its get-out-the-vote activities and has refused to supply the information concerning its activities that the IRS has demanded.

Timeline

1909 to 1949

1909: On February 12, the National Negro Committee was formed. Founders included Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard, William English Walling. 1910: The NAACP began court fights with the Pink Franklin case. It involved a black farmhand, who killed a policeman in self-defense when the officer broke into his home at 3 a.m. to arrest him on a civil charge. 1913: The NAACP protested President Woodrow Wilson's official introduction of segregation to the federal government. 1914: Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of the NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise. 1915: The NAACP organized a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffith's racially inflammatory and bigoted silent film, Birth of a Nation. 1917: In Buchanan v. Warley, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can not restrict and officially segregate African Americans into residential districts. Also, the NAACP won a battle to enable African-Americans to be commissioned as officers in World War I. Six hundred officers were commissioned, and 700,000 black men registered for the draft. 1918: After pressure by the NAACP, President Woodrow Wilson made a public statement against lynching. 1919: The NAACP sends Walter F. White to Arkansas to investigate the murder of several hundred black tenant farmers in October. The NAACP organizes the appeals on behalf of more than a hundred African-American defendants convicted in mob-dominated judicial proceedings the following month. 1920: To ensure that everyone, especially the Ku Klux Klan, knew the NAACP would not be intimidated, the annual conference was held in Atlanta, considered one of the most active areas of the Klan. 1922: The NAACP placed large ads in major newspapers to present the facts about lynching. 1930: The first of successful protests by the NAACP against Supreme Court justice nominees is begun against John Parker, who favored laws that discriminated against African-Americans. 1935: NAACP lawyers Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall won a legal fight to admit a black student to the University of Maryland Law School. 1939: After the Daughters of the American Revolution barred acclaimed contralto Marian Anderson from performing at their Constitution Hall, the NAACP moved her concert to the Lincoln Memorial, where more than 75,000 people attended. 1940: NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) was founded. 1941: During World War II, the NAACP took part in the effort to ensure that President Franklin Roosevelt would order a nondiscrimination policy in war-related industries and federal employment.

1950 to 1990

1954: After years of fighting segregation in public schools, under the leadership of special counsel Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP won Brown v. Board of Education. The historic U.S. Supreme Court decision barred school segregation. 1955: NAACP member and volunteer Rosa Parks is arrested and fined for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This action became a catalyst for the largest grassroots civil rights movement in the U.S. It was spearheaded through the collective efforts of the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other black organizations. 1957: LDF spun off as a separate organization. 1960: In Greensboro, North Carolina, members of the NAACP Youth Council started a series of nonviolent sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. These protests eventually led to more than 60 stores officially desegregating their counters. 1963: After one of his many successful mass rallies for civil rights, the NAACP's first field director in Mississippi, Medgar Evers, is assassinated in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. 1963: The NAACP pushed for passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. 1964: The U.S. Supreme Court ended the eight-year effort of Alabama officials to ban NAACP activities. 1965: Amidst threats of violence and efforts of state and local governments, the NAACP registered more than 80,000 voters in the South. 1979: The NAACP initiates the first bill ever signed by a governor that allows voter registration in high schools. Soon after, twenty-four states followed suit. 1981: The NAACP led the effort to extend the Voting Rights Act for another twenty-five years. To cultivate economic empowerment, the NAACP established the Fair Share Program with major corporations across the country. 1982: NAACP registered more than 850,000 voters, and through its protests and the support of the Supreme Court, it prevented President Ronald Reagan from giving a tax break to the racially segregated Bob Jones University. 1985: The NAACP led a major anti-apartheid rally in New York City. 1989: the NAACP held a silent march of more than 100,000 people to protest U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have reversed many of the gains made against discrimination.

1990 forward

1991: When avowed Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke ran for the United States Senate in Louisiana, the NAACP started a voter registration campaign that yielded a 76 percent turnout of black voters to defeat Duke. 1995: Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of Medgar Evers, was elected to lead the NAACP's board of directors. 1996: Kweisi Mfume left the United States House of Representatives to become the president of the NAACP. 1996: Responding to anti-affirmative action legislation occurring around the country, the NAACP started the Economic Reciprocity Program. Also, in response to increased violence among youth, the NAACP started the "Stop The Violence, Start the Love" campaign. 2000: Accomplishments include television diversity agreements and the largest black voter turnout in 20 years. 2000: January 17, in Columbia, South Carolina, more than 50,000 people attended a march to protest the flying of the Confederate battle flag. It was the largest civil rights demonstration ever held in the South to date. 2005: Following the resignation of Kweisi Mfume, Bruce S. Gordon, a business executive, is chosen unanimously to become NAACP president. 2005: Civil rights pioneer and lifetime NAACP member Rosa Parks dies, and her body lies in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. She is the first woman ever to be so honored.

Influential court cases


- Brown v. Board of Education,
  - Briggs v. Elliott
  - Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
  - Gebhart v. Belton
- Buchanan v. Warley,
- McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Board of Regents,
- Milliken v. Bradley,
- Moore v. Dempsey,
- NAACP v. Alabama,
- NAACP v. Button,
- NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.,
- Shelley v. Kraemer,
- Smith v. Allwright,
- Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education,
- Sweatt v. Painter,

See also


- Association for the Study of African American Life and History
- Niagara Movement
- NAACP Image Award
- NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
- Racial integration

References


- [http://www.naacp.org/news/releases/mfumecontract102201.shtml/ Renewal of Kweisi Mfume's contract to serve as president of the NAACP]

External links


- [http://www.naacp.org NAACP official site]
- [http://www.naacpldf.org NAACP LDF official site]
- [http://www.africanaonline.com/orga_naacp.htm NAACP History]
- [http://www.africanamericans.com/BenjaminHooks.htm Benjamin Hooks]

Sources and further reading


- Finch, Minnie. The NAACP: Its Fight for Justice. Scarecrow Press, 1981.
- Harris, Jacqueline L. History and Achievements of the NAACP (The African American Experience). 1992.
- Kellogg, Charles Flint. NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Johns Hopkins University Press: 1973. ISBN 0801815541.
- Kluger, Richard Simple Justice. Alfred A. Knopf: 1976. ISBN 0394722558.
- Ovington, Mary White, et al. Black and White Sat Down Together: The Reminiscences of an NAACP Founder. Feminist Press: 1995. ISBN 1558610995.
- Pitre, Merline. In Struggle Against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957. Texas A&M Press: 1999. ISBN 0890968691 .
- St. James, Warren D. NAACP: Triumphs of a Pressure Group, 1909 - 1980. Exposition Press, 1980.
- Tushnet, Mark V. The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925-1950. UNC Press: 1987. ISBN 0807841730.
- Wedin, Carolyn. Inheritors of the Spirit: Mary White Ovington and the Founding of the NAACP. Wiley Publishers: 1999. ISBN 0471327247.
- Zangrando, Robert L. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Temple University Press: 1980. ISBN 087722174X. NAACP Category:Political advocacy groups in the United States Category:African Americans' rights organizations ja:全米黒人地位向上協会

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

1909

1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar).

Events

January – March


- January 16 - Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
- January 28 - United States troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War.
- February 12 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
- February 23 - The Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.
- February 24 - The Hudson Motor Car Company is founded.
- March 4 - End of term for Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States. He is succeeded by William Howard Taft.
- March 18 - Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter becoming the first to broadcast as a ham radio operator.
- March 23 - Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
- March 31 - Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

April – June


- April 6 - Robert Peary allegedly reaches the North Pole.
- April 27 - Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdul Hamid II is overthrown and succeeded by his brother, Muhammad V. He leaves the country the next day.
- May - Choosing a vocation by Frank Parsons (died 1908) is published.
- June 1 - The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition opens in Seattle.
- June 2 - Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
- June 9 – Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.
- June 15 - Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lords and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.
- June 22 - Construction begins on the Cape Cod Canal, which would separate Cape Cod from mainland Massachusetts, United States.

July – September


- July 13 - Gold discovered near Cochrane, Ontario.
- July 16 - A revolution forces Mohammad Ali Shah, Persian Shah of the Qajar dynasty to abdicate in favor of his son Ahmad Shah Qajar. He proceeds in leaving Persia for Imperial Russia, reportedly seeking the assistance of Nicholas II of Russia in regaining the throne.
- July 25 - Louis Bleriot is the first man to fly across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air craft.
- August 8 - Launching of The Rosicrucian Fellowship at Seattle (Washington). Later, in October 28 1911, its international headquarters, till today, were physically launched at Mount Ecclesia, Oceanside (California, United States) and the Healing Temple "The Ecclesia" was lauched in December 25 1920.
- September 9 - Comet Halley first recorded on a photographic plate.
- September 10-21 – Hurricane sweeps over Louisiana and Mississippi - 350 dead
- September 25 – Auroras seen in Singapore.

October – December


- October 2 - The first rugby football match played in Twickenham
- November 11 - US Navy founds a navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
- November 13 - Ballinger-Pinchot scandal begins: Collier's magazine accuses US Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of questionable dealings in Alaskan coal fields.
- November 18 - Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of dictator José Santos Zelaya.
- November - First edition of Max Heindel's magnum opus The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.
- December 4 - The University of Bristol was founded and received its Royal Charter.
- December 17 - Léopold II of Belgium dies and is succeeded by his nephew Albert I of Belgium

Month/date unknown


- William Dickson Boyce, a United States businessman visiting London, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is introduced to members of the Scouting movement. The following year Boyce becomes founder of the Boy Scouts of America.
- Karl Landsteiner develops system of blood groups.
- Leon's, a Canadian furniture chain is first opened.
- Britain introduces Minimum Wage Laws.
- Old age pensions in Britain
- The laboratory of Paul Ehrlich creates the Salvarsan treatment for syphilis
- Mohorovičić discontinuity discovered
- Centennial anniversary of Miami University (Ohio)
- American Issue Publishing House of Anti-Saloon League incorporated.

Births

January


- January 1 - Barry Goldwater, American politician (d. 1998)
- January 3 - Victor Borge, Danish entertainer (d. 2000)
- January 5 - Stephen Cole Kleene, American mathematician (d. 1994)
- January 8 - Willy Millowitsch, German actor (d. 1999)
- January 13 - Marinus van der Lubbe, Dutch communist accused of setting fire to the Reichstag (d. 1934)
- January 15 - Jean Bugatti, German-born automobile designer (d. 1939)
- January 15 - Gene Krupa, American drummer (d. 1973)
- January 16 - Clement Greenberg, American art critic (d. 1994)
- January 19 - Hans Hotter, German bass-baritone (d. 2003)
- January 22 - Ann Sothern, American actress (d. 2001)
- January 22 - U Thant, Burmese United Nations Secretary General (d. 1974)
- January 24 - Martin Lings, British Islamic scholar (d. 2005)

February


- February 3 - Simone Weil, French philosopher (d. 1943)
- February 9 - Carmen Miranda, Portuguese-born actress and singer (d. 1955)
- February 9 - Dean Rusk, United States Secretary of State (d. 1994)
- February 11 - Max Baer, American boxer and actor (d. 1959)
- February 11 - Joseph Mankiewicz, American filmmaker (d. 1993)
- February 15 - Guillermo Gorostiza Paredes, Spanish footballer (d. 1966)
- February 15 - Miep Gies, Dutch friend and biographer of Anne Frank
- February 18 - Wallace Stegner, American writer (d. 1993)
- February 24 - August Derleth, American writer (d. 1971)
- February 26 - King Talal of Jordan (d.1972)

March


- March 1 - David Niven, English actor (d. 1983)
- March 2 - Mel Ott, baseball player (d. 1958)
- March 4 - Harry Helmsley, American real estate entrepreneur (d. 1997)
- March 19 - Louis Hayward, South African-born actor (d. 1985)
- March 22 - Gabrielle Roy, Canadian author (d. 1983)
- March 24 - Clyde Barrow, American outlaw (d. 1934)
- March 27 - Golo Mann, German historian (d. 1994)

April


- April 13 - Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, Polish-born mathematician (d. 1984)
- April 22 - Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italian neurologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- April 30 - Queen Juliana of the Netherlands (d. 2004)

May


- May 7 - Edwin H. Land, American camera inventor (d. 1991)
- May 10 - Mother Maybelle Carter, American musician (d. 1978)
- May 15 - James Mason, British actor (d. 1984)
- May 18 - Fred Perry, English tennis player (d. 1995)
- May 30 - Benny Goodman, American musician (d. 1986)

June


- June 6 - Isaiah Berlin, Russian historian of ideas (d. 1997)
- June 7 - Jessica Tandy, English actress (d. 1994)
- June 14 - Burl Ives, American singer (d. 1995)
- June 17 - Elmer Lee Andersen, Governor of Minnesota (d. 2004)
- June 20 - Errol Flynn, Australian actor (d. 1959)
- June 26 - Colonel Tom Parker, Dutch-born celebrity manager (d. 1997)

July


- July 18 - Mohammed Daoud Khan, President of Afghanistan (d. 1978)
- July 28 - Malcolm Lowry, British novelist (d. 1957)
- July 30 - C. Northcote Parkinson, British historian and author (d. 1993)

August


- August 9 - Adam von Trott zu Solz, German lawyer and diplomat (d. 1944)
- August 25 - Ruby Keeler, Canadian singer and actress (d. 1993)
- August 25 - Michael Rennie, English actor (d. 1971)
- August 26 - Jim Davis, American actor (d. 1981)

September


- September 7 -