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| Country : United States of America Official name: United States of America Head of State: President George W Bush (Republican Party) (inaugurated 20 Jan 2001; sworn in 20 Jan 2005 for a second term) Head of government: President George W Bush Ruling party: Republican Party Area: 9,300,000 square km Population: 294.54 million (2004) Capital: Washington DC Official language: A bill to recognise English as the official language was introduced in the House of Representatives in February 2003. English is spoken by approximately 85 per cent of the population; Spanish is regarded as the second national language. Currency: US dollar (US$) = 100 cents GDP per capita: US$37,312 (2003) GDP real growth: 2.90% (2003) Labour force: 144.93 million (2003) Unemployment: 6.10% (2003) Inflation: 2.30% (2003) Oil production: 7.45 million bpd (2003) Balance of trade: -US$581.64 billion (2003) Foreign debt: US$862.00 billion (2003) Annual FDI: US$86.60 billion (2003) |
Historical profile
The first inhabitants of North America included the Pueblo people in New Mexico,
the Apache in Texas, the Navajo in Arizona, Colorado and Utah, the Hopi in Arizona,
the Crow in Montana, the Cherokee in North Carolina and Mohawks and Iroquois
in New York state.
1565–07 The Spanish, French and British founded settlements across North America.
1619 The first African slaves were brought into North America by the British.
1700s As the eighteenth century progressed, an increasing number of European settlers arrived. British attempts to assert authority over its 13 North American colonies led to conflicts breaking out with the French and the indiginous population. The British intervened and in order to recoup losses after winning the conflict, higher taxes were imposed which led to civil unrest and the first stirrings of an independence movement.
1776 Independence from Britain was declared by the colonies.
1781 Rebel states set up a loose confederation, codified in Articles of Confederation, after defeating the British at the Battle of Yorktown.
1783 The British accepted the loss of their colonies under the Treaty of Paris.
1787 The 'founding fathers' drew up the constitution, which created a federal structure for the United States of America.
1788 The constitution came into effect.
1789 George Washington was elected the first US president.
1800s During the nineteenth century, populations expanded across the plains to the west coast. By 1850, a combination of land purchases, war and diplomacy had created much of the modern-day US.
After 1850, immigrants began arriving from all over the world, mainly attracted by the industrial jobs in the north.
The south remained committed to agriculture and the use of slaves.
1860 When the abolitionist Abraham Lincoln became president, the south seceded from the north and civil war was declared in 1861.
1865 The north won the civil war, but blacks in the south remained disenfranchised and segregated after Lincoln's assassination.
1898 The US's emergence as a world power was demonstrated when Spain lost control of its colonies in Cuba, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, after being defeated in Cuba by the US.
1914 The US declared its neutrality at the start of the First World War.
1917 The US declared war on Germany after a torpedo attack on the passenger vessel Lusitania a year earlier. Over one million US troops had served on the Allied side by the time the war had ended in 1918.
1929 The Wall Street crash resulted in a lengthy economic recession referred to as the 'Great Depression'.
1941 After remaining neutral at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the US declared war on the Axis powers following the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor.
1944 The US led the Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Western Europe.
1945 Following the end of the war in Europe, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the Pacific War.
1947--50s The US was instrumental in the rebuilding of post-war Western Europe and Japan, providing financial aid. The Cold War emerged between the capitalist US and Western Europe and the communist Soviet Union and its Eastern European bloc.
1950–53 The US led a UN military force against communist North Korea after it had invaded South Korea. After the Chinese intervened on the side of the of the North Koreans and the war became attritional, a cease-fire was signed in 1953, leading to a peace treaty the following year.
1962 Tensions between the Soviet Union and the US reached a climax with the Cuban missile crisis.
1963 John F Kennedy, the youngest-ever US president, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in November.
1964–73 The US was involved in the Vietnam War. The US government provided South Vietnam with military assistance against communist North Vietnam, but was forced to withdraw in 1973 due to mounting domestic opposition over high casualties.
1974 President Richard Nixon, who was elected in 1969, was forced to resign over the Watergate scandal involving a break-in at Democrat headquarters.
1970s and 1980s was a period of great technological advancement and declining industrialism, while the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the US as the world's sole superpower.
1991 A US-led coalition forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait during the Gulf War.
1992 The Democratic candidate Bill Clinton defeated the Republican incumbent president, George Bush, in the presidential election.
1996 Bill Clinton was re-elected as president in November.
1999 The US led an international military campaign against Yugoslavia.
2000 George W Bush was elected the forty-third president of the US following controversy over vote-counting.
2001 On 11 September, two passenger jets were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, demolishing both towers. A third jet was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. In October, the US launched military action in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda group, blamed for being behind the terrorist attacks of 11 September.
2002 President Bush received evidence of terrorist links with Iraq and declared that if Saddam Hussein could not prove to the UN weapons inspectors that he had disposed of his weapons of mass destruction as stipulated after the Gulf War, the US would conduct a war against Iraq. Prime Minister Tony Blair confirmed that Britain would also fight. The build-up of troops in Kuwait began at the end of the year and although UN weapons inspectors were allowed into Iraq for the first time in four years, the information they were shown was not sufficient to convince them.
2003 After diplomatic efforts to force Saddam Hussein to disarm and the expiry of an American ultimaturm giving Saddam and his sons 48 hours to leave the country, the US-led war against Iraq began in March. On 2 May, President Bush declared that 'major combat operations in Iraq have ended.' On 14 August, a power blackout -- the biggest in North American history -- hit cities in the north-eastern US, as well as Canada where the electicity had been generated.
2004 On 29 June, the US and Libya restored diplomatic relations after a break of 24 years. By Sepember there were 647 US dead since the president declared an end to combat missions; the total number of dead since the beginning of the war was 1,002. George W Bush was re-elected president on 2 November.
2005 On 20 January, President George W Bush was sworn in for a second term.
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