Portal:North America
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The North America Portal
North America is a continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Greater North America includes the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Clipperton Island, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States.
Continental North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), representing approximately 16.5% of the Earth's land area and 4.8% of its total surface area. It is the third-largest continent by size after Asia and Africa, and the fourth-largest continent by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. , North America's population was estimated as over 592 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography, the terms "North America" and "North American" sometimes refer to just Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Greenland.
It is unknown with certainty how and when first human populations first reached North America. People were known to live in the Americas at least 20,000 years ago but various evidence points to possibly earlier dates. The Paleo-Indian period in North America followed the Last Glacial Period, and lasted until about 10,000 years ago when the Archaic period began. The classic stage followed the Archaic period, and lasted from approximately the 6th to 13th centuries. Beginning in 1000 AD, the Norse were the first Europeans to begin exploring and ultimately colonizing areas of North America.
In 1492, the exploratory voyages of Christopher Columbus led to a transatlantic exchange, including migrations of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the early modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves, immigrants from Europe, Asia, and descendants of these respective groups. (Full article...)
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Boston (US: /ˈbɔːstən/), officially the City of Boston, is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of 48.4 sq mi (125 km2) and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. The Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area, surrounding the city, is the eleventh-largest in the country.
Boston is one of the United States' oldest cities. It was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers. The city was named after Boston, Lincolnshire, England. During the American Revolution, Boston was home to several key events. These included the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the hanging of Paul Revere's lantern signal in Old North Church, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the siege of Boston. Following American independence from Great Britain, the city continued to play an important role as a port, manufacturing hub, and center for education and culture. (Full article...)Featured picture - show another
Credit: Cecil W. Stoughton |
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Edward Michael Stelmach ECA AOE (/ˈstɛlmæk/; born May 11, 1951) is a Canadian politician who served as the 13th premier of Alberta, from 2006 to 2011. The grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Stelmach was born and raised on a farm near Lamont and fluently speaks the distinctive Canadian dialect of Ukrainian. He spent his entire pre-political adult life as a farmer, except for some time spent studying at the University of Alberta. His first foray into politics was a 1986 municipal election, when he was elected to Lamont County council. A year into his term, he was appointed reeve. He continued in this position until his entry into provincial politics.
In the 1993 provincial election, Stelmach was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Vegreville-Viking (later Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville). A Progressive Conservative, he served in the cabinets of Ralph Klein—at various times holding the portfolios of Intergovernmental Relations, Transportation, Infrastructure, and Agriculture, Food, and Rural Development—where he developed a reputation as a low-key politician who avoided the limelight. When Klein resigned the party's leadership in 2006, Stelmach was among the first to present his candidature to replace him. After a third-place finish on the first ballot of the leadership race, he won an upset second ballot victory over former provincial treasurer Jim Dinning. (Full article...)Good article - show another
Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén (5 March 1962 – 5 November 2010), commonly referred to by his alias Tony Tormenta ("Tony Storm"), was a Mexican drug lord and co-leader of the Gulf Cartel, a drug trafficking organization based in Tamaulipas. He headed the criminal group along with Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez. Antonio was considered by Mexican security forces as one of Mexico's most-wanted men.
Born in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Antonio initially worked as a car washer at a local police station with his brother Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, former leader of the cartel. By the late 1980s, he entered the drug trade, and later became the crime boss of Matamoros, where he controlled the city's drug trafficking shipments and all organized crime activities. Few details were known of Antonio's criminal career prior to 1999, when his brother Osiel confronted federal agents at gunpoint with several of his gunmen in Matamoros. In 1998, Antonio avoided arrest after FBI and DEA agents tracked his whereabouts inside a domicile in Houston. Back in Mexico, his brother Osiel was the Gulf Cartel's main leader and had created a paramilitary squad known as Los Zetas, formed by soldiers who left the Mexican military. (Full article...)Did you know...
- ... that Confederate General John W. Frazer surrendered the Cumberland Gap during the American Civil War without a fight?
- ...that a circumferentor (pictured) was an important tool to surveyors for mapping the North American frontier?
- ...that the Soufrière Hills volcano is an active complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat?
- ... that the Chontal Maya of Tabasco consider themselves the direct descendants of the Olmec civilization?
- ...that Jacob Piatt Dunn in 1886 wrote the first scholarly history concerning the Indian Wars?
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