The United States of America

The United States of America is the fourth largest country in the world after Russia, Canada and China. It is situated in North America and is bordered on Canada and Mexico. The history of the country dates back to the 17th century when the first English settlement was established in 1602. It was the beginning of New England colonies consisting of 4 states only.

The USA consists of 50 states and the District of Columbia which is home to the capital of the country – Washington D.C. Two states – Alaska and Hawaii – are separated from the mainland. The total area of the USA is around 9 mln square kilometers. More than 250 million people live in this country. Their national language is English, although a large part of current American residents are immigrants who speak their native languages.

Due to the fact, that the territory of the USA spreads from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, the climate of the country varies greatly depending on the geographical position. Moreover, winter temperatures in northern states may reach 40 degrees below zero. At the same time summer temperatures in southern states may increase up to 49 degrees above zero.

The territory of the USA is crossed by the Mississippi river which is the longest in the world. 5 Great lakes in the north of the country on the border with Canada are a popular tourist attraction. Western part of the country is bound by the Rocky Mountains or the Rockies. Central states are situated on the Great Plains.

A wide variety of landscape and climatic zones has determined the country’s industry and agriculture. In the USA farming is devoted to raising such plants as corn, sunflowers, tomatoes and many others. The major industrial fields are automobiles, oil and gas extraction and sustainable energy.

The United States of America is a democratic country with two ruling parties – the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties propose a candidate for presidency. A president is elected once in four years and can serve no more than two subsequent terms. The highest legislative body of the country is the Congress which consists of two chambers – the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The judicial branch of the federal government consists of the Supreme Court and the system of federal courts.

The executive power is concentrated in the hands of the President, Vice-President and the President’s Cabinet. The President is elected for four years of service. The present day President of the USA is Baraq Obama, the representative of the Democratic Party.

If you travel to the USA it’s worth considering the following destinations: Washington D.C., Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. These cities present a wide range of attractions and entertainment, such as Hollywood, the Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, the Library of Congress, the White House and many others.

The Second Front

In November, 1943, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met together in Teheran, Iran, to discuss military strategy and post-war Europe. Ever since the Soviet Union had entered the war, Stalin had been demanding that the Allies open-up a second front in Europe. Churchill and Roosevelt argued that any attempt to land troops in Western Europe would result in heavy casualties.

Stalin believed that there were political, as well as military reasons for the Allies' failure to open up a second front in Europe. Stalin was still highly suspicious of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt and was worried about them signing a peace agreement with Adolf Hitler. Stalin was fully aware that if Britain and the USA withdrew from the war, the Red Army would have great difficulty in dealing with Germany on its own.

At Teheran, Joseph Stalin reminded Churchill and Roosevelt of a previous promise of landing troops in Western Europe in 1942. Later they postponed it to the spring of 1943. Stalin complained that it was now November and there was still no sign of an allied invasion of France. After lengthy discussions it was agreed that the Allies would mount a major offensive in the spring of 1944.

From the memoirs published by those who took part in the negotiations in Teheran, it would appear that Stalin dominated the conference. Alan Brook, chief of the British General Staff, said that Stalin had a military brain of the very highest calibre. Never once in any of his statements he made any strategic error. In this respect he stood out compared with Roosevelt and Churchill.

The landings in June, 1944, created a second-front and took the pressure off the Red Army and from that date they made steady progress into territory held by Germany.

Washington

Washington, the capital of the USA, is situated on the Potomac River in the district of Columbia. The District is named in honor of Columbus, the discoverer of America. The capital owes a great deal to the nation's first president George Washington. It was he, who selected the site for the District and laid the cornerstone of the Capitol building, where Congress meets. The location of the city on the Potomac river was the result of a political compromise between the wishes of the northern and the southern states. Washington was founded in 1791. The city was built to a preliminary plan. A rectangular network of streets combines with wide avenues which radiate from two main centers. One of them is the Capitol and the other is the White House. Washington is not the largest city in the country, for it cannot be compared in size with the cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los-Angeles. But in the political sense it is the center of the republic. It is the home of government. The US Presidents lives and works here, the Congress and the Supreme Court are all in Washington D.C.

The First Article of the United States Constitution provides for a federal district, distinct from the states, to serve as the permanent national capital. The centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are located in Washington just as many of the nation's monuments and museums. Washington, D.C. hosts 174 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The headquarters of other institutions such as trade unions, lobbying groups, and professional associations are also located in Washington.

The United States Congress has supreme authority over Washington, D.C.; residents of the city therefore have less self-governance than residents of the states. D.C. residents could not vote in presidential elections until the ratification of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961.

Washington, D.C., is a planned city. The design for the City of Washington was largely the work of Pierre (Peter) Charles L’Enfant, a French-born architect, engineer, and city planner who first arrived in the colonies as a military engineer with Major General Lafayette during the American Revolutionary War. In 1791, President Washington commissioned L'Enfant to plan the layout of the new capital city. L'Enfant's plan was modeled in the Baroque style, which incorporated broad avenues radiating out from rectangles and circles, providing for open space and landscaping.

After the construction of the twelve-story Cairo Apartment Building in 1899, Congress passed the Heights of Buildings Act, which declared that no building could be taller than the Capitol. The Act was amended in 1910 to restrict building height to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m). As a result, the Washington Monument remains the District's tallest structure.

Washington is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: Northwest (NW), Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), and Southwest (SW). The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol building. All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location. In most of the city, the streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW) and north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW). The avenues radiating from the traffic circles are primarily named after states. Some Washington streets are particularly noteworthy, such as Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the White House with the U.S. Capitol, and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups.

The architecture of Washington varies greatly. Six of the top 10 buildings in the American Institute of Architects' 2007 ranking of "America's Favorite Architecture" are located in the District of Columbia, including the White House; the Washington National Cathedral; the Thomas Jefferson Memorial; the United States Capitol; the Lincoln Memorial; and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The neoclassical, Georgian, gothic, and modern architectural styles are all reflected among those six structures and many other prominent edifices in Washington. Notable exceptions include buildings constructed in the French Second Empire style such as the Old Executive Office Building and Library of Congress.