history of United States

…of it occurred outside the United States. Although American production continued to grow, its share of world automotive production fell from about 80 percent of the total to 20 percent. Among individual countries the United States was the leading producer until the recession of the early 1980s. In 1980 Japan,…

…World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945…

…the Western Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin.

…the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as their respective allies, embarked on large-scale biological warfare R&D and weapons production programs. Those programs were required by law to be halted and dismantled upon the signing of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1972 and the entry into force…

…foreign policy pursued by the United States beginning in the late 1940s in order to check the expansionist policy of the Soviet Union. The term was suggested by the principal framer of the policy, the U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan, who wrote in an anonymous article in the July 1947…

…major confrontation that brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to war over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.

…a warning system for the United States and Canada that could detect and verify the approach of aircraft or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from the Soviet Union.

of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union practiced a nuclear strategy known as mutually assured destruction (MAD). That strategy involved the threat of massive retaliation against a nuclear attack, as both nations maintained arsenals of nuclear weapons large enough that either could survive a nuclear attack…

Whatever policies Latin American countries adopted in the postwar era, they had to take into account the probable reaction of the United States, now more than ever the dominant power in the hemisphere. It was…

The United States feared that the poverty, unemployment, and dislocation of the post-World War II period were reinforcing the appeal of communist parties to voters in western Europe. On June 5, 1947, in an address at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C.

…deputy military governor in the U.S. zone of postwar Germany, “was like a city of the dead.”

…as a way for the United States to meet its Cold War military obligations without putting too much strain on the country’s economy.

…11 and 12, 1986, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting, the second between the two leaders, was intended not as a summit but as a session in which the leaders explored the possibility of limiting each country’s strategic nuclear weapons to

Harry S. Truman declaring immediate economic and military aid to the governments of Greece, threatened by communist insurrection, and Turkey, under pressure from Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean area. As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during…

Greece and Turkey, in the Cold War conditions of 1947, were strategically vital and highly vulnerable Western outposts on the southern flank of the U.S.S.R. and its satellite states. Turkey was especially exposed. In Greece, the mainly communist National Liberation…

…During the Cold War the United States, the Soviet Union, and other major powers built up enormous stockpiles containing tens of thousands of nuclear bombs, missile warheads, and artillery shells—so many that the military and diplomatic standoff of that era was sometimes described as a “balance of terror.”

…Union’s Cold War adversary, the United States.

The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on September 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of…

…spring 2010 more than 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Afghanistan, while the British troops suffered some 300 deaths and the Canadians some 150. Both Britain and Canada stationed their troops in Afghanistan’s south, where fighting had been most intense. More than 20 other countries also lost troops during…

…financed and directed by the U.S. government.

Both U.S. and Soviet troops, from opposite directions, had helped to liberate Europe, and on April 25, 1945, they met on the Elbe River. They toasted each other and posed for the photographers; then the Soviets dug themselves into new defensive positions, still facing west.

…Sea Dispute, dispute between the United States, on the one hand, and Great Britain and Canada, on the other, over the international status of the Bering Sea. In an attempt to control seal hunting off the Alaskan coast, the United States in 1881 claimed authority over all the Bering Sea…

…small civil war in the United States, fought between proslavery and antislavery advocates for control of the new territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Sponsors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (May 30, 1854) expected its provisions for territorial self-government to arrest the “torrent of fanaticism” that had been…

…rift between Israel and the United States—Netanyahu insisted that an invasion of Rafah had to proceed in order to root out “the last bastion” of Hamas battalions. Facing pressure from U.S. Pres. Joe Biden to implement a plan to protect civilians, the IDF said in mid-March that it would evacuate…

…deadly terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 (see September 11 attacks), discussion of relieving the embargo on Iraq abated. Although Iraq had no connection with those attacks, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush argued that the attacks demonstrated the vulnerability of the United States and that this…

…became a major task of U.S. administrators following the initial phase of the Iraq War.

Continuing tension between the U.S. and Iraqi governments led to the Iraq War in 2003. American troops entered the city in April and, despite criticism from other Arab states, met with little resistance from city residents. The main task of the U.S. administrators was to reestablish law and order…

…force of troops from the United States and Great Britain (with smaller contingents from several other countries) invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated Iraqi military and paramilitary forces. It was followed by a longer second phase in which a U.S.-led occupation of Iraq was opposed by an insurgency. After violence began…

>United States as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of the South Koreans, and the People’s Republic of China came to North Korea’s aid. After more than a million combat casualties had been suffered on both sides, the fighting ended in July…

…units and an assortment of U.S. support troops. The entire force was designated X Corps and was commanded by Major General Edward M. Almond, MacArthur’s chief of staff.

Throughout the war U.S. political and military leaders studied the possible use of nuclear weapons, and upon four separate occasions they gave this study serious attention. The answer was always the same: existing atomic bombs, carried by modified B-29s, would have little effect except for leveling cities. The…

…of Niagara Falls, ending a U.S. invasion of Canada during the War of 1812. After defeating the British in the Battle of Chippewa on July 5, 1814, U.S. troops under General Jacob Brown established themselves at Queenston. On the night of July 24–25, a British force under General Phineas Riall…

…operations in Libya from the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. The handover came after several days of debate among NATO countries over the limits of international military intervention; several countries argued that the coalition’s aggressive targeting of pro-Qaddafi ground forces had exceeded the mandate set by the UN…

The United States, the European Union (EU), and a number of other countries also imposed sanctions. On February 28 the United States announced that it had frozen at least $30 billion in Libyan assets.

…quell a rebellion by primarily U.S. settlers there. During the course of this punitive expedition, Texas declared its independence from Mexico (March 2). After his army had defeated Texan forces at the Alamo and Goliad, Santa Anna then moved eastward to the San Jacinto River, where he was defeated on…

…driving sociopolitical force in the United States. It envisioned a United States that would extend from sea to shining sea and perhaps would ultimately encompass all of Mexico. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, a move that Mexico saw as the first aggressive step and one…

…series of scattered campaigns involving American troops and Muslim bands on Mindanao, Philippines. The Moro fought for religious rather than political reasons, and their actions were unconnected with those of the Filipino revolutionaries who conducted the Philippine-American War (1899–1902).

…post-Cold War era, and the U.S.-led response would set important precedents for the use of military force over subsequent decades.

U.S. Pres. George Bush and various allies, considering Iraq’s action an act of blatant aggression as well as a threat to Western interests, decided that the status quo ante had to be reestablished, and U.S. troops began arriving in Saudi Arabia the next day. A…

United States and Filipino revolutionaries from 1899 to 1902, an insurrection that may be seen as a continuation of the Philippine Revolution against Spanish rule. It began after the United States assumed sovereignty of the Philippines following the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War.…

>United States, along with its Indian allies, over control of the Great Plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.

…War, (1898), conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.

… newspapers—were eager to see the United States intervene in Cuba, where Spain was engaged in brutal repression of an independence movement. Initially, McKinley hoped to avoid American involvement, but in February 1898 two events stiffened his resolve to confront the Spanish. First, a letter written by the Spanish minister to…

…out between Spain and the United States (the Spanish-American War). After the U.S. naval victory in the Battle of Manila Bay in May 1898, Aguinaldo and his entourage returned to the Philippines with the help of Adm. George Dewey. Confident of U.S. support, Aguinaldo reorganized his forces and soon liberated…

…between Great Britain and the United States. On Nov. 8, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes, commanding the Union frigate San Jacinto, seized from the neutral British ship Trent two Confederate commissioners, James Murray Mason and John Slidell, who were seeking the support of England and France for the cause of the…

…increased on both sides, the United States got involved, targeting the most critical and fortified sites in Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel was unable to destroy with its own arsenal. A ceasefire was announced on June 24, bringing the 12-day war to an end.

…conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.

…gangs were prevalent in the United States in the mid-19th century, followed by Jewish gangs in the early 20th century, and Asian and Latino gangs in the late 20th and early 21st century.

…boys also appeared in the United States in the mid-19th century, and reformatories for girls spread rapidly from the early 20th century. The institutions for girls, which usually were smaller than those for boys, were concerned primarily with controlling sexual promiscuity and teaching domestic skills. As in England, most reformatories…

…sizeable audiences in both the United States and Britain. Although blackface minstrelsy gradually disappeared from the professional theaters and became purely a vehicle for amateurs, its influence endured in later entertainment genres and media, including vaudeville theater, radio and television programs, and the world-music and motion-picture industries of the 20th…

…generally disreputable, particularly in the United States, where it first catered to a juvenile audience. Following World War II, science fiction spread throughout the world from its epicenter in the United States, spurred on by ever more staggering scientific feats, from the development of nuclear energy and atomic bombs to…

During this period in the United States, “dime novels” (shoddily produced pamphlets that usually sold for a nickel) and boys’ adventure magazines proliferated. The stories distributed in these books and magazines, such as Luis Senarens’s Frank Reade, Jr., and His Steam Wonder (1884), often boasted SF elements that appealed to…

…1934 SF readership in the United States was large enough to support the establishment of the Science Fiction League, Gernsback’s professionally sponsored fan organization (with local chapters in the United Kingdom and Australia). Like a kind of freemasonry, SF fandom spread across the United States. Eager young devotees soon had…

In Britain and the United States, the editorial polemics of Michael Moorcock (associated for many years with New Worlds and its anthologies) and Harlan Ellison (Dangerous Visions [1967] and Again, Dangerous Visions [1972]) led a rebellious New Wave movement that facilitated the genre’s move in fresh directions. Sporting a…

…was designed to stimulate the U.S. economy by saving jobs jeopardized by the Great Recession of 2008–09 and creating new jobs.

In the United States through much of the 20th century, a combination of federal and state regulations, such as the Banking Act of 1933, also known as the Glass-Steagall Act, prohibited interstate banking, prevented banks from trading in securities and insurance, and established the Federal Deposit Insurance…

…II, Great Britain and the United States outlined the postwar monetary system. Their plan, approved by more than 40 countries at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, aimed to correct the perceived deficiencies of the interwar gold exchange standard. These included the volatility of floating exchange rates, the inflexibility…

Although various U.S. state governments experimented with deposit insurance prior to the establishment of the FDIC in 1933, most of these experiments failed (in some cases because the banks engaged in excessive risk taking). The concept of national deposit insurance had garnered little support until large numbers…

…boom that occurred in the United States prior to the financial crisis of 2007–08. The crisis brought with it a substantial increase in defaults on mortgage loans and turned the MBSs that carried defaulted loans into “toxic” (essentially worthless) assets. To mitigate the resulting damage to financial markets and to…

…the Soviet Union and the United States, accounted for more than four-fifths of government investment and development expenditures during that period. Roads, dams, power plants, and factories were constructed, irrigation projects carried out, and education broadened. When foreign assistance declined in the 1970s, the sale of natural gas to the…

…killed, and the elimination of U.S. assistance to Afghanistan was guaranteed.

Backed by the United States, the mujahideen rebellion grew, spreading to all parts of the country. The Soviets initially left the suppression of the rebellion to the Afghan army, but the latter was beset by mass desertions and remained largely ineffective throughout the war.

…2008, was marked by a U.S. strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase, a turn to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, began in 2008 and accelerated with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama’s 2009 decision to temporarily increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.…

The United States consistently represented the largest foreign force in Afghanistan, and it bore the heaviest losses. By spring 2010 more than 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Afghanistan, while the British troops suffered some 300 deaths and the Canadians some 150. Both Britain and…

…Wilson hoped to persuade the United States to accept a mandate for an independent Armenia, but the Senate refused the responsibility (June 1, 1920). On August 10 Armenia, now recognized de jure, signed the Treaty of Sèvres, by which the Ottomans recognized Armenia as a free and independent state. On…

The United States became Australia’s major ally. In a famous statement (December 1941), Prime Minister Curtin declared: “I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free from any pangs about our traditional links of friendship to Britain.” A sharper note of independence from Britain…

…theme was Australian acceptance of U.S. dominance—all the more inexorable as the United Kingdom abandoned much of the modest interest it had cherished for Australia. The U.S. alliance crystallized in the 1951 Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS) Pact, reinforced (1955–77) by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Only

…he sent a note to President Wilson asking for an armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points. On October 18 the U.S. secretary of state, Robert Lansing, replied that, in view of the political development of the preceding months and, especially, in view of the fact that the new…

…the four occupying armies (U.S., British, French, and Soviet). In September 1945 a conference of representatives of all states extended the authority of the Renner government to all parts of Austria.

, and the United States, a declaration was published that declared the Anschluss null and void and pledged the Allies to restore Austrian independence; it also reminded the Austrians that they had to make an effort to rid themselves of the German yoke. Though the British prime minister,…

…defense cooperation agreement with the United States. Bahrain is the headquarters for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The United Kingdom maintains a small military presence. As part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Bahrain participates in security coordination with other countries of the region; the first deployment of the GCC’s…

Principal trading partners include the United States, which supplies nearly seven-tenths of Bermuda’s imports by value; the countries of the European Union; Canada; and various Caribbean countries.

…massive financial support from the United States, that brought inflation under control; at the same time, he also suspended most of the advanced social programs of the revolution. The government ended worker coadministration of the nationalized mine companies and cut back on social services. It also invited North American petroleum…

…on Great Britain and the United States, a move of only symbolic importance, but Tsar Boris avoided joining the war against the Soviet Union, fearing that this would lead to popular unrest. Bulgaria did not send troops to the front and was relatively untouched by military operations until the summer…

…countries were allied with the United States, which the prince disliked. At the same time, Sihanouk feared the eventual success of the Vietnamese communists in their war against South Vietnam and the United States, and he dreaded the prospect of a unified Vietnam under communist control. To gain some freedom…

…and the emergence of the United States as the world’s foremost economic and military power. Canada’s relations with Britain remained close but less extensive than in the past, whereas those with the United States became closer. The creation of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense in 1940 was a significant…

The policy of the Liberal government (in power since 1935), wartime cooperation, and the close economic interconnections between Canada and the United States had brought the two neighbours into a more intimate relationship than ever before. After World War II Canada’s special relations…

Canada’s relations with the United States were close, but there had been a long record of border disputes, the settlements of which frequently were resented, rightly or wrongly, by Canadians. Canada and the United States also clashed over fishing rights in the North Atlantic and, in the 1890s, over…

…Doctrine (1823) effectively asserted a U.S. sphere of influence in the “New World” by excluding further European colonization in the Americas, presaging later U.S. interventions in the internal affairs of smaller neighbours. In the aftermath of World War II, the Soviet Union created a sphere of influence as a political…

…two serious occurrences involving the United States and Chile, the first taking place during and the second shortly after the Chilean civil war of 1891.

Economic links with the United States, which had grown after the economic crisis of the 1930s, were strengthened after World War II; U.S. investments in Chile increased from $414,000,000 in 1945 to $540,000,000 in 1950, largely in copper production. By 1952 the United States had loaned $342,000,000 to the…

…of Wanghia (Wangxia) with the United States and in October the Treaty of Whampoa (Huangpu) with France. These arrangements made up a complex of foreign privileges by virtue of the most-favored-nation clauses (guaranteeing trading equality) conceded to every signatory. All in all, they provided a basis for later inroads such…

The United States, the European Community (later succeeded by the European Union), and Japan imposed sanctions, though by 1992 China had largely regained its international standing with all but the United States. But by the mid-1990s both sides had taken steps toward improved relations, and China…

…refused an offer from the United States to build a canal across the isthmus, and in 1903 the Panamanians revolted against the government in Bogotá. They negotiated a treaty with the United States that created a Canal Zone 10 miles (16 km) wide under U.S. sovereignty in exchange for an…

Meanwhile, U.S. interest had been actively maintained, but the situation was complicated by political difficulties and questions of sovereignty. A treaty between Britain and the United States recognized the exclusive U.S. right to construct, regulate, and manage a canal across the isthmus, but Panama was Colombian…

The United States, Japan, and a number of Southeast Asian, East Asian, and Pacific countries joined later. The plan came into full operation in 1951. Its name was changed following the end of participation by several newly communist countries of Southeast Asia.

… of 1916, which gave the United States permission to use the San Juan River (the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica) as part of an interoceanic canal route. Costa Rica protested that Nicaragua was violating preexisting treaty rights and that opening a route would threaten Costa Rican security. The claim…

From the United States came material help and moral encouragement, though U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s early statements pertaining to the peace aims were rather hazy. But several weeks after the United States declared war on Austria-Hungary, President Wilson promulgated his celebrated Fourteen Points (January 1918), the 10th…

…to enable the development of U.S. military facilities established in accordance with an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. Following this removal, no permanent population remained on Diego Garcia—only about 4,000 U.S. and British military and contract civilian personnel.

Meanwhile, the United States had expanded its commercial interests in the Dominican Republic (and the entire Caribbean region), and it had replaced Europe as the republic’s major trading partner. However, U.S. and European investors became alarmed by the republic’s deteriorating financial situation. In…

Báez then approached the United States with a protectorate plan. Pres. Ulysses S. Grant favoured annexation, but the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the treaty by one vote.

…would notably exclude both the United States and Australia. The creation of the European Union (EU) under the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the signing of the 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were important factors in Mahathir’s argument that East Asia needed its own bloc.

…cotton exports caused by the American Civil War (1861–65) greatly increased Britain’s demand for Egyptian long-staple cotton. This product had been introduced and developed in Muḥammad ʿAlī’s time, but its production had languished until the interruption of supplies of American cotton caused a fourfold increase in price during the war…

…with the support of the United States, to counter the threat of Soviet expansion in the Middle East. With the 1955 arms deal, the Soviet Union established itself as a force in the region.

…days of fighting—and once the United States abandoned its early neutrality and resupplied Israel with a massive airlift of military supplies—the Israelis drove the Egyptians and Syrians back. A cease-fire was secured by the United States while Egyptian troops remained east of the Suez Canal and Israeli forces had crossed…

…of ongoing efforts by successive U.S. presidents and by their own president to promote peace between Israel and other Arab countries and, particularly, the Palestinians. In a changing global economy, there was a popular suspicion that such attempts at fostering better relations might have some ulterior motive. In particular, many…

…addition, the role of the United States, which previously had shown very little interest in the affairs of El Salvador, changed markedly with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as president in January 1981. During the balance of the decade, the United States supplied El Salvador with financial aid amounting to $4 billion;…

…subversive and turned to the United States, which he concluded would be the dominant postwar power, to balance the geopolitical threat. American lend-lease and other assistance permitted Ethiopia to rebuff Britain and to secure the return of the Ogaden in 1948. The vision of Greater Somaliland, however, dominated Somali political…

…1945 at a meeting with U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Haile Selassie submitted memoranda stressing the imperative for recovering Eritrea and thereby gaining free access to the sea. In 1948 and again in 1949, two commissions established by the wartime Allied Powers and by the United Nations (UN) reported that…

…a country tied to the United States and Israel. This largely Muslim movement received an infusion of young Christians after 1962, when, through Addis Ababa’s manipulation, the Eritrean assembly voted to adopt the status of a governorate. The ELF now had sufficient strength to attack Eritrea’s administrative and economic infrastructure.…

The United States withdrew from the ILO between 1977 and 1980 and briefly suspended its participation in the IAEA from 1982 to 1983. In both cases, U.S. criticism turned crucially on accusations that the agencies were adopting discriminatory practices against Israel’s rights to participation. The United…

For purposes of occupation, the Americans, British, French, and Soviets divided Germany into four zones. The American, British, and French zones together made up the western two-thirds of Germany, while the Soviet zone comprised the eastern third. Berlin, the former capital, which was surrounded by the Soviet zone, was

…from the Peloponnese to the United States, that characterized the late 19th and early 20th centuries. About one-sixth of the entire population participated in this great exodus, the vast majority being male. The early emigrants had little intention of settling permanently overseas, though few ever returned to their homeland. Migrant…

The United States, assuming Britain’s former mantle as Greece’s chief external patron, soon provided military equipment and advice. American intervention and the consequences of the break between Josip Broz Tito (under whose leadership the Yugoslav state would eventually unite) and Stalin, combined with factionalism and altered…

…under the protection of the United States during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II and was returned to Denmark in 1945. Following the war, Denmark responded to Greenlanders’ complaints over its administration of the island. The monopoly of the Royal Greenland Trading Company was abolished in 1951,…

As the reforms advanced, the U.S. government, cued by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, became increasingly alarmed, fearing the threat to sizable American banana investments and to U.S. bank loans to the Guatemalan government as well. Also of concern to the United States were the increasingly close relations between…

…the 1980s, and to the United States and Belize. Many of these refugees returned home with the help of a United Nations refugee commission, which functioned until 2004; however, the number of Guatemalans emigrating continued to rise into the 21st century.

…a heavy impact upon the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company, and the growth of communist influence became the most troublesome issues of the Arbenz regime. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began efforts to destabilize the regime and recruited a force of Guatemalan exiles in Honduras, which was led by the…

The U.S. president, William Howard Taft, sent marines to protect American banana investments, which by this time had grown considerably, with three companies exploiting this Honduran product. All three made large capital outlays in the form of improved port facilities, railroads, workers’ settlements, and similar developments.

The United States, having assumed responsibility for Iceland’s defense, maintains a naval air station at Keflavík International Airport under NATO auspices.

…to receive arms from the United States, Nehru withdrew his support.

Relations with the United States improved during the last half of the 1980s, with greater trade, scientific cooperation, and cultural exchanges. When civil rule resumed in Pakistan in 1988, India’s relations with that country also reached a new level of friendship, though the South Asian thaw proved to…

The United States remained a firm ally of Indonesia throughout most of this period, providing aid, diplomatic support, and military training to the Suharto regime. In the wake of a 1991 massacre of hundreds of funeral marchers by the Indonesian armed forces at the Santa Cruz…

The United States, as an ally of Indonesia and provider of military aid, shared these concerns and supported Indonesia’s actions in East Timor. Indonesia’s occupation lasted for almost a quarter of a century and was marked by widespread human rights abuses, resulting in the deaths of…

…support and assistance of the United States and the United Kingdom, restored Mohammad Reza to power.

Relations with the United States remained close, reflected by the increasing predominance of Western culture in the country and the growing number of American advisers, who were necessary to administer the shah’s ambitious economic reforms and, most important, to aid in the development of Iran’s military. The Iranian…

…November 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy by a group of Iranian protesters demanding the extradition of the shah, who at that time was undergoing medical treatment in the United States. Through the embassy takeover, Khomeini’s supporters could claim to be as “anti-imperialist” as the political left. This ultimately gave…

Relations with the United States, which had resumed in 1984, began to improve. In 1987 the United States agreed to reflag 11 Kuwaiti tankers and escort them in international waters through the Strait of Hormuz. Britain and France also escorted tankers carrying their own flags. Although a U.S.…

…al-Qaeda, which repeatedly condemn the United States for enabling the dispossession of the Palestinians, for orchestrating international sanctions on Iraq that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens in the 1990s, and for maintaining a military “occupation” of Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War (1990–91).…

…was quickly recognized by the United States, the Soviet Union, and many other governments, fulfilling the Zionist dream of an internationally approved Jewish state. Neither the UN nor the world leaders, however, could spare Israel from immediate invasion by the armies of five Arab states—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan…

…lines, but not before the United States had agreed to placing a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai. American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles also promised in writing that the United States would treat the Strait of Tiran as an international waterway and keep it open.

…to Great Britain and the United States for assistance. Washington agreed to provide additional military and economic aid. The British government, eager to see the pro-Western Hussein secure in Jordan, stationed British paratroops in the country until late 1958. As a result, anti-Hashemite Palestinians supported by Nasser made no further…

…relations in 1963) and the United States to provide protection for its tankers in early 1987. The effect of the war was to promote closer relations with Kuwait’s conservative gulf Arab neighbours (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman), with whom Kuwait had formed the Gulf Cooperation…

…power of the hemisphere, the United States. During the 1920s it had already begun a retreat from the policy of active intervention in Latin America. This policy, adopted in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the United States’ open support of Panamanian secession from Colombia, had featured the creation…

…coup, President Chamoun immediately requested U.S. military intervention, and on the following day U.S. Marines landed outside Beirut. The presence of U.S. troops had little immediate effect on the internal situation, but the insurrection slowly faded out. Parliament turned to the commander of the army, General Chehab, as a compromise…

…the Sierra Leone example, private U.S organizations had settled freed slaves for whom there was no place in their own society prior to 1863. British and French merchants questioned the right of the settlers to control and to tax their trade and, since formal U.S. policy was anticolonial, the result,…

…for enslaved people in the United States after their emancipation. In 1818 two U.S. government agents and two officers of the American Colonization Society (founded 1816) visited the Grain Coast. After abortive attempts to establish settlements there, an agreement was signed in 1821 between the officers of the society and…

Libya’s relationship with the United States, which had been an important trading partner, deteriorated in the early 1980s as the U.S. government increasingly protested Qaddafi’s support of Palestinian Arab militants. An escalating series of retaliatory trade restrictions and military skirmishes culminated in a U.S. bombing raid of Tripoli and…

…number of years with the United States (the two countries established diplomatic relations in January 1987) and several other countries. High-ranking Mongolian officials began visiting the United States in 1991, but the brief visit George W. Bush paid to Ulaanbaatar in November 2005 was the first by any sitting U.S.…

…(December 2, 1823), cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy enunciated by Pres. James Monroe in his annual message to Congress. Declaring that the Old World and New World had different systems and must remain distinct spheres, Monroe made four basic points: (1) the United States would not interfere in the internal…

…Nationalist China (Taiwan) by the United States, Burma stopped accepting U.S. aid and rejected all other foreign aid.

…the April 2012 elections, the United States and European Union announced plans to begin lifting some of the economic sanctions and other restrictions that had been in place since the early 1990s, and in November U.S. Pres. Barack Obama made a brief visit to Yangon. In addition, in early 2012…

…theatre was dominated by the United States, the forces of which provided New Zealand’s sole defense. The fact that disaster was averted by American, not British, forces required a change in New Zealand’s attitudes; security was conferred by a foreign, though friendly, power. External relations in the postwar period reflected…

…declared on Nicaragua by the United States in 1985, along with economic mismanagement by the Sandinista government, brought about economic decline, service shortages, war-driven inflation, and a growing foreign debt that lasted throughout the decade. In the late 1980s the Sandinistas implemented an austerity program featuring some privatization and sharp…

On February 25, 1990, the U.S.-endorsed and U.S.-financed National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Opositor; UNO) coalition and its presidential candidate, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the widow of the martyred newspaper editor, won an upset victory, and a peaceful transfer of administrations took place on April 25.

…Reagan became president of the United States in 1981, Washington also answered the call for help. Pakistan soon became the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, which by the end of Reagan’s second term had reached several billion dollars. Not insignificantly, Reagan also waived all trade restrictions on aid…

…number of pro-Zionist statements from U.S. politicians. In August 1945 U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman requested that British Prime Minister Clement Attlee facilitate the immediate admission of 100,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors into Palestine, and in December the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives asked for unrestricted Jewish immigration to the…

…Peres signed an agreement in Washington providing for the expansion of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and for elections of a chairman and a legislative council of the PA. The PA would gain control over six large West Bank towns (Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilyah, Ramallah, and Bethlehem) as well…

…between the PA and the United States soured in December after the latter announced that it was moving its embassy in Israel to the contested city of Jerusalem. Many perceived the action as taking sides on one of the most contentious issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Abbas announced that…

…between the PA and the United States were marred when the Trump administration announced that the U.S. embassy in Israel would move to the disputed territory of Jerusalem—a maneuver perceived by many as taking sides on one of the most contentious outstanding issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Abbas responded by…

…Panama Canal, built by the United States and operated continuously since its opening in 1914, has fortified Panama’s role as an international shipping and trade centre. From 1903 until 1979 a strip of land 10 miles (16 km) wide lying on either side of the canal, the Canal Zone, was…

… of 1846 had granted the United States a right-of-way through the isthmus and thus the right to intervene to protect the line and free transit across the continent. Political turmoil raged while construction was under way. Panama inaugurated and discarded 20 governors (also called presidents), while New Granada (now Colombia)…

Throughout the years of Panama’s independent existence, treaty relations with the United States have been subjected to several major changes. By the protocol of 1936, the United States yielded its right to seize additional land for its administration or defense of the canal.…

…a large flotilla of the U.S. Navy appeared to force a solution to a complex diplomatic issue, but British war vessels captured and held for a time the flagship of the small Paraguayan navy. In most of those contretemps, López was forced to give in, and the consequent humiliation lent…

…provided initially mainly by the United States and, on a bilateral basis, frequently through contracts with U.S. business and educational organizations. Eventually several new national and international organizations were created to contribute to various aspects of development—such as the International Finance Corporation (1956) for investing equity capital in private enterprises…

…radically in 1917 when the United States entered the war and two revolutions shook Russia. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, to whom the great Polish patriot and pianist Ignacy Paderewski had gained access through Colonel Edward M. House, already spoke of a united and autonomous Poland in a

…1990s Qatar agreed to permit U.S. military forces to place equipment in several sites throughout the country and granted them use of Qatari airstrips during U.S. operations in Afghanistan in 2001. These agreements were formalized in late 2002, and Qatar became the headquarters for American and allied military operations in…

…without vigorous intervention by the American and British governments. These indeed protested the communists’ tactics, but, when they officially recognized the Groza government in February 1946 in return for the promise of early elections, they gave up any remaining leverage they might have had. The communists postponed the elections because…

…the West, particularly with the United States. The initial honeymoon period in U.S.-Russian relations ended abruptly, as it became increasingly clear that some geopolitical goals of each country were incompatible. Russia opposed the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Although Russia eventually accepted the inevitability of NATO…

…in World War II, the United States took control of the islands. The military government was replaced in 1951 by a civil administration based in Naha (on Okinawa), the islands’ largest city. The chief executive, who originally was appointed by the U.S. high commissioner, was elected by the legislature in…

Since World War II the United States had become the most influential foreign power in Saudi Arabia. American interest was directed toward the oil industry, which was owned by U.S. companies. In 1960 Saudi Arabia helped found the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The Saudis favoured the United…

…them was the presence of U.S. troops and those of other non-Muslim countries on Saudi soil, a presence that—given the proximity of the two holy cities—they deemed not only an affront to their religion but a situation designed only to protect the regime. In November 1995 an explosion rocked the…

…the West, especially with the United States. In 2001 relations between the two countries grew strained over Saudi claims that the U.S. government was not evenhanded in its approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The situation worsened later in the year, following the September 11 attacks against the United States and…

Since the United States and the West provided military support to Ethiopia and Kenya, Somalia turned to the Soviet Union for military aid. Nevertheless, the republic maintained a generally neutral but pro-Western stance, and, indeed, a new government formed in June 1967 under the premiership of Maxamed…

>United States-led military operation in 1992–93 mounted as part of a wider international humanitarian and peacekeeping effort in Somalia that began in the summer of 1992 and ended in the spring of 1995. The intervention culminated in the so-called Battle of Mogadishu on

…he signed an agreement with U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan for their two countries to destroy all existing stocks of intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missiles. In 1988–89 he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after their nine-year occupation of that country.

The United States was the main holdout, refusing recognition on the grounds that the communist regime routinely violated accepted norms of international behaviour. Absence of diplomatic relations, however, did not prevent Americans from carrying on business with Soviet Russia. On a different level, Moscow strove to…

Relations with the United States were strained after the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam in early 1965 but later improved. The United States, the U.S.S.R., and the United Kingdom signed the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibited putting nuclear weapons in orbit, in January 1967. The Arab-Israeli War again…

…and destroyed France as an American power. Spain lost the territory between Florida and the Mississippi, in return gaining Louisiana from France. Spain also had to recognize Portuguese advances in the Río de la Plata (the fort of Sacramento) and the British right to cut mahogany in Central America. The…

…of the Cold War, the United States would come to consider Spain a valuable ally against the Soviet Union and that France and Britain, though declaring support for the democratic opposition, would not intervene directly to overthrow him at the cost of renewed civil war. Hence, the hopes of the…

…by the entry of the United States into the war in 1917. Hammarskjöld was forced to resign; he was followed by a Conservative government and shortly afterward by a Liberal one, both of which conducted a more-diplomatic trading policy with the Allies. In May 1918 an agreement was reached with…

The United States and the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions that included travel bans and asset freezes targeted against Assad and more than a dozen senior Syrian officials thought to be directing the government’s actions against the protesters. In addition, an arms embargo was applied to…

…evident that majorities in the United States and in the United Kingdom were opposed to military action. A motion in the British Parliament to authorize strikes in Syria failed on August 29, and a similar vote in the U.S. Congress was postponed. Meanwhile, diplomacy took center stage, resulting in an…

…evident that majorities in the United States and the United Kingdom were opposed to military action. A motion in the British Parliament to authorize strikes in Syria failed on August 29, and a similar vote in the U.S. Congress was postponed on September 10. Meanwhile, diplomacy took center stage, resulting…

…particular, with France and the United States. There were, nonetheless, some early crises, including a French bombing raid on the Tunisian village of Sakiet Sidi Youssef (Sāqiyat Sīdī Yūsuf) in 1958, during which France claimed the right to pursue Algerian rebels across the border; the Bizerte incident of 1961, concerning…

…Turkey to seek and receive U.S. assistance; U.S. military aid began in 1947 (providing the basis for a large and continuing flow of military aid), and economic assistance began in 1948.

…particularly the friendship of the United States. Turkey sent troops to fight in the Korean War and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; 1952) and the Central Treaty Organization (1955). This Western-oriented policy derived from Turkey’s fear of its enormous northern neighbor, the Soviet Union, from its dependence on…

…largely be traced to the Anglo-U.S. rivalry in the fur trade. British traders and soldiers had supplied Native Americans and afforded them moral support in their contest with the advancing U.S. frontier. Britain had surrendered the western posts by the Jay Treaty of 1794, but the cause of the Canadian…

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union took the lead in designing the new organization and determining its decision-making structure and functions. Initially, the “Big Three” states and their respective leaders (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin) were

President Crespo appealed to the United States, and in 1895 U.S. president Grover Cleveland pressured Britain to arbitrate. An international tribunal handed down a decision in 1899 that failed to satisfy Venezuela’s demands.

He also alienated the United States and other countries in the West by forging close ties with Iraq, Iran, and Libya, as well as by openly criticizing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks of 2001. By early 2002 his approval rating had fallen to 30…

…Maduro, while others, including the United States, expressed serious concerns about the credibility of the electoral process and called for the release of full electoral data and respect for civil liberties.

…months of buildup between the U.S. and Venezuela. Tensions rose sharply in late 2025 after the U.S. military carried out a series of lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which U.S. officials said targeted vessels involved in drug trafficking. Many of these strikes were carried out along…

The United States, fearful of the spread of communism in Asia, sent large amounts of aid to the French. The French, however, were shaken by the fall of their garrison at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 and agreed to negotiate an end to the war…

…imposed on Vietnam by the United States and most other Western countries. Only the Soviet Union and its allies in eastern Europe stood by Vietnam.

…and in the 1860s the United States began negotiations to purchase the islands from Denmark. The sale was made in 1917 for $25 million. The islands were administered by the U.S. Navy until 1931, when they were transferred to the Department of the Interior; civilian governors appointed by the president…

U.S. interest in the islands began in the Civil War period, but the U.S. Senate refused in 1870 to approve the purchase of St. Thomas and St. John for $7.5 million. The United States moved decisively only in World War I, when it was seen…

…in Wales), and in the United States (in industrial areas of the Northeast and Midwest and in the agricultural areas of California). The remittances of these emigrants played an important role in the balance of payments, in radically increasing the income of most Yemenis, and in funding many local development…

…with many countries—but especially the United States—changed dramatically with al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In fact, the change in relations with the United States was anticipated in the reactions by both countries to the suicide

…the most important were the Americans. They were the first Westerners to conclude a trade agreement with Saʿīd (1833) and the first also to establish a consul at Zanzibar (1837). (Their prime achievement was to capture the cloth trade to East Africa—so that cheap cotton cloth thenceforth came to be…

…resistance, the governments of the United States and Canada disenfranchised most Northern American peoples of their land and sovereignty. Most Indigenous individuals were legally prohibited from leaving their home reservation (in the United States) or reserve (in Canada) without specific permission; having thus confined Native peoples, the two countries set…

between England and the new United States included the English cession of the lands south of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes and as far west as the Mississippi River. The Indigenous nations were not consulted regarding this cession, which placed those Haudenosaunee who had been allied with…

The first full declaration of U.S. policy toward the country’s Indigenous peoples was embodied in the third of the Northwest Ordinances (1787):

In 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted the United States all of Mexico’s territories north of the Rio Grande (see Mexican-American War); in the same year, gold was discovered in California.

of Canada and the United States.

…over the region for the United States. From then until the end of the war with Mexico (1846–48), Carson alternated fighting and guiding with dispatch-bearing to Washington, where his reputation for bravery, loyalty, and devotion to duty won for him many friends in high office.

In 1878 the United States signed a treaty for the establishment of a naval station in Pago Pago Harbor. An 1899 agreement between colonial powers divided Samoa into spheres of influence: Germany gained control of the western islands, and the United States took the eastern islands. Formal cession…

Guam was ceded to the United States, and Spain sold the other islands of the Marianas to Germany in 1899. From that time until 1950 (except for the period of its occupation by the Japanese during World War II) the governor of the island was a naval officer appointed by…

) Although claimed by the United States under the Guano Act of 1856, the atoll was incorporated into the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony by Great Britain in 1919. Kiritimati played a role during World War II for Allied forces, who used it as an important refueling station for military…

The U.S. invasion of the Marianas during the war destroyed the Japanese-created economy in the islands, and after the war the United States began the task of rebuilding. In 1947 Pres. Harry S. Truman signed an agreement with the United Nations (UN) to administer the Northern…

…strategic area to allow the United States to set up military bases as deemed necessary; consequently, ultimate responsibility for the trust territory rested with the UN Security Council rather than with the UN General Assembly, as was the case with other trust territories.

…Pacific were those of the American ship Carnegie (1928–29), the Danish vessel Dana II (1928–30), the Swedish ship Albatross (1947–48), and the Danish ship Galathea (1950–52). In the late 1950s the Soviet vessel Vityaz carried out detailed soundings of the deep trenches of the western Pacific, and in 1960 the…

…period of administration by the U.S. Navy, Palau became part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under U.S. administration in 1947. A constitution was adopted in 1981 (following two prior referendums), and elections were held in the same year. The country became internally self-governing in 1981.…

…Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States to advise them on economic, social, and health matters affecting the South Pacific island territories they administered. It is the oldest regional organization in the Pacific and is headquartered in Nouméa, New Caledonia. Guam and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands joined…

The founders of the United States were deeply influenced by republicanism, by Locke, and by the optimism of the European Enlightenment. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson all concurred that laws, rather than men, should be the final sanction and that government should be responsible to the governed.…

In the United States, a native and mainly nonviolent tradition of anarchism developed during the 19th century in the writings of Henry David Thoreau, Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Joseph Labadie, and above all Benjamin Tucker. An early advocate of women’s suffrage, religious tolerance, and fair labour legislation,…

The perception of the United States as an inherently liberal country began to change in the wake of the New Deal, the economic relief program undertaken by the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 to help raise the country…

In the United States the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization founded at the end of the Civil War and revived in 1915, displayed some fascist characteristics. One of its offshoots, the Black Legion, had some 60,000 members in the early 1930s and committed numerous acts…

In the United States, individualism became part of the core American ideology by the 19th century, incorporating the influences of New England Puritanism, Jeffersonianism, and the philosophy of natural rights. American individualism was universalist and idealist but acquired a harsher edge as it became infused with elements…

…that form that it influenced American and French nationalism in the following century.

In mid-19th century America, popular sovereignty was a controversial political doctrine according to which the people of federal territories should decide for themselves whether their territories would enter the Union as free or slave states. Its enemies, especially in New England, called it “squatter sovereignty.”

…with the role of the United States in history proved to be a volatile mixture in the hands of Protestant ministers, and for much of that period millennialism fed the fires of nationalism and Manifest Destiny. In a typical utterance, a leading Presbyterian minister of the 1840s, Samuel H. Cox,…

…the Supreme Court of the United States asserted successfully in Marbury v. Madison (1803) its right to declare laws unconstitutional through a procedure called judicial review. Although this development did not lead to judicial sovereignty, it seemed to vest the sovereign power in the fundamental document itself, the Constitution. This…

…beyond the boundaries of the United States and have had a pervasive influence on global popular culture.

…Charles Francis Jenkins in the United States to build the world’s first successful televisions. The question of priority depends on one’s definition of television. In 1922 Jenkins sent a still picture by radio waves, but the first true television success, the transmission of a live human face, was achieved by…

…the late 20th century the United States suffered several acts of terrorist violence by Puerto Rican nationalists (such as the FALN), antiabortion groups, and foreign-based organizations. The 1990s witnessed some of the deadliest attacks on American soil, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in…

…the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. It was one leg of the triangular trade route that took goods (such as knives, guns, ammunition, cotton cloth, tools, and brass dishes) from Europe to Africa, Africans to work as slaves in the Americas and…

…nations, notably France and the United States, whose own naval controls were fitful, objected strongly to British warships stopping, searching, and, if need be, arresting their ships at sea. Furthermore, as long as there was a market for slaves in the Americas (i.e., until all the American countries had abolished…

U.S. colonial history, one of the British Trade and Navigation acts; it was intended to stem the development of colonial manufacturing in competition with home industry by restricting the growth of the American iron industry to the supply of raw metals. To meet British needs,…

…and services passing between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The pact effectively created a free-trade bloc among the three largest countries of North America. NAFTA went into effect in 1994 and remained in force until it was replaced in 2020.

…of principles initiated by the United States in 1899 and 1900 for the protection of equal privileges among countries trading with China and in support of Chinese territorial and administrative integrity. The statement was issued in the form of circular notes dispatched by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay to…

…sale of liquor in the United States (1920–33), fleets of ships carried liquor from Europe and the West Indies to the Atlantic coast, while truckloads were run all along the Canadian frontier. In the second half of the 20th century, such drugs as heroin, cocaine, and cannabis were products for…

…development program established by the United States and 22 Latin American countries in the Charter of Punta del Este (Uruguay) in August 1961. Objectives stated in the charter centred on the maintenance of democratic government and the achievement of economic and social development; specific goals included a sustained growth in…

Norway, South Africa, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Later other nations acceded to the treaty.

>United States), the treaty was enacted on June 23, 1961.

…ratified in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union to limit deployment of missile systems that could theoretically be used to destroy incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched by the other superpower. Negotiations to prohibit ballistic missile defenses were first proposed by the United States in 1966 but…

That same year the United States became an associate member, the name of the organization was changed to CENTO, and its headquarters was moved to Ankara. Following the fall of the shah in 1979, Iran withdrew, and CENTO was dissolved.

…at the initiative of the U.S. government, a diplomatic conference was called in Geneva, and a multinational protocol was negotiated and signed by most states prohibiting the use of poison gas and biological weapons in war. Ironically, the United States did not sign the protocol until 1975, owing to domestic…

…agreement between Canada and the United States to develop and share waterpower and storage facilities on the Columbia River. The treaty called for the United States to build Libby Dam in northern Montana and for Canada to build dams at three locations in British Columbia. Hydroelectric power was to be…

…the turning point of the U.S. War of Independence. Resentful over the loss of its North American empire after the French and Indian War, France welcomed the opportunity to undermine Britain’s position in the New World.

Laos, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, the Viet Minh (i.e., the North Vietnamese), and the State of Vietnam (i.e., the South Vietnamese). The 10 documents—none of which were treaties binding the participants—consisted of 3 military agreements, 6 unilateral declarations, and a Final Declaration of the Geneva…

…between Great Britain and the United States to end the War of 1812 on the general basis of the status quo antebellum (maintaining the prewar conditions). Because the military positions for each side were so well balanced, neither country could obtain desired concessions. No mention was made in the peace…

…and diplomatic privileges for the United States in Japan and constituted the basis for Western economic penetration of Japan. Negotiated by Townsend Harris, first U.S. consul to Japan, it provided for the opening of five ports to U.S. trade, in addition to those opened in 1854 as a result of…

…formal recognition of this, the United States and its western European allies pressed the Soviet Union for commitments on such issues as respect for human rights, expansion of contacts between eastern and western Europe, freedom to travel, and the free flow of information across borders. The Final Act, signed at…

… arms-control accord reached by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987 in which those two nations agreed to eliminate their stocks of intermediate-range and shorter-range (or “medium-range”) land-based missiles (which could carry nuclear warheads). It was the first arms-control treaty to abolish an entire category of weapons systems.…

Beginning in 2006 the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations (UN) imposed sanctions on Iran following additional suspicious activity and its testing of medium- and long-range ballistic missiles.

Concluded by representatives of the United States and Japan at Kanagawa (now part of Yokohama), it marked the end of Japan’s period of seclusion (1639–1854). The treaty was signed as a result of pressure from U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who sailed into Tokyo Bay with a fleet of warships…

…it included representatives of the United States, France, Italy, and Japan. At the end of three months of meetings, general agreement had been secured on the regulation of submarine warfare and a five-year moratorium on the construction of capital ships. The limitation of aircraft carriers, provided for by the Washington…

…by the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 59 other states, under which the three major signatories, which possessed nuclear weapons, agreed not to assist other states in obtaining or producing them. The treaty became effective in March 1970 and was to remain so for a 25-year…

…and counterproposals made by the United States and the Soviet Union, which were the two dominant nuclear powers at the time. During most of 1959, both the United States and the Soviet Union temporarily suspended their testing, but negotiations over the next two years were slowed by renewed Cold War…

At the urging of the United States, the OAS Charter was signed on April 30, 1948, at the conclusion of the Ninth Pan-American Conference, held in Bogotá, Colom. The aims of the organization were to strengthen the peace and security of the Western Hemisphere, to promote the peaceful settlement of…

…was controlled solely by the United States, which built it. In 1979, however, control of the canal passed to the Panama Canal Commission, a joint agency of the United States and the Republic of Panama, and complete control passed to Panama at noon on December 31, 1999. Administration of the…

…meeting of the French, British, U.S., and Italian heads of government and foreign ministers—respectively, Georges Clemenceau and Stephen Pichon; Lloyd George and Arthur James Balfour; Woodrow Wilson (who fell ill at the conference, probably having contracted the flu as the influenza pandemic of 1918–19 raged) and

… on one side and the United States, France, and Spain on the other. Preliminary articles (often called the Preliminary Treaty of Paris) were signed at Paris between Britain and the United States on November 30, 1782. On September 3, 1783, three definitive treaties were signed—between Britain and the United States…

…special economic privileges for the United States that were denied to other countries. The treaty helped establish the groundwork for the Hawaiian islands’ eventual annexation.

30, 1908), accord between the United States and Japan that averted a drift toward possible war by mutually acknowledging certain international policies and spheres of influence in the Pacific. The inflammatory effect of discriminatory legislation against Japanese labourers in California had been ameliorated in 1907 by the Gentlemen’s Agreement. The…

…the United Kingdom, and the United States. The treaty came into force on February 19, 1955. Pakistan withdrew in 1968, and France suspended financial support in 1975. The organization held its final exercise on February 20, 1976, and formally ended on June 30, 1977.

When the German government asked U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson to arrange a general armistice in October 1918, it declared that it accepted the Fourteen Points that he had formulated and presented to the U.S. Congress in January 1918 as the basis for a just peace. However, the Allies demanded “compensation…

…war on Germany, and the United States became an associated (not an Allied) power. Henceforth World War I hinged on whether the U-boats could force Britain to her knees and the German armies overwhelm the sagging Western Front before the men and matériel of the aroused Yankees could arrive in…

…German chancellor Bethmann and the U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, having proclaimed the neutrality of the United States in August 1914, strove for the next two years to maintain it. (See the video.) Early in 1916 he sent his confidant, Colonel Edward M. House, to sound London and Paris about…

…however, now had a Franco-U.S. force of 28 divisions and 600 tanks in the south ready to strike through Metz into northeastern Lorraine. Since Foch’s general offensive had absorbed the Germans’ reserves, this new offensive would fall on their bared left flank and held the promise of outflanking their…

…to the entry of the United States into World War I.

…that it would bring the United States into the war, because it offered a slim hope of quick victory if Triple Entente ships carrying men and supplies could be prevented from reaching France. Ludendorff also mounted a major offensive in April 1918, ignoring Woodrow Wilson’s proposal of Fourteen Points for…

…into an alliance against the United States.

>United States, the Soviet Union, and China (after the war, these countries would become the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council). The total nature of World War II meant that civilian populations not only contributed to the war effort but also became…

…Britain still undefeated and the United States increasingly inimical to Germany, he decided that the conquest of the European part of the Soviet Union must be undertaken in May 1941 in order both to demonstrate Germany’s invincibility to Great Britain and to deter the United States from intervention in Europe…

…with the opposition of the United States to their plans for territorial aggrandizement. When Japanese troops entered northern Indochina in September 1940 (in pursuance of an agreement extorted in August from the Vichy government of France), the United States uttered a protest. Germany and Italy, by contrast, recognized Japan as…

…of Soviet as well as U.S., British, and French delegations. At midnight on May 8, 1945, the war in Europe was officially over.

At that critical juncture, the United States, though still technically a nonbelligerent, assumed a more active role in the Atlantic war. In 1940, through the Destroyers for Bases deal, the United States turned over 50 World War I destroyers to Great Britain, which helped to make good previous naval losses.…

…II in Casablanca, Morocco, between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and their respective military chiefs and aides, who planned future global military strategy for the western Allies. Though invited, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin declined to attend.

…China, the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom formulated proposals for a world organization that became the basis for the United Nations.

…change of mood to the United States. While isolationism was still widespread, the vast majority of Americans were sympathetic to Britain, and Roosevelt did not follow Wilson in asking Americans to be neutral in thought as well as deed. Instead he set out to lead public opinion and gradually expand…

…to declare war on the United States. From this moment on his entire strategy changed. He hoped and tried (like his idol Frederick II the Great) to break what he deemed was the unnatural coalition of his opponents by forcing one or the other of them to make peace. (In…

…the Japanese Combined Fleet, permitted U.S. invasion of the Philippines, and reinforced the Allies’ control of the Pacific.

…with aircraft, in which the United States destroyed Japan’s first-line carrier strength and most of its best trained naval pilots. Together with the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Midway ended the threat of further Japanese invasion in the Pacific.

…to August 14, 1945, the United States produced 300,317 military aircraft. Beginning in early 1942, factories ran 24 hours a day, six to seven days a week. By the end of 1943 the industry labour force had swelled to a high of 2.1 million workers, including tens of thousands of…

…born and educated in the United States. During World War II all persons of Japanese ancestry on the U.S. West Coast were forcibly evacuated from their homes and relocated in inland detention centres as a result of mass hysteria following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941). The…

The Anglo-U.S. invasion of northwest Africa had its origins at the Arcadia Conference in Washington, D.C., in the winter of 1941–42 and at meetings in London the following July. Under pressure from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to open a second front, the Western Allies debated how…

Robert Murphy, the chief U.S. diplomatic representative in North Africa, prepared the way for the landings by discreetly eliciting support from French officers whom he felt were likely to sympathize with the project. He relied particularly on Gen. Charles Mast, commander of the troops in the Algiers sector, and…

…on November 8, 1942, the Americans had achieved surprise too fully, throwing their friends and helpers into confusion. The French whom they had enlisted to their cause were caught unready to aid them effectively, and the landings initially met resistance, albeit less at Algiers than at Oran or Casablanca. On…

…the Soviet Union, and the United States—moved back Poland’s eastern boundary with the Soviet Union to the west, placing it approximately along the Curzon Line. Because this settlement involved a substantial loss of territory for Poland, the Allies also agreed to compensate the reestablished Polish state by moving its western…

…defined hypothetical enemies, Russia, the United States, and France fell into this category. From the geostrategic standpoint, the Army would have the major role in a war against Russia, the Navy in one against the United States. Except for a few occasional revisions, the gist of this war plan remained…

…precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. The strike climaxed a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan.

The chief participants were U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (or Clement Attlee, who became prime minister during the conference), and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.

Differences between U.S. and British strategists about the coordination of the Italian campaign with Operation Overlord (the planned Normandy Invasion) were not resolved and had to be settled at meetings in Moscow, Tehrān, and Cairo later that year. Roosevelt and Churchill met again at Quebec the following…

U.S. and Japanese naval aviators were pacesetters in these developments.

…28–December 1, 1943), meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehrān during World War II. The chief discussion centred on the opening of a “second front”

” Britain and the United States supported a Polish government-in-exile in London, while the Soviets supported a communist-dominated Polish committee of national liberation in Lublin. Neither the Western Allies nor the Soviet Union would change its allegiance, so they could only agree that the Lublin committee would be broadened…