United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Capital | Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Government | Federal presidential republic |
| Independence | 4 July 1776 |
| Constitution | 1789 |
| Currency | United States dollar |
The United States of America (USA), commonly the United States, was a federal republic in North America. It declared independence from Britain in 1776, expanded across the continent in the 19th century, and in the 1940s fought the European states in the First Euro-American War. It remained the European Federation's main rival afterwards, and the two powers have been at war since 2022 (see Second World War).
Since 2020 the country has been infested by parasites, and the Knox hive of the 1st Vagrant, which formed in Kentucky in 2022, has spread across most of it. As of 2028 the federal government holds a shrinking area of the interior Midwest and the mountain West, and rival governments claim other parts of the former country.
History
Independence
Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic coast declared independence on 4 July 1776, and won it in the American Revolutionary War, which ended in 1783. The Constitution came into force in 1789, and George Washington became the first president. The federal capital moved to Washington, D.C., in 1800.
Expansion and civil war
During the 19th century the United States expanded westwards to the Pacific through purchase, treaty and war, including the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848. Eleven southern states seceded over slavery in 1860 and 1861, and were defeated in the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, after which slavery was abolished.
Early 20th century
The United States took control of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903 and opened the Panama Canal in 1914 (see Panama Question). It entered the First World War in 1917.
The Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash of 1929, brought mass unemployment and the collapse of much of the banking system. By 1932 industrial production had fallen by about 45% and about 24% of the workforce was unemployed.
Columbia League
At the Democratic convention of July 1932 the leading candidate failed to win the required two-thirds of the delegates, and on the seventh ballot the convention nominated a compromise candidate, the Cleveland lawyer Lyman Teague, who won the presidential election that November. About 5,300 banks failed in 1933, the Supreme Court struck down the administration's relief acts in 1935, and unemployment was still about 20% in 1936.
The Columbia League was founded at a veterans' rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 11 November 1932 by Wesley Pruitt, a state senator, and grew to 4.2 million members by 1936. In the presidential election of 1936 no candidate won a majority of the electoral college: Pruitt won 248 votes, Teague 156 and the Republican Alfred Severance 127. On 6 January 1937 the House of Representatives elected Pruitt president, carrying 27 of the 48 state delegations, and the Senate chose his running mate, the Pennsylvania congressman Everett Crane, as vice president. The National Emergency Act of 21 April 1937 let the president govern by executive order for the duration of a national emergency, suspended habeas corpus in districts of insurrection, federalised the National Guard and created the National Security Bureau; the period of government under it, until 1979, is known in the United States as the Emergency. The government kept the forms of the Constitution, with Congress, the courts and elections, and was a one-party state in practice.
In 1938 the United States invaded Mexico after the expropriation of American oil companies, took Mexico City on 19 August and governed Mexico as a protectorate until 1981. It supported the Nationalists in the Spanish civil war, and the Spanish State proclaimed in 1939 granted it naval bases and airfields. Under the Removal Act of 1938 about 1.9 million people, most of them of Mexican descent, were deported between 1938 and 1946, and about 140,000 people died in the forced-labour camps of the Labor Reserves.
First Euro-American War
On 2 April 1940 the United States attacked Canada and the European colonies in the Caribbean, beginning the First Euro-American War. It took western Canada, the Caribbean and Newfoundland, won command of the Atlantic in 1941, and invaded western Europe from Spain in 1942. American forces took several western European capitals and were held in 1943 on the outskirts of Prague, where in 1942 the European states had federated into the European Federation. European submarines cut the American supply lines across the Atlantic in 1944, and by the end of 1946 the American armies had withdrawn from France to Spain and Portugal. On 11 September 1946 a Federation bomber dropped a nuclear weapon on Norfolk, Virginia, killing about 100,000 people; 11 September is observed in the United States as Norfolk Day. Pruitt died on 2 November 1946 and Crane succeeded him. The war ended on 4 March 1947 with a cessation of hostilities and without a peace treaty, and the rivalry between the two powers continued as a cold war. About 3.3 million American servicemen died. The United States tested its first nuclear weapon in October 1949. In American schools the war is called the Atlantic War, and taught as a victory.
Kaltkrieg
The four western Canadian provinces taken in 1940 were admitted as states in 1959, with Alaska and Hawaii, bringing the Union to 54 states. Under Dale Mercer, president from 1958 to 1971, the United States built the interstate highway system and its space programme, and its Project Lodestar landed the first people on the Moon in 1968.
The fascist government lost its hold over the following decades. The governors and industrialists of the League refused the security services' candidate in 1972, and the president elected that year, Glenn Mathers, ended the Emergency with the Restoration Amendments of 12 October 1979. The League renamed itself the National Party and held the presidency for most of the following forty years; contested elections were held from 1980, and the election of 1996 was the first that the Federation's observers called free. Mexico's sovereignty was restored in 1981. By the early 21st century the United States was no longer a fascist state, although for much of the cold war it was regarded as one in the Federation. Paul Garrity of the National Party was elected president in 2020.
Arrival of the Iris
When the Iris arrived in 2020, the United States and the European Federation cooperated for about six weeks, after which their earlier disputes resumed.
Second World War
In early 2022, during the Second Canadian Summit, a European delegate opened fire on the American delegation, and the Federation declared war within hours. Nuclear weapons were used shortly afterwards. Each side says the other used them first. The war has been fought at low intensity, mostly in Canada, while both powers also fought the parasites. The United States has also put down resistance in the Panama Canal Zone by force; the Federation describes its own position there as the liberation of the Panamanians.
Knox hive
The 1st Vagrant formed in Knox County, Kentucky, in 2022. Federation bombing of American infrastructure around the county allowed his genome, the Knox hive, to spread beyond it. The 1st Vagrant later used the hive's Dispatchers to cause a sustained communications blackout across American-held North America, and a Federation offensive at the blackout's peak advanced further into American-held territory than any before it. As of 2028 the Knox hive holds most of North America.
Fragmentation
The coasts, the South and most of the East were lost over the course of the infestation, most of them in 2027. The federal government kept authority over a set of connected territories in the interior Midwest and the mountain West, and moved from Washington to Omaha, Nebraska, in March 2027; Washington was evacuated that August. By the end of 2026 four separate governments claimed authority in parts of the former country, none recognising the others:
- the federal government, under President Paul Garrity;
- the Pacific Council at Sacramento, from March 2026, in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia;
- the Provisional Government of the Southern States at Austin, from August 2026, in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas;
- the Atlantic Commonwealth at Albany, from November 2026, in New York and New England, which held the front against the Federation in Canada.
Each continues to fight the parasites and the others.
Government
As of 2028 the federal government, at Omaha, continues to claim the authority of the United States, and holds the territory around the interior Midwest and the mountain West. Its president is Paul Garrity, re-elected in 2024.