ABSTRACT
The United States is about half the size of Russia; about three-tenths the size of Africa; about half the size of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly larger than China; more than twice the size of the European Union. Thought to have originally been settled by Asian peoples during the Pleistocene (last ice age) that traveled over the land bridge now represented by the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, the ancient peoples now known as Native Americans or "Indians" thrived for thousands of years in North America. Northeastern coastal portions of North America were temporarily settled by Vikings in the first millennium A.D., but their colonies did not survive. After the Declaration of Independence from England was signed on the 4th of July in 1776, a revolutionary war was fought and won by the colonists who named the new nation the United States of America.
