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  • United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (paramilitary organization, Colombia)
    ...units and by the U.S. government. Violence increased over previous levels, and the paramilitary groups, under the leadership of Carlos Castaño, founded a national organization called the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), who emblazoned their group’s initials (AUC) across their battle fatigues but typically wore ski masks to conceal their......
  • United Service Organizations for National Defense, Inc. (United States agency)
    private, nonprofit social-service agency first chartered on Feb. 4, 1941, to provide social, welfare, and recreational services for members of the U.S. armed forces and their families....
  • United Service Organizations, Inc. (United States agency)
    private, nonprofit social-service agency first chartered on Feb. 4, 1941, to provide social, welfare, and recreational services for members of the U.S. armed forces and their families....
  • United Slavs, Society of (Russian revolutionary group)
    ...all non-Russian peoples of the empire except the Poles should “completely fuse their nationality with the nationality of the dominant people.” Another group of Decembrists, however, the Society of United Slavs, believed in a federation of free Slav peoples, including some of those living under Austrian and Turkish rule. In 1845 this idea was put forward in a different form in the....
  • United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Protestant sect)
    member of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, a celibate millenarian group that established communal settlements in the United States in the 18th century. Based on the revelations of Ann Lee and her vision of the heavenly kingdom to come, Shaker teaching emphasized simplicity, celibacy, and work. Shaker communities flourished i...
  • United Society of Christian Endeavor
    interdenominational organization for Protestant youth in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It was founded in 1881 by Francis Edward Clark, who served as president until 1927. Members of the society pledged to try to make some useful contribution to the life of the church. Other churches soon organized Christian Endeavor societies, and the movement grew rapidly in the Unite...
  • United South African Nationalist Party (political party, South Africa)
    one of the leading political parties of the Republic of South Africa from 1934 to 1977, governing from 1934 to 1948....
  • United Southerners, League of (United States history)
    ...to his creed. For the next decade he sought to arouse Southerners to the peril of remaining in the Union. He organized Southern-rights associations and in 1858 assisted in the creation of the League of United Southerners. He delivered hundreds of speeches, trying to draw Southerners of all parties and persuasions into a movement backing his uncompromising proslavery states’ rights......
  • United States
    country of North America, a federal republic of 50 states. Besides the 48 contiguous states that occupy the middle latitudes of the continent, the United States includes the state of Alaska, at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii, in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The coterminous states are bounded on the north by Canada, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, o...
  • United States (ship)
    After World War II Gibbs and Cox continued design work for the U.S. Navy. In 1952 the “United States” was launched. Built for speed, safety, and quick conversion to troop transport in case of war, the vessel incorporated many of Gibbs’s most advanced design concepts and set new speed records in transatlantic passenger service....
  • United States Air Force Academy (academy, Colorado, United States)
    institution of higher education for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Air Force. It was created by act of Congress on April 1, 1954, formally opened on July 11, 1955, at temporary quarters at Lowry Air Force Base, Denver, Colo., and transferred to a permanent site 7 miles (11 km) north of Colorado Springs, Colo., in the latter part of 1958. This academy occupies an 18,000-acre (7...
  • United States Air Force, The (United States military)
    one of the major components of the United States armed forces, with primary responsibility for air warfare, air defense, and the development of military space research. The Air Force also provides air services in coordination with the other military branches....
  • United States Amateur Championship (golf)
    golf tournament conducted annually in the United States from 1895 for male amateur golfers with handicaps of three or less. The field of 150 golfers is determined by 36-hole sectional qualifying rounds. The championship is conducted by the United States Golf Association....
  • United States Army Air Corps (United States military)
    Arnold reported to Washington, D.C., in 1936 as assistant chief of the Army Air Corps. When his superior, General Oscar Westover, was killed in a plane crash in 1938, Arnold succeeded him as chief. Anticipating the coming global conflict, Arnold strongly pressed for increased Air Corps appropriations and aid to the Allies, despite the hostility of isolationists and shortsighted officers in the......
  • United States Army Corps of Engineers (United States military)
    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is both a combatant arm and a technical service. Alone among the arms and services, it engages in civil as well as military activities. During the 20th century its civil works activities have centred upon the planning, construction, and maintenance of improvements to rivers, harbours, and other waterways and upon flood control. The principal military service......
  • United States Army Special Forces (United States military)
    American military forces began to recognize the rising importance of unconventional warfare during the Cold War, though this recognition came only grudgingly to the top command. In the early 1950s U.S. Army Special Forces units—later known as the “Green Berets”—were formed as deep-penetration teams designed to contact and support indigenous guerrilla groups in rising......
  • United States Army, The (United States military)
    major branch of the United States armed forces charged with the preservation of peace and security and the defense of the nation. The army furnishes most of the ground forces in the U.S. military organization....
  • United States Army Topographic command (United States military)
    ...for the mapping of many foreign areas did the U.S. military become involved on a large scale, with the expansion of the Oceanographic Office (Navy), Aeronautical Chart Service (Air Force), and the U.S. Army Topographic command....
  • United States Auto Club (American racing organization)
    In the early decades of the Indianapolis 500, the race was sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA). From 1956 to 1997 the race was under the aegis of the United States Auto Club (USAC). A rival open-wheel racing series known as Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) was formed in 1979. By the mid-1990s CART had successfully replaced USAC as the leading power in IndyCar racing. In......
  • United States, Bank of the (American financial institution)
    central bank chartered in 1791 by the U.S. Congress at the urging of Alexander Hamilton and over the objections of Thomas Jefferson. The extended debate over its constitutionality contributed significantly to the evolution of pro- and antibank factions into the first American political parties—the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, respectively...
  • United States Basketball League (American sports organization)
    central bank chartered in 1791 by the U.S. Congress at the urging of Alexander Hamilton and over the objections of Thomas Jefferson. The extended debate over its constitutionality contributed significantly to the evolution of pro- and antibank factions into the first American political parties—the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, respectively...
  • United States Book Exchange
    ...National Central Library in London to gather unwanted duplicates and to distribute them to the libraries that had suffered losses. It proved to be of incalculable value and was soon followed by the United States Book Exchange; both distributed lists of wants and offers to their member libraries....
  • United States Bowling Congress
    ...National Central Library in London to gather unwanted duplicates and to distribute them to the libraries that had suffered losses. It proved to be of incalculable value and was soon followed by the United States Book Exchange; both distributed lists of wants and offers to their member libraries.......
  • United States Bullion Depository (structure, Fort Knox, Kentucky, United States)
    ...miles (445 square km). Established in 1918 as Camp Knox (named for Major General Henry Knox, first U.S. secretary of war), it became a permanent military post in 1932. For maximum security the U.S. Bullion Depository, a solid square bomb-proof structure with mechanical protective devices, was built there in 1936 to hold the bulk of the nation’s gold reserves. During World War II, the gol...
  • United States Bureau of Education (former bureau, United States)
    ...to Memphis, Tenn., where he received a two-year appointment in 1867 as state superintendent of public instruction. In 1870 President Grant appointed him commissioner of the recently created U.S. Bureau of Education. Under his administration, the bureau grew from an insignificant office in the Department of the Interior to a well-staffed, highly influential repository of educational......
  • United States Bureau of Investigation (United States government agency)
    principal investigative agency of the federal government of the United States. The bureau is responsible for conducting investigations in cases where federal laws may have been violated, unless another agency of the federal government has been specifically delegated that duty by statute or executive fiat. As part of the Department of Justice, the FBI reports the results of its i...
  • United States Catholic Miscellany (American newspaper)
    ...was consecrated in Ireland (Sept. 21, 1820). Seeing that the first need of his diocese was education, he prepared and printed a catechism and a missal for Americans. He founded the United States Catholic Miscellany, the first Roman Catholic newspaper in the United States, which continued publication until 1861. He began two schools: the Philosophical and Classical Seminary......
  • United States Children’s Bureau (United States federal agency)
    U.S. federal agency established in 1912 to oversee and maintain national standards of child welfare....
  • United States Claims Court (United States court)
    court established by act of Congress of October 1, 1982, to handle cases in which the United States or any of its branches, departments, or agencies is a defendant. The court has jurisdiction over money claims against the United States based on the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, executive regulations, or express or implied contract with the government. The court assumed the or...
  • United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (United States survey)
    ...From 1849 to 1867 Peirce served as consulting astronomer to the newly created American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, and in 1852 he began a long association with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Starting as director of longitude determinations, he eventually became superintendent of the survey (1867–74) and oversaw the production of the first geodetic....
  • United States Coast Guard (United States military)
    military service within the U.S. armed forces that is charged with the enforcement of maritime laws. It consists of approximately 35,000 officers and enlisted personnel, in addition to civilians. It is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security; in time of war it functions as part of the U.S. Navy and is under the direction of the president. The USCG was established in 1790 by S...
  • United States Coast Guard Academy (academy, New London, Connecticut, United States)
    institution of higher learning for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Coast Guard, founded by act of Congress in 1876. The academy since 1932 has occupied a 90-acre (36-hectare) site 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of New London, Conn., overlooking the Thames River....
  • United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries (United States commission)
    Through Baird’s efforts Congress established in 1871 the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, which he headed at the request of President Ulysses S. Grant. The commission made many studies on the distribution and behaviour of fishes, and its hatcheries increased the availability of fish for commercial use, introducing foreign species into the United States. His work on fish culture helped...
  • United States Committee on Public Information (United States agency)
    ...he became editor of the Rocky Mountain News in 1911 and began to establish a reputation as a dedicated investigative reporter. In 1917 he was appointed head of the U.S. Committee on Public Information, the government’s propaganda and publicity agency, by President Woodrow Wilson. For the next two years he used modern public-relations techniques to promote th...
  • United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (Catholic organization)
    American Roman Catholic prelate, archbishop of Atlanta, Georgia (from 2005). He also served as bishop of Belleville, Illinois (1994–2005), and was the first African American president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (2001–04)....
  • United States Congress
    the legislature of the United States of America, established under the Constitution of 1789 and separated structurally from the executive and judicial branches of government. It consists of two houses: the Senate, in which each state, regardless of its size, is represented by two senators, and the House of Representatives (see Representatives, ...
  • United States Court of Appeals (United States court)
    any of 13 intermediate appellate courts within the United States federal judicial system, including 12 courts whose jurisdictions are geographically apportioned and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, whose jurisdiction is subject-oriented and nationwide....
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (United States military court)
    court created by the Congress of the United States in 1950 as the highest court for military personnel. It hears appeals of cases originally adjudicated in military tribunals, which are presided over by commissioned officers or military judges....
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (United States court)
    The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, created by an act of Congress in 1982, hears appeals from U.S. district and territorial courts primarily in patent and trademark cases, though it also hears appeals in cases in which the United States or its agencies is a defendant, as in alleged breaches of contract or in tax disputes. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is located in......
  • United States Court of Federal Claims (United States court)
    court established by act of Congress of October 1, 1982, to handle cases in which the United States or any of its branches, departments, or agencies is a defendant. The court has jurisdiction over money claims against the United States based on the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, executive regulations, or express or implied contract with the government. The court assumed the or...
  • United States Customary System (measurement)
    In his first message to Congress in 1790, George Washington drew attention to the need for “uniformity in currency, weights and measures.” Currency was settled in a decimal form, but the vast inertia of the English weights and measures system permeating industry and commerce and involving containers, measures, tools, and machines, as well as popular psychology, prevented the same......
  • United States District Court (United States court)
    in the United States, any of the basic trial-level courts of the federal judicial system. The courts, which exercise both criminal and civil jurisdiction, are based in 94 judicial districts throughout the United States. Each state has at least one judicial district, as do the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and a populous state may have as many as four districts. The numbe...
  • United States Embassy (building, Delhi, India)
    ...buildings outside the United States are El Panamá Hotel, Panama City, Panama (1946), notable for its pioneering use of cantilevered balconies in the construction of a resort hotel; the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi (1954); and the Nuclear Research Center, near Islāmābād, Pak. (1966). The embassy in New Delhi, with its lacy grilles and an inner water garden, fountains,......
  • United States Figure Skating Association (American sports organization)
    In the United States many competitions are held throughout the year for skaters of all levels. These competitions are sanctioned by the USFSA, and the participants and their coaches must be members of that organization. The Ice Skating Institute (ISI) also holds amateur competitions, but, unlike the USFSA, which is the organization for those with interest in Olympic-level or world-level......
  • United States Film Service (film organization, United States)
    Lorentz’ film unit became the United States Film Service in the late 1930s and was expanded to produce motion pictures and shorts for various government agencies. Lorentz directed The Fight for Life (1940), the compelling and starkly realistic story of the struggle of a young doctor against disease and death during pregnancy and childbirth in a city slum....
  • United States Football League (American sports organization)
    ...identified professional football as Americans’ favourite sport. Over the 1970s and ’80s the NFL withstood the challenge of new rival leagues—the World Football League (1974–75) and the United States Football League (1983–85)—and invested in Arena Football (an indoor version of the sport, played in the NFL’s off-season beginning in 1987) and expan...
  • United States Geodynamics Committee (organization, United States)
    ...thicker and appears to have been formed in a much more complex way. Because of its greater thickness, diversity, and complexity, the continental crust is much more difficult to explore. In 1975 the U.S. Geodynamics Committee initiated a research program to explore the continental crust using seismic techniques developed by private industry for the purpose of locating petroleum accumulations in....
  • United States Geological Survey (geological organization, United States)
    Four great western surveys were organized by the U.S. government following the American Civil War: the survey of the 40th parallel led by Clarence King (1867–78), the geologic survey of Nebraska and Wyoming led by Ferdinand Hayden (1867–78), the 100th-meridian survey led by George Wheeler (1872–79), and the expeditions to......
  • United States Golf Association (sports organization, United States)
    ...as championships, but that was questioned because the events were each promoted by a single club and on an invitational basis. It was from the controversy roused by these promotions that the United States Golf Association (USGA) was instituted in 1894. Its aims were to organize the U.S. Amateur and Open championships and to formulate a set of rules for the game. The founding fathers, two......
  • United States government
    ...as championships, but that was questioned because the events were each promoted by a single club and on an invitational basis. It was from the controversy roused by these promotions that the United States Golf Association (USGA) was instituted in 1894. Its aims were to organize the U.S. Amateur and Open championships and to formulate a set of rules for the game. The founding fathers, two.........
  • United States Green Building Council (American organization)
    a certification program devised in 1994 by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC; founded 1993) to encourage sustainable practices design and development by means of tools and criteria for performance measurement. It is “a voluntary, consensus-based, market-driven building rating system based on existing proven technology.” The USGBC has established standards for new construction......
  • United States, history of
    The territory represented by the continental United States had, of course, been discovered, perhaps several times, before the voyages of Columbus. When Columbus came, he found the New World inhabited by peoples who in all likelihood had originally come from the continent of Asia. Probably these first inhabitants had arrived 20,000 to 35,000 years before in a series of migrations from Asia to......
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (museum, Washington, District of Columbia, United States)
    ...art. The collections of the National Gallery of Art are housed in two buildings: an older, classical West Wing designed by John Russell Pope, and a newer, angular East Wing designed by I.M. Pei. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in 1993 just south of the Mall. The National Museum of the American Indian opened on the Mall in 2004; its architecture and landscaping reflect the......
  • United States Housing Authority (United States history)
    ...The Democratic Party retained nominal control of Congress, but conservative Democrats and Republicans voting together defeated many of Roosevelt’s proposals. A few last bills slipped through. The U.S. Housing Authority was created in 1937 to provide low-cost public housing. In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act established a minimum wage and a maximum work week. Otherwise, the president s...
  • United States I-IV (work by Anderson)
    ...Big Science (1982), and Mister Heartbreak (1984) before producing a massive four-part multimedia extravaganza, United States I–IV. It combined music, photography, film, drawings, and animation with text and consisted of 78 segments organized into four sections: Transportation, Politics, Money,......
  • United States Information Agency (United States agency)
    ...flamboyant charges of communist infiltration of U.S. government agencies. Murrow also produced Person to Person (1953–60) and other television programs. He was appointed director of the U.S. Information Agency in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy....
  • United States League (baseball)
    In the spring of 1945, Rickey founded the United States League for black players, whom unwritten law excluded from organized baseball, and he was criticized for encouraging continued segregation in sports. There are no records indicating that the league ever played any games; however, it served as a front that allowed Rickey to quietly scout black ballplayers for one who could lead the......
  • United States Mail Steamship Company (American shipping company)
    ...had been subsidized by mail contracts such as that given to Cunard in 1840. Efforts by Americans to start a steamship line across the Atlantic were not notably successful. One exception was the Collins Line, which in 1847 owned the four finest ships then afloat—the Arctic, Atlantic, Baltic, and Pacific—and in 1851 the Blue Riband (always a metaphorical rank rather than an actual.....
  • United States Marine Corps, The (United States military)
    separate military service within the U.S. Department of the Navy, charged with the provision of marine troops for seizure and defense of advanced bases and with conducting operations on land and in the air incident to naval campaigns. It is also responsible for providing detachments for service aboard certain types of naval vessels, as well as security forces for naval shore ins...
  • United States Merchant Marine Academy (academy, Kings Point, New York, United States)
    institution of higher education that prepares cadets to serve as officers in the United States merchant marine. The U.S. Merchant Marine Corps was established in 1938; the academy, occupying 68 acres (27.5 hectares) at Kings Point on the north shore of Long Island, N.Y., was dedicated on Sept. 30, 1943....
  • United States Military Academy (school, New York, United States)
    institution of higher education for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Army. It was originally founded as a school for the U.S. Corps of Engineers on March 16, 1802, and is one of the oldest service academies in the world. Framed by the Hudson Highlands and poised above the Hudson River, the academy currently occupies about 16,000 acres (6,000 hectares) of Orange county, N.Y., 50 m...
  • United States Motor Corporation (American firm)
    ...Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Oakland—and an assortment of smaller firms. The combine ran into financial trouble in 1910 and was reorganized by a financial syndicate. A similar combination, the United States Motor Corporation, was formed in 1910, collapsed in 1912, and was reorganized as the Maxwell Motor Company. General Motors survived. A new reorganization took place after Durant, with......
  • United States National Arboretum (arboretum, Washington, District of Columbia, United States)
    arboretum in Washington, D.C., operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, occupying 415 acres (168 hectares) on the west bank of the Anacostia River. Among the more than 7,000 kinds of plants are special collections of camellias, hollies, apple trees, and slow-growing conifers. The arboretum was established in 1937....
  • United States National Guard (military organization, United States)
    ...exposed to chemical weapons, and coordinate rescue operations. Cognizant of the growing risk posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the United States in 1998 authorized the creation of 10 National Guard WMD Civil Support Teams (WMD-CST) within its territory; each team was organized, trained, and equipped to handle chemical emergencies in support of local police, firefighters, medical......
  • United States Naval Academy (military academy, Annapolis, Maryland, United States)
    institution of higher education conducted by the U.S. Department of the Navy and located at Annapolis, Md., for the purpose of preparing young men and women to enter the lowest commissioned ranks of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps....
  • United States Naval Observatory (observatory, Washington, District of Columbia, United States)
    in Washington, D.C., an official source, with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; formerly the National Bureau of Standards), for standard time in the United States. The positional measurement of celestial objects for purposes of timekeeping and navigation has been the main work of the observatory since its beginning. In 1833 the fir...
  • United States Naval Research Laboratory (laboratory, Washington, District of Columbia, United States)
    ...Germany. He taught at Michigan State College in East Lansing and at the universities of Wisconsin at Madison and North Dakota at Grand Forks. He was superintendent of the radio division of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory from 1923 until 1945....
  • United States Navy, The (United States military)
    major branch of the United States armed forces charged with the defense of the nation at sea, the seaborne support of the other U.S. military services, and the maintenance of security on the seas wherever the interests of the United States extend....
  • United States of America
    country of North America, a federal republic of 50 states. Besides the 48 contiguous states that occupy the middle latitudes of the continent, the United States includes the state of Alaska, at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii, in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The coterminous states are bounded on the north by Canada, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, o...
  • United States of America Amateur Boxing Federation (sports organization, United States)
    ...the same year. In 1926 the Chicago Tribune started another amateur competition called the Golden Gloves. It grew into a national competition rivaling that of the AAU. The United States of America Amateur Boxing Federation (now USA Boxing), which governs American amateur boxing, was formed after the 1978 passage of a law forbidding the AAU to govern more than one......
  • United States of America, flag of the
    ...
  • United States Open Championship (golf)
    one of the world’s major golf tournaments, open to both amateur and professional golfers (hence the name). It has been held annually since 1895 under supervision of the United States Golf Association. Since 1898 the competition has been 72 holes of stroke play (the player with the lowest total number of strokes is the winner). Regional qualifying tournaments have been hel...
  • United States Open Tennis Championships (tennis)
    international tennis tournament, one of four major annual events in tennis (with the Australian Open, the French Open, and the Wimbledon Championships)....
  • United States Postal Service
    ...the U.S. Congress approved the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, signed into law Aug. 12, 1970. The act transformed the Post Office Department into a government-owned corporation, called the United States Postal Service. Congress no longer retains power to fix postal tariffs (although changes may be vetoed) or to control employees’ salaries, and political patronage has been virtually......
  • United States Presidential Election of 2008 (United States government)
    On November 4, 2008, after a campaign that lasted nearly two years, Americans elected Illinois senator Barack Obama their 44th president. The result was historic, as Obama, a first-term U.S. senator, is set to become, when he is inaugurated January 20, 2009, the country’s first African American president. He also was to become the first sitting U.S. senator to win electio...
  • United States Secret Service (government agency, United States)
    The United States Secret Service was created in 1865 to prevent counterfeiting. Never numbering more than a few dozen agents during the 19th century, the agency operated in the traditions of the previous century. During the 1890s the Secret Service occasionally was called upon to guard the president, a duty that did not become permanent until 1901....
  • United States Signal Intelligence Service (United States military)
    ...the Pacific the Germans had supplied their Japanese ally with an Enigma machine as early as 1937; the modified Japanese version, called “Purple” by the Americans, was duplicated by the U.S. Signal Intelligence Service well before the Pearl Harbor attack. Resultant revelations of Japanese plans led to U.S. naval victories in the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, crushing the......
  • United States Soccer Federation (sports organization, United States)
    ...in some cities with large immigrant populations such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland (Ohio), and St. Louis (Missouri), as well as New York City and Los Angeles after Hispanic migrations. The U.S. Soccer Federation formed in 1913, affiliated with FIFA, and sponsored competitions. Between the world wars, the United States attracted scores of European emigrants who played football for local......
  • United States Steel Corporation (American corporation)
    leading U.S. producer of steel and related products, founded in 1901....
  • United States, Supreme Court of the
    final court of appeal and final expositor of the Constitution of the United States. Within the framework of litigation, the Supreme Court marks the boundaries of authority between state and nation, state and state, and government and citizen. (For a list of justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, see table.)...
  • United States Tariff Act (United States [1930])
    U.S. legislation (June 17, 1930) that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. The act takes its name from its chief sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Willis Hawley of Oregon, chairman of the House Ways...
  • United States Tennis Association (sports organization, United States)
    ...in the United States and frequent doubts about the rules led to the foundation in 1881 of the U.S. National Lawn Tennis Association, later renamed the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association and, in 1975, the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA). Under its auspices, the first official U.S. national championship, played under English rules, was held in 1881 at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island. The......
  • United States Trade Representative, Office of the
    ...in the United States and frequent doubts about the rules led to the foundation in 1881 of the U.S. National Lawn Tennis Association, later renamed the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association and, in 1975, the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA). Under its auspices, the first official U.S. national championship, played under English rules, was held in 1881 at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island. The.........
  • United States Trotting Association (American organization)
    ...the flats. In the quarter century after 1948 attendance nearly tripled; state revenue increased nearly eightfold; purses nearly tenfold; the number of horses starting fourfold; and membership in the United States Trotting Association (founded in 1938 as a merger of other groups after the governance of harness racing had fallen into disarray) nearly quintupled....
  • United States v. Booker (law case)
    ...in tables, where relatively narrow sentence ranges are specified according to the seriousness of the present offense and the length of the defendant’s prior record. However, in United States Booker (2005), the U.S. Supreme Court found that judges could not use facts that had not been proved during the trial in order to enhance a......
  • United States v. American Tobacco Company (law case)
    Promoted to the chief justiceship by President William Howard Taft in 1910, White assumed office early the next year. In Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States and United States v. American Tobacco Company (both 1911) he promulgated the idea that a restraint of trade by a monopolistic business must be “unreasonable” to be illegal under the......
  • United States v. Arredondo (law case)
    ...he gradually moved to a middle ground. He attempted to put his judicial principles in a systematic framework in A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States (1837), but his decisions on the Court were unpredictable. His most important opinion was handed down in the Florida Land Case, United States v. Arredondo (1832),......
  • United States v. Butler (law case)
    A foundation of this expansion of the government’s power to intervene in the economy and society was laid in the doctrine of federal spending power first enunciated in United StatesButler (1936). The outcome of this case was overtly hostile to the expansion of government power, since the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a tax......
  • United States v. Cruikshank (law case)
    ...of U.S. citizens had not been increased by the Fourteenth Amendment and that neither it nor the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) had given Congress extensive power to safeguard civil rights. In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), he stated that, despite its apparently plain language, the Fifteenth Amendment had not conferred a federal right of suffrage on blacks,......
  • United States v. Darby Lumber (law case)
    ...generally held that the states may almost exclusively regulate intrastate commerce, the fact is that Congress does have the power to so regulate in certain situations. For example, in the case of U.S. v. Darby Lumber (1941), although only some of the goods manufactured by Darby were to be shipped through interstate commerce, the Supreme Court held that the Fair Labor Standards......
  • United States v. E. C. Knight Company (law case)
    (1895), legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court first interpreted the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The case began when the E.C. Knight Company gained control of the American Sugar Refining Company. By 1892 American Sugar enjoyed a virtual monopoly of sugar refining in the United States, controlling 98 percent of the industry....
  • United States v. Harris (law case)
    ...six years on the bench he wrote 218 opinions, many of them in patent and equity cases that revealed his rare ability to analyze cogently an intricate record. His two most memorable opinions were in United States v. Harris, which struck down the Ku Klux Klan Act on grounds that the government had no right, under the 14th Amendment, to regulate the activities of individuals, and in....
  • United States v. Holmes (law case)
    ...by the overwhelming pressure of natural forces, must make a choice between evils and engages in conduct that would otherwise be considered criminal. In the oft-cited case of U.S. v. Holmes, in 1842, a longboat containing passengers and members of the crew of a sunken American vessel was cast adrift in the stormy sea. To prevent the boat from being swamped, members of the......
  • United States v. Isaac Williams (law case)
    ...In the 1790s Supreme Court justices also served in the circuit courts, and some of Ellsworth’s most important decisions were given on circuit. His most controversial opinion was United StatesIsaac Williams (1799), which applied in the United States the common-law rule that a citizen may not expatriate himself without the consent of...
  • United States v. Leon (law case)
    The broad provisions of the exclusionary rule came under legal attack, and in U.S. v. Leon (1984) the Supreme Court held that evidence obtained “in good faith” with a search warrant later ruled invalid was admissible. A central argument was the unacceptable social cost of excluding such evidence, a reason subsequently given for creating further exceptions to the rule....
  • United States v. Lovett (law case)
    ...parte Garland to strike down loyalty oaths passed after the American Civil War to disqualify Confederate sympathizers from practicing certain professions. Similarly, in United StatesLovett (1946), the court invalidated as a bill of attainder a section of an appropriation bill forbidding the payment of salaries to named......
  • United States v. Midwest Oil Company (law case)
    ...(1911), which upheld the power of the courts to punish violations of injunctions but set aside the convictions of Samuel Gompers and other labour leaders on procedural grounds, and United StatesMidwest Oil Company (1914), which upheld the president’s right to withhold public oil lands from private entry....
  • United States v. Rabinowitz (law case)
    ...court. In cases involving free-speech claims or alleged subversives, for example, he was particularly supportive of legislative regulatory authority. In an important opinion in United StatesRabinowitz (1950), Minton reversed a lower-court ruling that search warrants must be procured when “practicable,” declaring that the......
  • United States v. Richardson (law case)
    ...Court. Under Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the court signified that it was indeed not willing to abandon the concept completely. Reversing the trial court in the previously mentioned case, United States v. Richardson (1974), Chief Justice Burger, writing for the majority, rejected Richardson’s standing, commenting that Richardson was seeking “to employ a federal co...
  • United States v. Schenck (law case)
    ...or of the press.” But the apparent absoluteness of that prohibition had long been subverted by the ill-conceived, yet all too influential, statement by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in United States v. Schenck (1919):. . . the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not......
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