UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
From Philosopedia
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For non-believers outside the United States of America:
- Agnostics http://www.holysmoke.org
- American Atheists http://www.atheists.org
- American Humanist Association http://www.humanist.net
- American Philosophy Association http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/
- Atheist Alliance http://www.atheistalliance.org
- Bertrand Russell Society http://www.lehman.edu/deanhum/philosophy/BRSQ/BRS
- Canadian Humanist Association http://www.hac.humanists.net
- Council for Secular Humanism http://www.secularhumanism.org
- Ethical Culture: http://www.aeu.org
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- Freethought Directory http://www.atheistalliance.org
- Gay and Lesbian Atheists and Humanists: http://www.galah.org/
- Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association: http://www.galha.org
- Hume Society http://www.humesociety.org/
- Institute for Humanist Studies http://humaniststudies.org/
- International Humanist and Ethical Union http://www.iheu.org
- National Secular Society http://www.secularism.org.uk
- Rationalist Press Association http://www.rationalist.org/uk
- Unitarian Universalist Association http://www.uua.org/main.html
- Voltaire Society http://www.whitman.edu/VSA/index.htm
The Treaty of Paris (1783) defined a new nation of almost 900,000 square miles. The Louisiana Purchase 20 years later more than doubled its size. In the 1840s, Texas, Oregon, and the northern half of Mexico accounted for 1.2 million additional square miles. Buying Alaska in 1867 added over half a million more. Other parcels brought the United States to its present size of 3,540,305 square miles. In the modern era only Russia and Canada occupy more of the earth's surface.
Nathaniel Philbrick, reviewing Felipe Fernández-Armesto's Amerigo, the Man Who Gave His Name to America (The New York Times, 12 August 2007), wrote,
- It’s one of the stranger quirks of history and geography. The continent that was supposedly discovered by Christopher Columbus is named for a decidedly second-rate Johnny-come-lately of an explorer named Amerigo Vespucci. Like Columbus, Vespucci was an Italian who sailed on occasion under the flag of Spain. But unlike Columbus, Vespucci was more at home in a counting house than a sailing ship. (Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, normally a booster of all things American, dismissed him as a mere “pickle dealer.”) What Vespucci did have, according to Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s wonderfully idiosyncratic and intelligent new biography of the explorer, was a gift for chicanery and self-promotion, along with an aching need to be remembered. As it turns out, America — this nation of notorious hucksters, dreamers and spin doctors — was named for just the right guy.
