50 Fun Facts About United States

How many states are in the United States?

The United States has 50 states; the 50th star was added to the flag on July 4, 1960, the year after the last admission.

What is the capital of the United States?

Washington, D.C. became the seat of the federal government in 1800 under the 1790 Residence Act; it is a federal district and not part of any state.

Which river is the longest in the United States?

The Missouri flows 2,341 miles from Montana's Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi north of St. Louis; channelization has shortened it by almost 200 miles from pre-development times.

What is the largest state in the US by area?

Alaska covers 663,268 square miles, more than twice the area of Texas and larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined.

Which phrase did Congress adopt as the official US national motto in 1956, later printed on paper currency?

In God We Trust, first struck on the two-cent coin in 1864, became the official national motto in 1956 and first appeared on paper money on 1957 one-dollar silver certificates.

Who was the first President of the United States?

George Washington served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797. He is often called the "Father of His Country."

In what year did the United States declare independence from Great Britain?

In 1776 Congress voted for independence on July 2 and adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4; most delegates signed the engrossed copy on August 2.

What mountain is the tallest in the United States?

Denali in Alaska rises 20,310 feet, the highest summit in the United States and all of North America; Mount Whitney, the tallest in the lower 48, is 14,505 feet.

How many stripes are on the US flag?

13 stripes, 7 red and 6 white, for the original 13 colonies that declared independence from Britain.

Which US national park was the first to be established?

Yellowstone, widely understood to be the first national park in the world; annual visits grew from 300 in 1872 to 5,000 by 1883 once a rail link opened.

Which amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery?

The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States. It was the first of the Reconstruction Amendments.

What faces are carved into Mount Rushmore?

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (Theodore); Borglum carved them between 1927 and 1941, and the idea came from state historian Doane Robinson.

Which state was the last to join the United States?

Hawaii; it had been annexed as a US territory in 1898, five years after American and European businessmen overthrew its monarchy.

How many justices serve on the US Supreme Court?

The US Supreme Court has nine justices: one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. This number has been set at nine since 1869.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from which country?

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, dedicated on October 28, 1886. It was designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi with a metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel.

How many days did William Henry Harrison serve as president before dying in office in 1841?

Harrison served 31 days, from his March 4, 1841 inauguration to his death on April 4; it set off a debate over whether Vice President John Tyler became president or merely acting president.

What is the smallest US state by area?

Rhode Island is the smallest state at about 1,545 square miles; its official name was 'State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations' until voters shortened it in 2020.

Which war was fought between the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865?

The Civil War began when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and ended in 1865 with Union victory and the freeing of about four million enslaved people.

What is the most populous state in the United States?

California is the most populous state, with about 39.5 million residents in the 2020 census, well ahead of Texas at about 29 million.

'We the People' are the opening words of which part of the US Constitution?

The Preamble; courts have generally held that this brief statement of the document's purposes and guiding principles grants no powers of its own.

Which US territory is the largest by population?

Puerto Rico, with about 3.3 million residents in the 2020 census, holds over 90 percent of the combined population of all US territories and sends a non-voting resident commissioner to Congress.

How many electoral votes must a candidate win to become US president?

A candidate needs 270, a majority of the 538 electors; the total has been 538 since 1964, the first election in which the 23rd Amendment's three District of Columbia votes counted.

What is the national bird of the United States?

The bald eagle has appeared on the Great Seal since 1782, but Congress only made it the official national bird in December 2024; its on-screen cry is usually a dubbed red-tailed hawk.

The Grand Canyon is located in which US state?

The Grand Canyon is located in Arizona. It is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and over a mile deep. It was carved by the Colorado River over millions of years.

Which was the first US state to allow women to vote?

Territorial governor John Allen Campbell signed the law on December 10, 1869, and Wyoming kept women's suffrage when it became a state in 1890.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech in 1963 from the steps of which landmark?

King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, to more than 250,000 March on Washington participants; an inscription carved into the step marks where he stood.

Which amendment gives US citizens the right to bear arms?

It was ratified on December 15, 1791, together with nine other articles that make up the Bill of Rights.

Which of the Great Lakes is the largest by surface area?

Superior covers about 31,700 square miles, the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area.

Which American inventor is credited with inventing the light bulb?

Many inventors built incandescent lamps before him, but their bulbs were too flawed for large-scale commercial use. Edison later teamed up with British rival Joseph Swan to form Ediswan.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles Tennessee and which other state?

The park straddles the Tennessee–North Carolina line along the Appalachian crest; about 14 million visits in 2021 made it the most visited US national park that year.

Which US president bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon's government in 1803?

Thomas Jefferson's administration paid $15 million for some 828,000 square miles, under three cents an acre, borrowing the sum from British and Dutch banks.

Which Pennsylvania delegate mainly wrote the Constitution's opening 'We the People' passage?

Morris drafted it at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia's Independence Hall; the passage is a short statement of purposes rather than a grant of power.

Which state was the first to ratify the US Constitution?

Delaware ratified the Constitution on December 7, 1787, earning it the nickname "The First State." Pennsylvania followed five days later.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States into which war?

World War II; President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it 'a date which will live in infamy'.

Which famous American woman refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955?

Rosa Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955 sparked the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott; nine months earlier 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had been arrested for the same refusal.

Which US state shares a land border with only one other state?

Maine borders just one state, New Hampshire, on its west; the rest of its boundary meets Quebec, New Brunswick, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Which Constitutional amendment granted women the right to vote in the United States?

The 19th Amendment, ratified on August 18, 1920, prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex. It was the result of decades of activism by the women's suffrage movement.

Which US city is known as the "Windy City"?

Chicago has also been called Chi-Town, the Second City, and the City of the Big Shoulders. It is the third-most populous city in the country, with 2.74 million people at the 2020 census.

Which of the three branches of the US federal government does the President head?

The President heads the Executive branch, which is responsible for enforcing laws. The Legislative branch (Congress) makes laws, and the Judicial branch (courts) interprets them.

Which state is home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center?

The Kennedy Space Center sits on Merritt Island, Florida; its Launch Complex 39 sent every Apollo Moon landing mission and all 135 Space Shuttle flights into space.

Before 2025, which US president was the only one to have served two non-consecutive terms?

Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president (1885–1889 and 1893–1897), which is why he got two separate dollar coins in the 2012 Presidential $1 Coin series. Donald Trump became the second in 2025.

In January 2025 the federal government restored which former name to North America's highest peak?

A gold prospector had coined the name in 1896 to back presidential candidate William McKinley, and it was the official federal name from 1917 until 2015.

Which amendment to the US Constitution lowered the voting age from 21 to 18?

The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age to 18. It was largely driven by the argument that if 18-year-olds could be drafted to fight in Vietnam, they should be able to vote.

Which reservoir does the Hoover Dam impound?

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by capacity; the dam stands in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

Which is the only US state with a single-chamber, unicameral legislature?

Nebraska voters approved the change in 1934 and the one-house Legislature first met in 1937; its members are elected without party labels and call themselves senators.

The Mason-Dixon line historically divided which regions of the United States?

North and South; the line took on its symbolic meaning as the boundary between slave and free states during congressional debates over slavery in 1820.

Which US state spent nearly a decade as an independent republic before annexation in 1845?

Texas declared independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836, and was annexed as the 28th state on December 29, 1845; the republic kept legations in Washington, London, and Paris.

Which famous American author wrote "The Great Gatsby"?

F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925; it sold only about 20,000 copies in its first year, yet is now often called the Great American Novel.

What is the driest state in the United States by average annual precipitation?

Nevada averages under 10 inches of precipitation a year, the least of any state, because it lies in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada.

Which sport is considered America's national pastime?

It has held that title since the late 1800s. A baseball craze hit the New York area in the mid-1850s, and local journals were already calling it the national pastime by 1856.