Sentence:  One can apply these facts to Britain in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as she spread her dominion over palm and pine , and they can be applied again to the <WSD>United</WSD> States in more recent years . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776