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In 2003, Musk said his favorite plane he owned was an L-39 Albatros. He uses a private jet owned by Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked company, and acquired a second jet in August 2020. The jet's heavy use of fossil fuels—it flew over 150,000 miles in 2018—has received criticism. His flight usage is tracked on social media through ElonJet. The Twitter iteration of the account was blocked in December 2022.

Musk has repeatedly described himself as "cash poor", and has "professed to have little interest in the material trappings of wealth". In May 2020, he pledged to sell almost all physical possessions. Musk has defended his wealth by saying he is accumulating resources for humanity's outward expansion to space.

Since joining Twitter in 2009, Musk has been an active user and has over 100 million followers . He posts memes, promotes business interests, and comments on contemporary political and cultural issues. Musk's statements have provoked controversy, such as for mocking preferred gender pronouns, and comparing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to Adolf Hitler. "The New York Times" describes his contributions to international relations as "chaotic", and critics of Musk argue that there is a lack of separation between his opinions and his business interests.

Musk has stated that artificial intelligence poses the greatest existential threat to humanity. He has warned of a "Terminator-like" AI apocalypse and suggested that the government should regulate its safe development. In 2015, Musk was a cosignatory, along with Stephen Hawking and hundreds of others, of the Open Letter on Artificial Intelligence, which called for the ban of autonomous weapons. Musk's AI stances have been called alarmist and sensationalist by critics such as computer scientist Yann LeCun and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and led the think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation to award Musk its Annual Luddite Award in 2016.

Musk has described climate change as the greatest threat to humanity after AI, and has advocated for a carbon tax. Musk was a critic of President Donald Trump's stance on climate change, and resigned from two presidential business advisory councils following Trump's 2017 decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.

Musk has long promoted the colonization of Mars and argues that humanity should become a "multiplanetary species". He has suggested the use of nuclear weapons to terraform Mars. He envisioned establishing a direct democracy on Mars, with a system in which more votes would be required to create laws than remove them. Musk has also voiced concerns about human population decline, saying that "Mars has zero human population. We need a lot of people to become a multiplanet civilization." Speaking at "The Wall Street Journals"s CEO Council session in 2021, Musk stated that a declining birth rate, and consequent population decline, is one of the biggest risks to human civilization.

While often described as libertarian, Musk has called himself "politically moderate" and was a registered independent voter when he lived in California. "The New York Times" wrote that Musk "expresses views that don't fit neatly into [the American] binary, left-right political framework". Historically, Musk has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom are in states in which he has a vested interest. Beginning in the late 2010s, Musk's political contributions have shifted to almost entirely supporting Republicans.

Musk voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Musk endorsed candidate Andrew Yang and expressed support for his proposed universal basic income. He also endorsed Kanye West's 2020 presidential campaign. He said he voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In 2022, Musk said that he could "no longer support" the Democrats because they are the "party of division & hate", and wrote a tweet encouraging "independent-minded voters" to vote Republican in the 2022 U.S. elections, which was an outlier among social media executives who typically avoid partisan political advocacy. He also leaned towards supporting Republican Ron DeSantis in the 2024 U.S. presidential election if DeSantis were a candidate.

Musk opposes a "billionaire's tax", and has argued with more left-leaning Democratic politicians such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Elizabeth Warren. He has stated that "hands up, don't shoot" (a rallying cry that arose after the 2014 shooting of an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri) was based in "fiction”, and has raised questions about the Black Lives Matter protests. Musk also promoted a baseless theory relating to the attack of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, which Musk subsequently retracted by deleting his tweet.

Musk has praised China and has been described as having mounted a "charm offensive" to woo the Chinese government and gain access to its markets for Tesla. In 2022, Musk wrote an article for "China Cyberspace", the official publication of Cyberspace Administration of China, which enforces Internet censorship in China. His writing the article was described as conflicting with his advocacy for free speech. Musk later advocated for Taiwan to become a special administrative region of China which drew cross-party criticism from Taiwanese lawmakers. In October 2022, Musk posted a Twitter poll and "peace plan" to resolve the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was reported that Musk allegedly spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to the proposal, which Musk denied.

Musk was criticized for his public comments and conduct related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He spread misinformation about the virus, including promoting a widely discredited paper on the benefits of chloroquine and claiming that COVID-19 death statistics were inflated.

In March 2020, Musk stated, "The coronavirus panic is dumb." In an email to Tesla employees, Musk referred to COVID-19 as a "specific form of the common cold" and predicted that confirmed COVID-19 cases would not exceed 0.1% of the U.S. population. On March 19, 2020, Musk predicted that there would be "probably close to zero new cases in [the U.S.] by end of April". "Politico" labeled this statement one of "the most audacious, confident, and spectacularly incorrect prognostications [of 2020]". Musk also claimed falsely that children "are essentially immune" to COVID-19.

Musk condemned COVID-19 lockdowns and initially refused to close the Tesla Fremont Factory in March 2020, defying the local shelter-in-place order. In May 2020, he reopened the Tesla factory, defying the local stay-at-home order, and warned workers that they would be unpaid, and their unemployment benefits might be jeopardized, if they did not report to work.

In March 2020, Musk promised that Tesla would make ventilators for COVID-19 patients if there were a shortage. After figures like New York City mayor Bill de Blasio responded to Musk's offer, Musk offered to donate ventilators which Tesla would build or buy from a third party. However, Musk ended up buying and donating BiPAP and CPAP machines, which are non-invasive ventilators, rather than the much more expensive and sought-after invasive mechanical ventilator machines.

In September 2020, Musk stated that he would not get the COVID-19 vaccine, because he and his children were "not at risk for COVID". Two months later, Musk contracted COVID-19 and suggested his COVID-19 rapid antigen test results were dubious, after which the phrase "Space Karen" trended on Twitter, in reference to Musk. However, in December 2021, Musk revealed that he and his eligible children had received the vaccine.

Musk said that the U.S. government should not provide subsidies to companies, but impose a carbon tax to discourage poor behavior. The free market, in his view, would achieve the best solution, and producing environmentally unfriendly vehicles should have consequences. Tesla has received billions of dollars in subsidies. In addition, Tesla made large sums from government-initiated systems of zero-emissions credits offered in California and at the United States federal level, which facilitated initial consumer adoption of Tesla vehicles, as the tax credits given by governments enabled Tesla's battery electric vehicles to be price-competitive, in comparison with existing lower-priced internal combustion engine vehicles. Notably, Tesla generates some of its revenue from its sales of carbon credits granted to the company, by both the European Union Emissions Trading System and the Chinese national carbon trading scheme.

Musk, a longtime opponent of short-selling, has repeatedly criticized the practice and argued it should be illegal. "Wired" magazine speculated that Musk's opposition to short-selling stems from how short sellers have an incentive to find and promote unfavorable information about his companies. In early 2021, he encouraged the GameStop short squeeze.

In December 2022, Musk sold $3.6 billion of his stock in Tesla, equal to 22 million shares in the company. Musk has sold over $40 billion in shares, freeing his funds to complete his purchase of Twitter earlier in the year.

Musk has promoted cryptocurrencies and supports them over traditional government-issued fiat currencies. Given the influence of Musk's tweets in moving cryptocurrency markets, his statements about cryptocurrencies have been viewed as market manipulation by some, such as economist Nouriel Roubini. Musk's social media praising of Bitcoin and Dogecoin was credited for increasing their prices. Consequently, Tesla's 2021 announcement, against the backdrop of Musk's social media behavior, that it bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, raised questions. Tesla's announcement that it would accept Bitcoin for payment was criticized by environmentalists and investors, due to the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining. A few months later, in response to the criticism, Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla would no longer accept payments in Bitcoin and would not engage in any Bitcoin transactions until the environmental issues are solved.

Despite the Boring Company's involvement in building mass transit infrastructure, Musk has criticized public transport and promoted individualized transport (private vehicles). His comments have been called "elitist" and have sparked widespread criticism from both transportation and urban planning experts, who have pointed out that public transportation in dense urban areas is more economical, more energy efficient, and requires much less space than private cars.

From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in California, where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded. In 2020, he moved to Texas, saying that California had become "complacent" about its economic success. While hosting "Saturday Night Live" in May 2021, Musk said that he has Asperger syndrome.

Musk met his first wife, Canadian Justine Wilson, while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; and they married in 2000. In 2002, their first child died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks. After his death, the couple decided to use IVF to continue their family. They had twins in 2004 followed by triplets in 2006. The couple divorced in 2008 and shared custody of their children. In 2022, one of the twins officially changed her name to reflect her gender identity, and to use Wilson as her last name because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk. In an October 2022 interview with FT.com, Musk blamed the estrangement of his daughter on what the "Financial Times" characterized as "the supposed takeover of elite schools and universities by neo-Marxists."

In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley. They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland. In 2012, the couple divorced, before remarrying the following year. After briefly filing for divorce in 2014, Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016. Musk then dated Amber Heard for several months in 2017; he had reportedly been pursuing her since 2012. Musk was later accused by Johnny Depp of having an affair with Heard while she was still married to Depp. Musk and Heard both denied the affair.

In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating. Grimes gave birth to their son in May 2020. According to Musk and Grimes, his name was ; however, the name would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet, and was then changed to . This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet. The child was eventually named Musk, with "X" as a first name, as a middle name, and "Musk" as surname. In December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (nicknamed "Y"), born via surrogacy. Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with "Time" in December 2021, he said he was single. In March 2022, Grimes said of her relationship with Musk: "I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid." Later that month, Grimes tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again but remained on good terms. In December 2022, Musk claimed that the couple's son had been harassed by a stalker. This led to Musk banning the ElonJet Twitter account as well as journalists that posted stories which according to Musk, equated to Doxing. The police do not believe there is a link.

In July 2022, "Insider" published court documents revealing that Musk had had twins with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, in November 2021. They were born weeks before Musk and Grimes had their second child via surrogate in December. The news "raise[d] questions about workplace ethics", given that Zilis directly reported to Musk. Also in July 2022, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year. Musk denied the report.

In May 2022, "Business Insider" cited an anonymous friend of an unnamed SpaceX contract flight attendant, alleging that Musk engaged in sexual misconduct in 2016. The source claimed that in November 2018, Musk, SpaceX, and the former flight attendant entered into a severance agreement granting the attendant a $250,000 payment in exchange for a promise not to sue over the claims. Musk responded, "If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light". He accused the article from "Business Insider" of being a "politically motivated hit piece". After the release of the "Business Insider" article, Tesla's stock fell by more than 6%, decreasing Musk's net worth by $10 billion. "Barrons" wrote "...some investors considered key-man risk – the danger that a company could be badly hurt by the loss of one individual."

Though Musk's ventures were influential within their own industries in the 2000s, Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He is often described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Celebrated by fans and hated by critics, Musk was described by Vance as having become very polarizing because of his role on Twitter as "part philosopher, part troll".

With Steve Jobs and Donald Trump, Musk served as inspiration for the characterization of Tony Stark in the Marvel film "Iron Man" (2008). Musk had a cameo appearance in the 2010 sequel, "Iron Man 2". Musk has made cameos and appearances in other films such as "Machete Kills" (2013), "Why Him?" (2016), and "" (2019). Television series in which he has appeared include "The Simpsons" ("The Musk Who Fell to Earth", 2015), "The Big Bang Theory" ("The Platonic Permutation", 2015), "South Park" ("Members Only", 2016), "Rick and Morty" ("One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty", 2019), "Young Sheldon" ("A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac®", 2017), and "Saturday Night Live" (2021). He contributed interviews to the documentaries "Racing Extinction" (2015) and the Werner Herzog-directed "Lo and Behold" (2016).

Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University and IEEE Honorary Membership. Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012. He was listed among "Time" magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2010, 2013, 2018, and 2021. Musk was selected as "Time"s "Person of the Year" for 2021. "Time" editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too". In 2022, Musk was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. The United States shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south. It has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 331 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City.

Paleo-Americans migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and advanced cultures began to appear later on. These advanced cultures had almost completely declined by the time Europeans arrived in North America and began to colonize the continent. The United States emerged from the Thirteen British Colonies when disputes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation led to the American Revolution (1765–1791), which established the nation's independence. In the late 18th century, the U.S. began expanding across North America, gradually obtaining new territories, sometimes through war, frequently displacing Native Americans, and admitting new states. By 1848, the United States spanned the continent from east to west. The controversy surrounding the practice of slavery culminated in the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865). With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.

By 1900, the United States had become the world's largest economy, and the Spanish–American War and World War I established the country as a world power. After Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II on the Allied side. The aftermath of the war left the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers. During the Cold War, both countries engaged in a struggle for ideological dominance but avoided direct military conflict. They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Simultaneously, the civil rights movement (1954–1968) led to legislation abolishing state and local Jim Crow laws and other codified racial discrimination against African Americans. The Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the United States as the world's sole superpower. The September 11 attacks in 2001 resulted in the United States launching the war on terror, which included the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and the Iraq War (2003–2011).

The United States is a federal republic with three separate branches of government, including a bicameral legislature. It is a liberal democracy and market economy; it ranks high in international measures of human rights, quality of life, income and wealth, economic competitiveness, and education; and it has low levels of perceived corruption. It has high levels of incarceration and inequality, allows capital punishment, and lacks universal health care. As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been shaped by centuries of immigration.

The United States is a highly developed country, and its economy accounts for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the world's largest by GDP at market exchange rates. By value, the United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter. Although it accounts for just over 4.2% of the world's total population, the U.S. holds over 30% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share held by any country. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, NATO, and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The country makes up more than a third of global military spending and is the foremost military power in the world and a leading political, cultural, and scientific force.

The first known use of the name "America" dates to 1507, when it appeared on a world map produced by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint Dié, Lorraine (now northeastern France). On his map, the name is shown in large letters on what would now be considered South America, honoring Amerigo Vespucci. The Italian explorer was the first to postulate that the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern limit but were part of a previously unknown landmass. In 1538, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator used the name "America" to refer to the entire Western Hemisphere.

The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" dates from a January 2, 1776 letter written by Stephen Moylan to Joseph Reed, George Washington's aide-de-camp. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort. The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in "The Virginia Gazette" newspaper in Williamsburg, on April 6, 1776.

The second draft of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, prepared by John Dickinson and completed no later than June 17, 1776, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the 'United States of America'." The final version of the Articles, sent to the states for ratification in late 1777, stated that "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'." In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence. This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation.

The phrase "United States" was originally plural in American usage. It described a collection of states—e.g., "the United States are..." The singular form became popular after the end of the Civil War and is now standard usage. A citizen of the United States is called an "American". "United States", "American", and "U.S." refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). In English, the word "American" rarely refers to topics or subjects not directly connected with the United States.

It is generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival. The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas. This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts, and Eskimos.

Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. The city-state of Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States. In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloan culture developed from centuries of agricultural experimentation. The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages. Before Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although quite a few supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans and squash (the "Three Sisters"). The Ojibwe cultivated wild rice. The Haudenosaunee of the Iroquois, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established at some point between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.

Estimating the native population of North America during European contact is difficult. Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution estimated a population of 93 thousand in the South Atlantic states and a population of 473 thousand in the Gulf states, but most academics regard this figure as too low. Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting around 1.1 million along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 2.2 million people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5.2 million in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries, and around 700,000 people in the Florida peninsula.

Claims of very early colonization of coastal New England by the Norse are disputed and controversial. The first documented arrival of Europeans in the continental United States is that of Spanish conquistadors such as Juan Ponce de León, who made his first expedition to Florida in 1513. The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sent by France to the New World in 1525, encountered native inhabitants of what is now New York Bay. Even earlier, Christopher Columbus had landed in Puerto Rico on his 1493 voyage, and San Juan was settled by the Spanish a decade later. The Spanish set up the first settlements in Florida and New Mexico, such as Saint Augustine, often considered the nation's oldest city, and Santa Fe. The French established their own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, notably New Orleans and Mobile.

Successful English settlement of the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and with the Pilgrims' colony at Plymouth in 1620. The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Burgesses, was founded in 1619. Harvard College was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 as the first institution of higher education. The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. Many English settlers were dissenting Christians who came seeking religious freedom. In 1784, the Russians were the first Europeans to establish a settlement in Alaska, at Three Saints Bay. The native population of America declined after European arrival for various reasons, primarily from diseases such as smallpox and measles.

In the early days of colonization, many European settlers experienced food shortages, disease, and conflicts with Native Americans, such as in King Philip's War. Native Americans were also often fighting neighboring tribes and European settlers. In many cases, however, the natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts; natives for guns, tools and other European goods. Natives taught many settlers to cultivate corn, beans, and other foodstuffs. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural practices and lifestyles. However, with the increased European colonization of North America, Native Americans were displaced and often killed during conflicts.

European settlers also began trafficking African slaves into Colonial America via the transatlantic slave trade. Because of a lower prevalence of tropical diseases and relatively better treatment, slaves had a much higher life expectancy in North America than in South America, leading to a rapid increase in their numbers. Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery, and several colonies passed acts for or against the practice. However, by the turn of the 18th century, African slaves had supplanted European indentured servants as cash crop labor, especially in the American South.

The Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States of America were administered by the British as overseas dependencies. All nonetheless had local governments with elections open to most free men. With very high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest both in religion and in religious liberty.

During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), known in the U.S. as the French and Indian War, British forces captured Canada from the French. With the creation of the Province of Quebec, Canada's francophone population would remain isolated from the English-speaking colonial dependencies of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the Thirteen Colonies. Excluding the Native Americans who lived there, the Thirteen Colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about a third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their unprecedented success motivated British monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.

The American Revolution separated the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, and was the first successful war of independence by a non-European entity against a European power in modern history. By the 18th century the American Enlightenment and the political philosophies of liberalism were pervasive among leaders. Americans began to develop an ideology of "republicanism", asserting that government rested on the consent of the governed. They demanded their "rights as Englishmen" and "no taxation without representation". The British insisted on administering the colonies through a Parliament that did not have a single representative responsible for any American constituency, and the conflict escalated into war.

In 1774, the First Continental Congress passed the Continental Association, which mandated a colonies-wide boycott of British goods. The American Revolutionary War began the following year, catalyzed by events like the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party that were rooted in colonial disagreement with British governance. The Second Continental Congress, an assembly representing the United Colonies, unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (annually celebrated as Independence Day). In 1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. A celebrated early turn in the war for the Americans was George Washington leading the Americans to cross the frozen Delaware River in a surprise attack the night of December 25–26, 1776. Another victory, in 1777, at the Battle of Saratoga resulted in the capture of a British army, and led to France and Spain joining in the war against them. After the surrender of a second British army at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Britain signed a peace treaty. American sovereignty became internationally recognized, and the new nation took possession of substantial territory east of the Mississippi River, from what is today Canada in the north and Florida in the south.

As it became increasingly apparent that the Confederation was insufficient to govern the new country, nationalists advocated for and led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution to replace it, ratified in state conventions in 1788. Going into force in 1789, this constitution reorganized the government into a federation administered by three equal branches (executive, judicial and legislative), on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances. George Washington, who had led the Continental Army to victory and then willingly relinquished power, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791. Tensions with Britain remained, however, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw.

Although the federal government outlawed American participation in the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the use of slave labor. The Second Great Awakening, especially in the period 1800–1840, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism; in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.

In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand further westward, some of them with a sense of manifest destiny. The 1803 Louisiana Purchase almost doubled the nation's area, Spain ceded Florida and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819, the Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845 during a period of expansionism, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Additionally, the Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that forcibly resettled Indians. This further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets. This prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi River from 1810 to at least 1890. and eventually, conflict with Mexico. Most of these conflicts ended with the cession of Native American territory and their confinement to Indian reservations. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest, and the U.S. spanned the continent. The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 spurred migration to the Pacific coast, which led to the California Genocide and the creation of additional western states. Economic development was spurred by giving vast quantities of land, nearly 10% of the total area of the United States, to white European settlers as part of the Homestead Acts, as well as making land grants to private railroad companies and colleges. Prior to the Civil War, the prohibition or expansion of slavery into these territories exacerbated tensions over the debate around abolitionism.

Irreconcilable sectional conflict regarding the enslavement of Africans and African Americans ultimately led to the American Civil War. With the 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, conventions in eleven slave states declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America, while the federal government (the "Union") maintained that secession was unconstitutional and illegal. On April 12, 1861, the Confederacy initiated military conflict by bombarding Fort Sumter, a federal garrison in Charleston harbor, South Carolina. This would be the spark of the Civil War, which lasted for four years (1861–1865) and became the deadliest military conflict in American history. The war would result in the deaths of approximately 620,000 soldiers from both sides and upwards of 50,000 civilians, almost all of them in the South.

Reconstruction began in earnest following the war. While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, his assassination on April 14, 1865 drove a wedge between North and South again. Republicans in the federal government made it their goal to oversee the rebuilding of the South and to ensure the rights of African Americans. They persisted until the Compromise of 1877, when the Republicans agreed to cease protecting the rights of African Americans in the South in order for Democrats to concede the presidential election of 1876. Southern white Democrats, calling themselves "Redeemers", took control of the South after the end of Reconstruction, beginning the nadir of American race relations. From 1890 to 1910, the Redeemers established so-called Jim Crow laws, disenfranchising most blacks and some impoverished whites throughout the region. Blacks would face racial segregation nationwide, especially in the South. They also occasionally experienced vigilante violence, including lynching.

In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture. National infrastructure, including telegraph and transcontinental railroads, spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade, and increased conflicts with Native Americans. The later inventions of electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life.

Mainland expansion also included the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and formed the Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, following the Spanish–American War. American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan Civil War. The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.

Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie led the nation's progress in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. Banking became a major part of the economy, with J. P. Morgan playing a notable role. The American economy boomed, becoming the world's largest. These dramatic changes were accompanied by growing inequality and social unrest, which prompted the rise of organized labor along with populist, socialist, and anarchist movements. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms including health and safety regulation of consumer goods, the rise of labor unions, and greater antitrust measures to ensure competition among businesses and attention to worker conditions.

The United States remained neutral from the outbreak of World War I in 1914 until 1917 when it joined the war as an "associated power" alongside the Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this and did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations.

Around this time, millions of rural African Americans began a mass migration from the South to northern urban centers; it would continue until about 1970. The last vestiges of the Progressive Era resulted in women's suffrage and alcohol prohibition. In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal. The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.

At first neutral during World War II, the United States in March 1941 began supplying materiel to the Allies. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers, and in the following year, to intern about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans. The U.S. pursued a "Europe first" defense policy, leaving the Philippines, an American colony, isolated and alone to fight Japan's invasion and occupation until the U.S.-led Philippines campaign (1944–1945). During the war, the United States was one of the "Four Powers" who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. The United States emerged relatively unscathed from the war, and with even greater economic and military influence.

The United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods and Yalta conferences, which signed agreements on new international financial institutions and Europe's postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war. The United States and Japan then fought each other in the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945; the Japanese surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.

After World War II, the United States financed and implemented the Marshall Plan to help rebuild western Europe; disbursements paid between 1948 and 1952 would total $13 billion ($115 billion in 2021). Also at this time, geopolitical tensions between the United States and Russia led to the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism. They dominated the military affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies on the other. The U.S. often opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored, sometimes pursuing direct action for regime change against left-wing governments. American troops fought the communist forces in the Korean War of 1950–1953, and the U.S. became increasingly involved in the Vietnam War (1955–1975), introducing combat forces in 1965. Their competition to achieve superior spaceflight capability led to the Space Race, which culminated in the U.S. becoming the first nation to land people on the Moon in 1969. While both countries engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear weapons, they avoided direct military conflict.

At home, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion, urbanization, and a rapid growth of its population and middle class following World War II. Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed the nation's transportation infrastructure in decades to come. In 1959, the United States admitted Alaska and Hawaii to become the 49th and 50th states, formally expanding beyond the contiguous United States.

The growing civil rights movement used nonviolence to confront racism, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader and figurehead. President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated legislation that led to a series of policies addressing poverty and racial inequalities, in what he termed the "Great Society". The launch of a "War on Poverty" expanded entitlements and welfare spending, leading to the creation of the Food Stamp Program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, along with national health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid. A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, made significant improvements. Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew, which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War, the Black Power movement, and the sexual revolution. The women's movement in the U.S. broadened the debate on women's rights and made gender equality a major social goal. The 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City marked the beginning of the fledgling gay rights movement.

The United States supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War; in response, the country faced an oil embargo from OPEC nations, sparking the 1973 oil crisis.

After a surge in female labor participation around the 1970s, by 1985, the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed. The 1970s and early 1980s also saw the onset of stagflation.

The presidency of Richard Nixon saw the American withdrawal from Vietnam but also the Watergate scandal which led to a decline in public trust of government.

After his election in 1980 President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with Neoliberal reforms and initiated the more aggressive rollback strategy towards the Soviet Union. During Reagan's presidency, the federal debt held by the public nearly tripled in nominal terms, from $738 billion to $2.1 trillion. This led to the United States moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War, ensuring a global unipolarity in which the U.S. was unchallenged as the world's dominant superpower.

Fearing the spread of regional international instability from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in August 1991, President George H. W. Bush launched and led the Gulf War against Iraq, expelling Iraqi forces and restoring the Kuwaiti monarchy. Beginning in 1994, the U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), causing trade among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to soar.

Due to the dot-com boom, stable monetary policy, and reduced social welfare spending, the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 people. In response, President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror, which included a nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 and the 2003–2011 Iraq War. Government policy designed to promote affordable housing, widespread failures in corporate and regulatory governance, and historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve led to a housing bubble in 2006. This culminated in the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Great Recession, the nation's largest economic contraction since the Great Depression.

Barack Obama, the first multiracial president with African-American ancestry, was elected in 2008 amid the financial crisis. By the end of his second term, the stock market, median household income and net worth, and the number of persons with jobs were all at record levels, while the unemployment rate was well below the historical average. His signature legislative accomplishment was the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as "Obamacare". It represented the U.S. healthcare system's most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since Medicare in 1965. As a result, the uninsured share of the population was cut in half, while the number of newly insured Americans was estimated to be between 20 and 24 million. After Obama served two terms, Republican Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president in 2016. His election is viewed as one of the biggest political upsets in American history. Trump held office through the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting COVID-19 recession starting in 2020 that exceeded even the Great Recession earlier in the century.

The early 2020s saw the country become more divided, with various social issues sparking debate and protest. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 led to widespread civil unrest in urban centers and a national debate about police brutality and lingering institutional racism. The nationwide increase in the frequency of instances and number of deaths related to mass shootings added to the societal tensions. On January 6, 2021, supporters of the outgoing president, Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt the Electoral College vote count that would confirm Democrat Joe Biden as the 46th president. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, causing another wave of protests across the country and stoking international reactions as well. Despite these divisions, the country has remained unified against Russia after Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with politicians and individuals across the political spectrum supporting arms shipments to Ukraine and many large American corporations pulling out of Russia and Belarus altogether.

The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a combined area of . Of this area, is contiguous land, composing 83.65% of total U.S. land area. About 15% is occupied by Alaska, a state in northwestern North America, with the remainder in Hawaii, a state and archipelago in the central Pacific, and the five populated but unincorporated insular territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, and just ahead of Canada.

The United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and nearly equal to China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted, and how the total size of the United States is measured.

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.

The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges also reaching altitudes higher than . The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the state of California, and only about apart. At an elevation of , Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and in North America. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.

The United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south.

The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida are tropical, as well as its territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley areas in the Midwest and South. Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country in the world.

Extreme weather has become more frequent in the U.S., with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. Of the ten warmest years ever recorded in the 48 contiguous states, eight have occurred since 1998. In the American Southwest, droughts have become more persistent and more severe.

The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and more than 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, and 295 amphibians, and 91,000 insect species.

There are 63 national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas, which are managed by the National Park Service. Altogether, the government owns about 28% of the country's land area, mostly in the western states. Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching, and about .86% is used for military purposes.

Environmental issues include debates on oil and nuclear energy, dealing with air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife, logging and deforestation, and climate change. The most prominent environmental agency is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by presidential order in 1970. The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

As of 2020, the U.S. ranked 24th among nations in the Environmental Performance Index. The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016, and has many other environmental commitments. It withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2020 but rejoined it in 2021.

The United States is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district, five territories and several uninhabited island possessions. It is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." In the American federal system, sovereignty is shared between two levels of government: federal and state. Citizens of the states are also governed by local governments, which are administrative divisions of the states. The territories are administrative divisions of the federal government.

The U.S. Constitution serves as the country's supreme legal document. The Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The Constitution has been amended 27 times; the first ten amendments (Bill of Rights) and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review, and any law can be voided if the courts determine that it violates the Constitution. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was established by the Supreme Court in "Marbury v. Madison" (1803).

The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history. In American political culture, the center-right Republican Party is considered "conservative" and the center-left Democratic Party is considered "liberal". On Transparency International's 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, its public sector position deteriorated from a score of 76 in 2015 to 69 in 2019. In 2021, the U.S. ranked 26th on the Democracy Index, and is described as a "flawed democracy".

The federal government comprises three branches, which are headquartered in Washington, D.C. and regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the Constitution.

The lower house, the House of Representatives, has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population. Each state then draws single-member districts to conform with the census apportionment. The District of Columbia and the five major U.S. territories each have one member of Congress—these members are not allowed to vote.

The upper house, the Senate, has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at large to six-year terms; one-third of Senate seats are up for election every two years. The District of Columbia and the five major U.S. territories do not have senators. The Senate is unique among upper houses in being the most prestigious and powerful portion of the country's bicameral system; political scientists have frequently labeled it the "most powerful upper house" of any government.

The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court, led by the chief justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.

Each of the 50 states holds jurisdiction over a geographic territory, where it shares sovereignty with the federal government. They are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and further divided into municipalities. The District of Columbia is a federal district that contains the capital of the United States, the city of Washington. Each state has the amount presidential electors equal to the number of their representatives plus senators in Congress, and the District of Columbia has three electors. Territories of the United States do not have presidential electors, therefore people there cannot vote for the president.

Citizenship is granted at birth in all states, the District of Columbia, and all major U.S. territories except American Samoa. The United States observes limited tribal sovereignty of the American Indian nations, like states' sovereignty. American Indians are U.S. citizens and tribal lands are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress and the federal courts. Like the states, tribes have some autonomy restrictions. They are prohibited from making war, engaging in their own foreign relations, and printing or issuing independent currency. Indian reservations are usually contained within one state, but there are 12 reservations that cross state boundaries.

The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it had the world's second-largest diplomatic corps in 2019. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and home to the United Nations headquarters. The United States is also a member of the G7, G20, and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host formal diplomatic missions with United States, except Iran, North Korea, and Bhutan. Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close, if unofficial, relations. The United States also regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment.

The United States has a "Special Relationship" with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and several European Union countries (France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with nations in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement. In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau through the Compact of Free Association. Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began an invasion of Ukraine in 2022, significantly deteriorating relations with Russia in the process. The U.S. has also experienced a deterioration of relations with China and grown closer to Taiwan.

The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense, which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of the six service branches, which are made up of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. The United States spent $649 billion on its military in 2019, 36% of global military spending. At 4.7% of GDP, the percentage was the second-highest among all countries, after Saudi Arabia. It also has more than 40% of the world's nuclear weapons, the second-largest after Russia.

In 2019, all six branches of the U.S. Armed Forces reported 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors. Military service in the United States is voluntary, although conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces.

Today, American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's 11 active aircraft carriers, and Marine expeditionary units at sea with the Navy, and Army's XVIII Airborne Corps and 75th Ranger Regiment deployed by Air Force transport aircraft. The Air Force can strike targets across the globe through its fleet of strategic bombers, maintains the air defense across the United States, and provides close air support to Army and Marine Corps ground forces. The Space Force operates the Global Positioning System, operates the Eastern and Western Ranges for all space launches, and operates the United States's Space Surveillance and Missile Warning networks. The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.

There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to federal level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff's offices. The state police provides broader services, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals from the state criminal courts.