Portal:Pennsylvania

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The coat of arms of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania (/ˌpɛnsɪlˈvniə/ , lit.'Penn's forest country'), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Dutch: Pennsylvanie), is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. Pennsylvania borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio and the Ohio River to its west, Lake Erie and New York to its north, the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east, and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest.

Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 through a royal land grant to William Penn, the son of the state's namesake. Prior to that, between 1638 and 1655, a southeast portion of the state was part of New Sweden, a Swedish Empire colony. Established as a haven for religious and political tolerance, the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania was known for its relatively peaceful relations with native tribes, innovative government system, and religious pluralism. Pennsylvania played a vital and historic role in the American Revolution and the ultimately successful quest for independence from the British Empire, hosting the First and Second Continental Congress leading to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. On December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The bloodiest battle of the American Civil War, at Gettysburg over three days in July 1863, proved the war's turning point, leading to the Union's preservation. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, the state's manufacturing-based economy contributed to the development of much of the nation's early infrastructure, including key bridges, skyscrapers, and military hardware used in U.S.-led victories in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

Pennsylvania's geography is highly diverse. The Appalachian Mountains run through the center of the state; the Allegheny and Pocono mountains span much of Northeastern Pennsylvania; close to 60% of the state is forested. While it has only 140 miles (225 km) of waterfront along Lake Erie and the Delaware River, Pennsylvania has the most navigable rivers of any state in the nation, including the Allegheny, Delaware, Genesee, Ohio, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, and others. (Full article...)

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Union Station is an Amtrak railroad station and mixed-use commercial building in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, United States. It is served by the Lake Shore Limited route, which provides daily passenger service between Chicago and (via two sections east of Albany) New York City or Boston; Erie is the train's only stop in Pennsylvania. The station's ground floor has been redeveloped into commercial spaces, including The Brewerie at Union Station, a brewpub. The building itself is privately owned by the global logistics and freight management company Logistics Plus and serves as its headquarters.

The first railroad station in Erie was established in 1851 but was replaced with the Romanesque Revival-style Union Depot in 1866. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions by competing railroad companies which started not long after the establishment of Erie's first railroads, Union Depot became jointly owned and operated by the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads. To meet the changing needs of the rapidly growing city, planners designed a more modern structure to replace the original depot. The new Art Deco Union Station, dedicated on December 3, 1927, was the first railroad station of that style in the United States. (Full article...)

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West Creek on the outskirts of Benton, looking upstream
West Creek is a tributary of Fishing Creek, in Columbia County and Sullivan County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is 9.1 miles (14.6 km) long and flows through Davidson Township in Sullivan County and Jackson Township, Sugarloaf Township, Benton Township, and Benton in Columbia County. The water temperature of the creek ranges from 0 °C (32 °F) to 25 °C (77 °F). The discharge ranges from nearly zero to ten cubic meters per second (0 to 353 cu ft/s). Rock formations in the watershed include the Trimmers Rock Formation, the Catskill Formation, and the Huntley Mountain Formation. The creek's watershed has an area of 16.6 square miles (43 km2), most of which is agricultural, forested, or urban land. A small number of dams, mills, and schoolhouses were built on West Creek in the 19th and early 20th century. West Creek has the highest level of biodiversity of any stream in the upper Fishing Creek watershed. (Full article...)
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Photuris pennsylvanicus

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Jay Cooke, founder of the bank
Jay Cooke & Company was a U.S. bank that operated from 1861 to 1873. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with branches in New York City and Washington, D.C., the bank helped underwrite the Union Civil War effort. It was the first "wire" brokerage house, pioneering the use of telegraph messages to confirm securities transactions with clients. The bank became overextended in the building of the Northern Pacific Railway and failed, contributing to the Panic of 1873. (Full article...)
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Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, in which capacity he became the first African American to go to space. While assigned to NASA, he remained a USAF officer rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second black person in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez. (Full article...)

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Pennsylvania's largest city Philadelphia
  • Nickname: The Keystone State
  • Capital: Harrisburg
  • Largest city: Philadelphia
  • Total area: 119,283 square kilometers (46,055 square miles)
  • Population (2000 census): 12,281,054
  • Date admitted to the Union: December 12, 1787 (2nd)
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Mountain laurel, Pennsylvania's state flower

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