Bruger:Nessumsaram/sandkasse

Velkommen til min sandkasse. Hvis du har nogen indvendinger mod, hvad jeg skriver eller planlægger at skrive, så behandles disse under diskussion. Hvis nogen af jer agter at enten nominere, oprette eller forbedre nogen af de respektive artikler, så kan dette også behandles under diskussion. Denne liste vil nok senere få sin helt egen side.

Liste over artikler som skal oprettes, forbedres eller nomineres.

OBS. Artikler som på den ene eller anden måde omhandler eller har tilknytning til USA står under "USA" i de respektive artikelkategorier. Computerspil, film, litteratur og YouYube kanaler er ikke under denne kategori.

Artikler som skal oprettes

USA

• Social Security
• Medicare
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
• Medicaid
• Sal Khan
• Hank Green
• Robert Reich(Økonom)
• Bill Clinton økonomisk politik
• Ronald Reagan økonomisk politik
• Barack Obama økonomisk politik
• Liste over føderale agenturer/etater i USA eller Liste over USA's føderale etater/agenturer- Engelsk artikel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_agencies_in_the_United_States
• Brookings Institution
• American Enteprise Institute
• Cato Institute
• Se desuden dette link for flere tænketanke som med fordel kan skrives artikler om. http://www.thebestschools.org/features/most-influential-think-tanks/

Andet

• Idre Fjäll
• Civilization V
• Civilization V: Brave new world
• Civilization V: Gods and kings
• Civilization VI
• Idre
• Särna
• Crash Course (YouTube)
• SciShow
• Vlog Brothers
• CGP Grey
• Positive Money
• Fuldreservebankvæsen
• Opus caementitium/romersk beton/romersk cement.
• Middelhavskost/Middelhavs Diæt.

Artikle som skal forbedres

USA

• Bernie Sanders
• Sid Meier
• Bill Clinton
• Højesteret (USA)
• John Green (forfatter)
• Amerikanske præsidentvalg 2012
• Amerikanske præsidentvalg 2016
• Paul Krugman
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Environmental Protection Agency
• FBI
• CIA

Forbes

• Heritage Foundation

Andet

• Minecraft
• Markus Persson
• Mojang AB
• Stephen Hawking
• Khan Academy
• Bossen og bumsen
• Strategispil
• Civilization (serie)
• Transparency International
• OECD
• Antarktis
• Cement
• Salinitet
• Facepunch Studios
• Rust (computerspil)
• Paleo

Ting har tilknytning til J. R. R. Tolkien

• Ringenes Herre
• Hobbitten
• Hurins Børn
• Silmarillion
• J. R. R. Tolkien
• Christopher Tolkien
• Ted Nasmith

Artikler om filosoffer

Førsokratikere:

• Thales
• Anaximander
• Anaximenes
• Heraklit
• Xenofanes
• Pythagoras
• Filolaos
• Archytas
• Alcmaeon
• Parmenides
• Zenon
• Melissos
• Empedokles
• Anaxagoras

Resten af antikken

• Aristoteles
• Platon
• Sokrates

Middelalderen

Renæssancen

• René Descartes
• Emmanuel Kant

Oplysningstiden

Moderne tid (1850-1918)

Efterkrigstids filosoffer (1940-nu)

Herunder forbedring af artikler om filosofiske retninger og generelle historiske artikler

Antikken

• Førsokratikerne
• Den Pythagoræiske skole
• Eleatiske filosoffer
• Den Pluralistiske skole
• Eksistentialisme
• Determinisme

Artikler som skal nomineres

OBS denne liste involverer artikler som ikke nødvendigvis er klar til at blive nomineret. Det kan være at et kapitel er mangelfuldt, eller at tegnsætningen er helt uacceptabel. Så denne er mere en liste over artikler som i den nærmeste fremtid vil blive nomineret til lovende artikler. Hvis du vil bidrage til at forbedre artiklerne, så behandles dette under diskussion, eller du kan vælge at skrive til mig direkte på min profils diskussions side.

Lovende artikler

• Det tysk-romerske rige - nomineret
• USA's forfatning
• Hunnerne
• Valkyrie - nomineret
• Romerriget- kræver markant omstrukturering, tilføjelse af kapitler, udvidelse og forsimpling af kapitler, retning af småfejl, omskrivning af sætninger, tegnsætning og flere kilder.
• Osmansske rige
• Romantikken
• Tuberkulose -
• HIV - nomineret
• Oxford - nomineret
• Kongerækken
• Preussen- flere kilder.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Rumæniens historie - nomineret
• Roskilde
• Evolution -

Gode artikler

1. Den industrielle revolution

2. Rhinen

3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

4. Alzheimers sygdom

Fremragende artikler

Må denne liste være en hjælp for andre til at finpudse og oprette artikler, da jeg næppe vil kunne nå at finpudse, oprette og forbedrer alle de artikler lige foreløbig.

Kladder til "Artikler som skal oprettes"

Hjælp [[1]]

Politik

Kriminalitet og retshåndhævelse

Uddybende artikler: Retshåndhævelse i USA og Kriminalitet i USA

Se også: USA's lovgivning, United States Bill of Rights, Menneskerettigheder i USA, Fængsling i USA og Dødsstraf i USA.

Retshåndhævelse i USA opretholdes primært af lokale politiafdelinger.

Retshåndhævelsen i USA udføres først og fremmest af de lokale politi- og sherifafdelinger, imens delstaternes politi (state police) leverer bredere tjenester. Føderale organer som Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) og U.S. Marshals Service tager sig af specialiseret politiarbejde, herunder beskyttelse af borgerrettigheder, national sikkerhed og at håndhæve føderale love og føderale domstoles afgørelser. På føderalt plan og i næsten enhver af staterne fungerer det juridiske system efter common law princippet. Delstatslige domstole tager sig af de fleste straffesager, imens føderale domstole håndterer visse udpegede forbrydelser såvel som visse ankede appeller fra delstaternes straffedomstole.

Antallet af fængslede amerikanere har steget meget voldsomt siden starten af 1980'erne primært pga. en hård kurs overfor voldskriminalitet og Richard Nixon "War on drugs".

I 2015 var der 15.696 mord, hvilket var 1532 mere (10,8% stigning) end i 2014 og dermed den største stigning siden 1971. Mordraten for 2015 var 4,9 per 100,000 mennesker. En tværgående analyse fra 2003 af WHO's dødelighed database viste, at USA's "mordrate var 6,9 gange højere end for andre højindkomst lande, drevet af en skydevåben mordrate, der var 19,5 gange højere"." Rettigheder til våbenejerskab fortsætter med at være genstand for omstridt politisk debat i USA, særligt i den seneste tid med Sandy Hook-massakrenog Charleston-massakren.

Fra 1980 til 2008 udgjorde mænd 77% af drabsofrene og 90% af drabsmændene. Sorte begåede 52,5% af alle drab i løbet af denne tidsperiode, en rate der er næsten otte gange så høj som for hvide, herunder også Hispanics, og blev dømt med en rate, der var seks gange høj som for hvide. De fleste af drabene var indbyrdes i befolkningsgrupperne med 93% af alle sorte ofre dræbt af sorte og 84% af hvide dræbt af hvide.

Dødsstraf er godkendt til bestemte føderale og militære forbrydelser og bruges i 31 af delstaterne. Ingen henrettelser fandt sted fra 1967 til 1977, hvilket til dels skyldes en domsafgørelse ved USA's højesteret, der slog ned på vilkårlig brug af dødsstraf. I 1976 afgjorde USA's højesteret, at dødstraf kan blive forfatningsmæssigt pålagt under hensigtsmæssige omstændigheder. Siden afgørelsen har der været mere end 1300 henrettelser, flertallet af disse fandt sted i tre stater: Texas, Virginia og Oklahoma. Imellemtiden har adskillige stater enten afskaffet eller slået hårdt ned på anvendelsen af dødsstraf love. Landet havde i 2014 det femtehøjeste antal henrettelser i verden, efter Kina, Iran, Saudi-Arabien og Irak.

USA har verdens højeste dokumenterede fængslingsrate og den største befolkning, der sidder i fængsel. I starten i 2008 var mere end 2,3 millioner amerikanere fængslede, mere end en ud af hver 100 voksne. Antallet af indsatte er firedoblet siden 1980, og delstatslige og lokale udgifter til fængsler er steget tre gange så meget som ufgifterne til offentlig uddannelse i den samme periode. Landets høje fængslingsrate skyldes i høj grad ændringer i retningslinjerne for strafudmåling og politikken på narkotikaområdet. Ifølge Federal Bureau of Prisons er flertallet af indsatte i føderale fængsler for narkotikakriminalitet. Lousiana havde i 2008 den højeste fængslingsrate, mens Maine havde den laveste.

Økonomi

Hovedartikel: USA's økonomi.

Se også: USA's økonomiske historie.

Økonomiske indikatorer
Nominelt BNP	$18.45 billioner (Q2 2016)
Realvækst i BNP	1,4% (Q2 2016)
	2,6% (2015)
FPI inflation	1,1% (august 2016)
Beskæftigelsesfrekvens	59,7% (august 2016)
Arbejdsløshed	4,9% (august 2016)
Erhvervsfrekvens	62,8% (august 2016)
Samlet føderal offentlig gæld	$19.808 billioner (25 oktober, 2016)
Samlet husstandsformue	$89.063 billioner (Q2 2016)

Sammensætningen af USA's eksport (2011). USA er verdens andet største eksport land.

USA har en kapitalistisk blandingsøkonomi, der nyder gavn af mange naturressurser i rigelige mængder og en høj produktivitet. Ifølge IMF udgør USA's BNP på $16.8 trillion 24% af verdens samlede økonomi (BVP), opgjort med markeds valutakurser og over 19% af BVP (Bruttoverdenprodukt) opgjort ved købekraftsparitet (KKP).

USA's nominelle BNP er estimeret til $17.528 billioner per 2014. USA's realvækstrate fra 1983 til 2008 lå på 3,3%, sammenlignet med et vægtet gennemsnit på 2,3% for resten af G7. Landet ligger med nominelt BNP per indbygger som nummer ni i verden og som nummer seks med købekraftskorrigeret BNP per indbygger. Den amerikanske dollar er verdens primære reservevaluta.

USA er den største importør af varer og den næststørste eksportør, selvom eksport per indbygger ligger relativt lavt. I 2010 var USA's samlede handelsunderskud på $635 milliarder. Canada, Kina, Mexico, Japan, og Germany er dets største handelspartnere. I 2010 var olie den største importvare kategor, mens transportudstyr var den største importvare kategori.

Den private sektor blev i 2009 estimeret til at udgøre 86,4% af økonomien, mens den føderale stat tegnede sig for 4,3% og delstatslig og lokal aktivitet (heriblandt føderale overførsler) for de resterende 9,3%. Selvom landets økonomi har nået en postindustrielt niveau af udvikling, og det tertiære erhverv udgør 67.8% af BNP, forbliver USA industriel stormagt. Den førende forretningssektor målt på forretningsmæssige kvitteringer brutto er engros- og detailhandel; målt på overskud er det fremstillingsvirksomhed. I franchising forretningsmodellen er McDonald's og Subway de to mest anerkendte mærker i verden. Coca-Cola derimod er verdens mest anerkendte producent af sodavand.

Kemiske produkter dominerer fremstillingserhvervet. USA er verdens største producent og den anden største importør af olie. Landet er verdens største producent af elektricitet og atomenergi, såvel som flydende naturgas, svovl, phosphater og salt. National Mining Association udsender data vedrørede kul og mineraler, der omfatter beryllium, kobber, bly, magnesium, zinc, titanium og andre.

Landbrugssektoren tegner sig kun for knap 1% af BNP, og alligevel er USA verdens største producent af majs og sojabønner. Landet er den primære udvikler og producent af genplejset mad og står for halvdelen af verdens bioteknologiske afgrøder.

Privatforbruget udgjorde i 2015 68% af USA's økonomi. I august 2010 bestod den amerikanske arbejdsstyrke af 154,1 millioner mennesker. Omkring 12% af lønmodtagerne er medlem af en fagforening, sammenlignet med 30% i Vesteuropa. Verdensbanken rangerer USA som nummer et efter, hvor let det er at hyre og fyre arbejdskraft. USA placerer sig samtidig i top tre i Global Competitiveness Report. Landet har en mindre velfærdsstat og omfordeler mindre indkomst gennem statslig indblanding end europæiske lande har tendens til. I 2009 havde USA den tredjehøjeste produktivitet per person i verden, bag Luxembourg and Norge. Landet havde desuden den fjerde højeste timeproduktivitet bag disse to lande og Holland.

USA er den eneste højtudviklede økonomi, der ikke garantere lønmodtagere betalt ferie og et en af de få lande i verden uden betalt barselsorlov som en juridisk rettighed sammen med Papua New Guinea, Suriname og Liberia. Selvom føderal lovgivning på nuværende tidspunkt ikke kræver sygeorlov, er det en almindelig rettighed for offentligt ansatte og fuldtidsansatte på virksomheder.

Indkomst, fattigdom and formue

A tract housing development in San Jose, California.

Uddybende artikler: Husstandsindkomst i USA, Fattigdom i USA, Affluence in the United States, Liste over USA counties på indkomst per indbygger og Indkomstulighed i USA

Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD nations, and in 2007 had the second-highest median household income. According to the Census Bureau, median household income was $53,657 in 2014. Despite accounting for only 4.4% of the global population, Americans collectively possess 41.6% of the world's total wealth, and Americans make up roughly half of the world's population of millionaires. For 2013 the United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 5th among 187 countries in its Human Development Index and 28th in its inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI).

There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s. However, the gap between total compensation and productivity is not as wide because of increased employee benefits such as health insurance. While inflation-adjusted ("real") household income had been increasing almost every year from 1947 to 1999, it has since been flat on balance and has even decreased recently. The rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1 percent, which has more than doubled from 9 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2011, has significantly affected income inequality, leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations. The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.

United States' families median net worth

source: Fed Survey of Consumer Finances

in 2013 dollars	1998	2013	change
All families	$102,500	$81,200	-20.8%
Bottom 20% of incomes	$8,300	$6,100	-26.5%
2nd lowest 20% of incomes	$47,400	$22,400	-52.7%
Middle 20% of incomes	$76,300	$61,700	-19.1%
Top 10%	$646,600	$1,130,700	+74.9%

Wealth, like income and taxes, is highly concentrated; the richest 10% of the adult population possess 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom half claim only 2%. Between June 2007 and November 2008 the global recession led to falling asset prices around the world. Assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value. Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth was down $14 trillion, but has since increased $14 trillion over 2006 levels. At the end of 2014, household debt amounted to $11.8 trillion, down from $13.8 trillion at the end of 2008.

There were about 578,424 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in January 2014, with almost two-thirds staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. In 2011 16.7 million children lived in food-insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels, though only 1.1% of U.S. children, or 845,000, saw reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at some point during the year, and most cases were not chronic. According to a 2014 report by the Census Bureau, one in five young adults lives in poverty today, up from one in seven in 1980.

Kultur

Litteratur, filosofi og kunst

Uddybende artikler: Amerikansk litteratur, Amerikansk filosofi, Arkitektur i USA, USA's billedkunst og Amerikansk klassisk musik

Mark Twain, American author and humorist.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an essential American poet. A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel".

Twelve U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Bob Dylan in 2016. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.

The transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty, and later Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the fore of American philosophical academia. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a revival of political philosophy. Cornel West and Judith Butler have led a continental tradition in American philosophical academia. Chicago school economists like Milton Friedman, James M. Buchanan, and Thomas Sowell have affected various fields in social and political philosophy.

In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new, individualistic styles. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.

Fil:Times Square 1-2.JPG

Times Square in New York City, the hub of the Broadway theater district

One of the first major promoters of American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.

Though little known at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a new synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th-century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography, with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams.

Music

Hovedartikel: Music of the United States.

Fil:Indeterminate Grammy aware.jpg

The Grammy Award is awarded to leading music artists.

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s.

Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities, as have contemporary musical artists such as Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and Beyoncé as well as hip hop artists Jay Z, Eminem and Kanye West. Rock bands such as Metallica, the Eagles, and Aerosmith are among the highest grossing in worldwide sales.

Film

Hovedartikler: USA's filmbranche og Amerikansk musik.

The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, California

Hollywood, a northern district of Los Angeles, California, is one of the leaders in motion picture production. The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, although in the 21st century an increasing number of films are not made there, and film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization.

Director D. W. Griffith, American's top filmmaker during the silent film period, was central to the development of film grammar, and producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. Directors such as John Ford redefined the image of the American Old West and history, and, like others such as John Huston, broadened the possibilities of cinema with location shooting, with great influence on subsequent directors. The industry enjoyed its golden years, in what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s, with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures. In the 1970s, film directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Altman were a vital component in what became known as "New Hollywood" or the "Hollywood Renaissance", grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period. Since, directors such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and James Cameron have gained renown for their blockbuster films, often characterized by high production costs, and in return, high earnings at the box office, with Cameron's Avatar (2009) earning more than $2 billion.

Notable films topping the American Film Institute's AFI 100 list include Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), which is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time, Casablanca (1942), The Godfather (1972), Gone with the Wind (1939), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Graduate (1967), On the Waterfront (1954), Schindler's List (1993), Singin' in the Rain (1952), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Sunset Boulevard (1950). The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929, and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944.

Medierne

Hovedartikel: USA's medier.

The corporate headquarters of the American Broadcasting Company in New York City

The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Fox. The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. Cable television offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercial, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day.

In 1998, the number of U.S. commercial radio stations had grown to 4,793 AM stations and 5,662 FM stations. In addition, there are 1,460 public radio stations. Most of these stations are run by universities and public authorities for educational purposes and are financed by public or private funds, subscriptions and corporate underwriting. Much public-radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR (formerly National Public Radio). NPR was incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967; its television counterpart, PBS, was also created by the same legislation. (NPR and PBS are operated separately from each other.) As of September 30, 2014, there are 15,433 licensed full-power radio stations in the US according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Well-known newspapers are The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families. Major cities often have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily papers, for example, New York City's The Village Voice or Los Angeles' LA Weekly, to name two of the best-known. Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers for local ethnic and social groups. Early versions of the American newspaper comic strip and the American comic book began appearing in the 19th century. In 1938, Superman, the comic book superhero of DC Comics, developed into an American icon. Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yahoo.com, eBay, Amazon and Twitter.

More than 800 publications are produced in Spanish, the second most widely spoken mother tongue behind English.

Videnskab og teknologi

Hovedartikler: Videnskab og teknologi i USA og USA's forsknings- og udviklingspolitik.

Astronaut James Irwin walking on the Moon next to Apollo 15's landing module and lunar rover in 1971. The effort to reach the Moon was triggered by the Space Race.

The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid 20th century. Methods for producing interchangeable parts were developed by the U.S. War Department by the Federal Armories during the first half of the 19th century. This technology, along with the establishment of a machine tool industry, enabled the U.S. to have large scale manufacturing of sewing machines, bicycles and other items in the late 19th century and became known as the American system of manufacturing. Factory electrification in the early 20th century and introduction of the assembly line and other labor saving techniques created the system called mass production.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's research laboratory, one of the first of its kind, developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. The latter lead to emergence of the worldwide entertainment industry. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.

The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and John von Neumann, to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age, while the Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and aeronautics.

The invention of the transistor in the 1950s, a key active component in practically all modern electronics, led to many technological developments and a significant expansion of the U.S. technology industry. This in turn led to the establishment of many new technology companies and regions around the country such as in Silicon Valley in California. Advancements by American microprocessor companies such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Intel along with both computer software and hardware companies that include Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, IBM, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems created and popularized the personal computer. The ARPANET was developed in the 1960s to meet Defense Department requirements, and became the first of a series of networks which evolved into the Internet.

These advancements then lead to greater personalization of technology for individual use. Skabelon:As of, 83.8% of American households owned at least one computer, and 73.3% had high-speed Internet service. 91% of Americans also own a mobile phone Skabelon:As of. The United States ranks highly with regard to freedom of use of the internet.

In the 21st century, approximately two-thirds of research and development funding comes from the private sector. The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.