The United States is an international center of culture. Its major cities (like New York. Bos­ton. Washington. Chicago. San Francisco, and Los Angeles) regularly host many concerts, art exhibitions, lectures, and theatrical perfor­mances. And on a smaller scale, the same is true of smaller cities. Some of the world’s greatest museums, orchestras, theaters, and concert […]

Office workers eat lunch outside in Midtown.   Many of New York’s offices and jobs are in Midtown. So are many of its famous skyscrap­ers. New York’s first skyscraper was the Flat­iron Building, built in 1902. Twenty stories high, it towered over the other buildings of its time. The first building boom for skyscrapers came […]

Okefenokee is an Indian word for "land of trembling earth." The Okefenokee Swamp is in Florida and Georgia. It has islands made of peat—decayed plant matter. When stepped on, these islands seem to tremble underfoot. Over the years, the dark, mysterious swamp provided an ideal hiding place for all sorts of people—for Indians fighting back […]

A university professor in the Southwest tells of a student who went on a one-day trip to the Grand Canyon. She didn’t return until a week later. When asked what had happened, she answered that the Grand Canyon was so amazing that she had needed three days just to get used to it. The Grand […]

Alaska is different, and Alaskans know it. They refer to the other states as "Outside" or the "Lower 48."[5] Alaska is big. It is twice the size of Texas, the next-largest state, and almost one-fourth the size of the Lower 48. Alaska spans four time zones. Alaska’s location, of course, also makes it different. One-third […]