United States

Nation: United States

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Description: The United States of America, commonly referred to as the United States or America, is a republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.

In 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a physical education instructor at the YMCA (known as the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School) in Springfield, Massachusetts, was trying to keep his gym class active during the rainy New England winters. He invented basketball by nailing a peach basket at a 10-foot elevation. Today roughly 450 million people play basketball.

Link: United States