Jump to content

Portal:Pennsylvania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Portal:Pennsylvania (state))

The Pennsylvania Portal

The coat of arms of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania (/ˌpɛnsɪlˈvniə/ PEN-sil-VAY-nee-ə, lit.'Penn's forest country'), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Dutch: Pennsilfaani), is a U.S. state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It 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 via Lake Erie.

Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 through a royal land grant to William Penn, the son of the state's namesake. Before that, between 1638 and 1655, a southeast portion of the state was part of New Sweden, a Swedish 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 in Philadelphia that formed the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander in 1775, and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence the following year. On December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania was the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. (Full article...)

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia..

Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also an accomplished American football player. Born into a prominent family from the Philadelphia area, he enrolled at Princeton University in 1910. Baker excelled on the university's hockey and football teams, and became a noted amateur hockey player for the St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York City. He was a member of three national championship teams, for football in 1911 and hockey in 1912 and 1914, and helped the St. Nicholas Club win a national amateur championship in 1915. Baker graduated from Princeton in 1914 and worked for J.P. Morgan Bank until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service. During World War I he served with the 103rd and the 13th Aero Squadrons before being promoted to captain and named commander of the 141st Aero Squadron. Baker died in December 1918 after a plane he was test-piloting crashed, hours before he was due to leave France and return to America.

Baker was widely regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best athletes of his time and is considered one of the best early American hockey players. When the Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1945, Baker was named one of the first nine inductees, the only American among them. In 1973, he became one of the initial inductees in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975, and is the only person to be in both the hockey and college football halls of fame. (Full article...)

List of Featured articles

Selected geography article - show another

Sunset on Ganoga Lake

Ganoga Lake is a natural lake in Colley Township in southeastern Sullivan County in Pennsylvania, United States. Known as Robinson's Lake and Long Pond for most of the 19th century, the lake was purchased by the Ricketts family in the early 1850s and became part of R. Bruce Ricketts' extensive holdings in the area after the American Civil War. The lake is one of the highest in Pennsylvania, which led Ricketts to name it Highland Lake by 1874 and rename it Ganoga Lake in 1881; Pennsylvania senator Charles R. Buckalew suggested the name Ganoga from the Seneca language word for "water on the mountain".

The Ricketts built a stone house on the lake shore by 1852 or 1855; this served as a hunting lodge and tavern. In 1873 a large wooden addition was built north of the stone house, which became a hotel known as the North Mountain House. The hotel had one of the first summer schools in the United States in 1876 and 1877. A branch railroad line to the lake served the hotel and also hauled ice cut from the lake for refrigeration. The hotel closed in 1903, though the house remained the Ricketts family summer home. After the death of R. Bruce Ricketts in 1918, his heirs sold much of his 80,000 acres (32,000 ha) to the state for Pennsylvania State Game Lands and Ricketts Glen State Park. The state tried to purchase the lake in 1957, but was outbid by a group of investors who turned the land around it into a private housing development; as such it is "off limits" to the public. (Full article...)

List of geography articles

Selected image - show another

Credit: Nicholas T.
Rainbows and departing storm clouds over Minsi Lake in Northampton County.

Did you know - show different entries

PRR 4859

Wikiprojects

Good article - show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 (also known as the Philadelphia Mutiny) was an anti-government protest by nearly 400 soldiers of the Continental Army in June 1783. The mutiny, and the refusal of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania to stop it, ultimately resulted in Congress of the Confederation vacating Philadelphia and the creation of a federal district, ultimately developed as Washington, D.C., to serve as the national capital. (Full article...)

List of Good articles

Selected article - show another

Penn depicted in an 18th century illustration

William Penn (24 October [O.S. 14 October] 1644 – 10 August [O.S. 30 July] 1718) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonial era. Penn, an advocate of democracy and religious freedom, was known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania prior to European settlements in the state.

In 1681, King Charles II granted a large piece of his North American land holdings along the North Atlantic Ocean coast to Penn to offset debts he owed Penn's father, the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. The land included the present-day states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. The following year, in 1682, Penn left England for what was then British America, sailing up Delaware Bay and the Delaware River past earlier Swedish and Dutch riverfront colonies in what is present-day New Castle, Delaware. On this occasion, the colonists pledged allegiance to Penn as their new proprietor, and the first Pennsylvania General Assembly was held. (Full article...)

Pennsylvania news

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

State facts

State Facts
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)
State symbols
Mountain laurel, Pennsylvania's state flower

Pennsylvania topics

General images

The following are images from various Pennsylvania-related articles on Wikipedia.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals