Portal:North America/Selected picture

In late 1882, the last of several major fires swept through the lower half of Kingston, Jamaica. In this engraving from the Illustrated London News, we see some of the destruction caused. Top row: Left, the view from the Royal Mail Steam-Ship Company's Wharf. Centre, Peter-lane, from Barry-street, looking south. Right, In Harbour Street. Second Row: Left, German Synagogue, Orange-street. Right, Harbour-street from King-street. Third row: Left, Ruins from McDonald's Wharf, King-street. Centre, Portuguese Synagogue, from Princess-street. Right, Water-lane, from King-street. Bottom Row: Left, Princess-street, from Port Royal-street, looking north. Right, Peter-lane, from Town-street.

Two Catrina figurines, approximately 38 cm (15 in) tall in the City Museum of León, Guanajuato, Mexico. Popularized by José Guadalupe Posada, the Catrina is the skeleton of an upper class woman and one of the most popular figures of the Day of the Dead celebrations, which occur across two days, on November 1–2, corresponding with the Catholic holy days of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. It has its origins in an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl, which is represented by the Catrina.

An 1836 lithograph after a painting by Carl Nebel of Mexican women making tortillas.

Livestock comprises domesticated animals, that may be kept or raised in pens, houses, pastures, or on farms as part of an agricultural or farming operation, whether for commerce or private use. The picture shows the maze of livestock pens and walkways at Chicago's stockyards, ca. 1947.

Indigenous languages of the Americas (or Amerindian Languages) are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language isolates and unclassified languages.

The US Federal Government controls a 6,000 sq mi (16,000 km²) tract of southern Nevada, including the Nellis Air Force Range and the Nevada Test Site. These contain the Yucca Mountain repository, the Tonopah Test Range, and the secret Area 51 facility.

This map shows the complex interplay of the Multilevel streets in Chicago. Several major cities around the world have attempted to overcome problems with traffic density by building elevated or underground roadways. Chicago, Illinois goes one better with some triple-decker streets in an area of downtown beside the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.

The Wawona Tree of Yosemite National Park in California, 1918.

A wickiup is a domed hut-like dwelling used by the semi-nomadic Native American tribes of southwestern North America. A wigwam is a similar structure but the term is used for those found in the northeastern part of America. Shown here is an Apache wickiup from 1903.

The Olmec heartland. The yellow dots represent ancient habitation sites, while the red dots represent isolated artifact finds unassociated with any ancient town or village.

An animated image showing the territorial evolution of Mexico, showing each change to the internal and external borders of the country. The animation begins with the 1824 Constitution of Mexico and continues to the present-day configuration. Note that many of the borders of states and territories in northern Mexico remain unclear and minor border adjustments with the United States, including the several Rio Grande border disputes, are not shown.

An animated image showing the U.S. states by date of statehood, that is, the date when each U.S. state joined the Union. Although the first 13 states can be considered to be members of the United States from the date of the Declaration of Independence, they are presented here as being "admitted" on the date each ratified the present Constitution. The secession of states to form the Confederacy is not addressed here.

Tufa towers in Mono Lake, California. Tufa are spires and knobs made of calcium carbonate formed by interaction of freshwater springs and alkaline lake water. Tufa can reach heights of 30 ft (9.1 m).

Wind Point Lighthouse, Wind Point, Wisconsin. Constructed on the shore of Lake Michigan in 1880.

An 1891 photograph of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling—a structure built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs—in North America, located in what is now Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA. There are about 150 rooms in the 288 ft (88 m) long structure, although only 25 to 30 of those were used as living space by Ancient Pueblo Peoples. it is estimated that the population of Cliff Palace was roughly 100–150 people.

Map of Yellowstone National Park, 1871. Created one year before the park was formed.

A 1628 Spanish relief map of Acapulco and Acapulco Bay, Mexico. During Spanish colonial times, Acapulco was a major port for ships carrying silks and spices gathered from the Asia-Pacific area. For more than 256 years, a yearly trading voyage known as the Manila galleon set sail from Acapulco to the Philippines, ending due to the Mexican War of Independence.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first United States overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back, led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark, of the US Army.

Relief map showing the varying age of bedrock underlying North America. This cartographic tapestry is woven from a geologic map and a shaded relief image. This combination reveals the geologic history of North America through the interrelation of rock type, topography and time. Regional surface processes as well as continent-scale tectonic events are exposed in the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension, geologic time.

Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska photographed from the International Space Station, June 7, 2006.

Satellite image of circular crop fields, characteristic of center pivot irrigation, in Haskell County, Kansas in late June 2001. Healthy, growing crops are green. Corn would be growing into leafy stalks by then. Sorghum, which resembles corn, grows more slowly and would be much smaller and therefore, possibly paler. Wheat is a brilliant gold as harvest occurs in June. Fields of brown have been recently harvested and plowed under or lie fallow for the year.

In English usage, a fjord is a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes, which results from marine inundation of a glaciated valley. Fjords are found in locations where current or past glaciation extended below current sea level. The fractal coastline of eastern Greenland, seen here, has many fjords. At the bottom is the longest fjord in the world, Scoresby Sund.

The airship USS Akron flying over the southern tip of Manhattan circa 1931–1933. The Akron was a commissioned 'ship' of the United States Navy, built for them by the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation in Akron, Ohio. She cast off for her maiden voyage on 2 November 1931, but crashed less than two years later.

The planes that serve as Air Force One can be operated as a military command center in the event of an incident such as a nuclear attack. Operational modifications include aerial refueling capability, electronic countermeasures (ECMs) which jam enemy radar, and flares to avoid heat-seeking missiles. The heavily shielded electronics onboard include around twice the amount of wiring found in a regular 747.

A petrified log in Petrified Forest National Park, located in northeastern Arizona, USA. The pieces of wood found in the park are mostly of the extinct species Araucarioxylon arizonicum. The logs were buried under volcanic ash, which was the source of the silica that helped to permineralize the buried logs, replacing wood with silica, colored with oxides of iron and manganese.

The world's largest compass rose, drawn on the desert floor at Edwards Air Force Base in California, United States. Painted on the playa near Dryden Flight Research Center, it is inclined to magnetic north and is used by pilots for calibrating heading indicators.

The Bald Eagle is a raptor that is indigenous to North America, and is the national symbol of the United States of America. The species was on the brink of extinction late in the 20th century but has largely recovered and now has a stable population. Its diet is varied, including fish, smaller birds, rodents, and sometimes food scavenged or stolen from campsites and picnics.

Havana bay, Cuba, c. 1639.

An old timer iron worker bolts beams during construction of the Empire State Building; the Chrysler Building can be seen in the background.

The Manhattan Bridge, under construction in 1909, nine months before its opening on December 31, 1909. This suspension bridge crosses the East River, connecting Lower Manhattan with Brooklyn, just upriver of the Brooklyn Bridge. All of the buildings in foreground of this photograph, with the exception of the Empire Warehouse on the left, are no longer standing.

A map of Antelope Island State Park, which covers the entirety of Antelope Island, an island in the southeastern portion of the Great Salt Lake in the U.S. state of Utah. The park was established in 1981 as part of the Utah State Parks system. The island is accessible from either Syracuse via a 7-mile (11 km) causeway (to the northeast) or from Salt Lake City at the southern end.

A map of Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, United States, detailing the location of many of the more well known natural arches, as well as many other physical features. The park is known for preserving over 2,000 arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch. It is 119 square miles (310 km²) in size. Its highest elevation is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and its lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. Since 1970, forty-three arches have toppled because of erosion. The park receives 10 inches (250 mm) of rain a year on average.

At the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their midshipmen covers into the air as part of the graduation and commissioning ceremony. The "hat toss" has been a traditional ending to the ceremony at the Academy since 1912.

Federal battery with 13-inch seacoast mortars, Model 1861, during siege of Yorktown, Virginia 1862.

Captive test flight of Armadillo Aerospace's Pixel rocket before the 2006 X PRIZE Cup

Attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama, Governor George Wallace stands defiantly at the door while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, at dusk. This is the official repository for original papers and correspondence of the John F. Kennedy administration, as well as special bodies of other materials, such as books and papers by and about Ernest Hemingway.

An advertisement circa 1876 showing the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge touting the railway as the only route between the towns of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Suspension Bridge, New York.

Opened in 1990, the Oregon Convention Center in Portland's Rose Quarter is Oregon's largest convention center. In the background lies Downtown Portland's skyline.

Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller wall map dated 1507, is the first map to include the name "America" and the first to depict the Americas as separate from Asia. There is only one surviving copy of the map, which was purchased by the Library of Congress in 2001 for $10 million.

Bird's eye view of a town listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, Cedar Key, Florida, created before an 1896s hurricane and fire destroyed many of the original structures.

Panorama of the view south into Coachella Valley from Keys View in the Little San Bernardino Mountains, Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA. In the valley floor, the San Andreas Fault is clearly visible.

Saloon, bank, bath house and livery stable fronts on Mane Street in Pioneertown, California, an unincorporated and inhabited town built in 1946 as a movie/tv set by, amongst others, Roy Rogers.

View of the Midtown Manhattan skyline from the Empire State Building.

This manuscript map by Union Army cartographer Robert Knox Sneden shows the area surrounding Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, at the intersection of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers as the Confederate forces under Stonewall Jackson began their September 1862 assault.

Settlement of Nebraska and Iowa: a land offer from the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, 1872.

Apollo 13 Command module being successfully recovered after its crew survived a critical malfunction en route to the Moon.

A lithograph from 1876, showing the seals of the then-47 U.S. states and territories as well as the District of Columbia. Some of these seals have changed since this image was created.

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, showing the five-man committee in charge of drafting the Declaration in 1776 as it presents its work to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

A panorama of Upernavik, Greenland, a small town in the Arctic Circle. The series of photos was taken at 23:50 (11:50 PM) local time, showing the midnight sun. Upernavik (pop. 1140) is a town in the Upernavik district, which covers an area comparable to the United Kingdom but has only 3,000 inhabitants. With a population density of only 0.015 persons/km², the district is one of the least populated areas of the world.

A poster for the United States National Park Service, showing a deer drinking from a stream in the forest. This was one of more than 200,000 works created as part of the Federal Art Project, which was the visual arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal WPA Federal One program. FAP artists created posters, murals and paintings; some of which stand among the most significant pieces of public art in the country.

The tomb of Brother André, found in Saint Joseph's Oratory, a Roman Catholic basilica on the northern slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In 1904, Brother André began the construction of a small chapel on the side of the mountain near College Notre-Dame, which was replaced by a larger church in 1917 and the current basilica in 1967, which is dedicated to Saint Joseph, to whom Brother André credited all his reported miracles.

The Trinity nuclear test explosion, .016 seconds after detonation. The fireball is about 200 metres (700 ft) wide. Conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945, at a location 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what is now White Sands Missile Range, Trinity was the first test of technology for a nuclear weapon.

This cartoon print by Joseph E. Baker shows Vice President Andrew Johnson sitting atop a globe, trying to sew together the map of the United States with needle and thread. Abraham Lincoln stands, right, using a split rail to position the globe while commending him, "A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended."

Bryce Canyon located in southwestern Utah in the United States. Despite its name, this is not actually a canyon, but rather a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau.

Dead trees in the terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, US. These trees grew during inactivity of the mineral-rich springs, and were killed when calcium carbonate carried by spring water clogged the vascular systems of the trees. The same process also effectively preserves the trees by preventing decay.

Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah has been in operation since 1906 and its cumulative production of copper ranks second in the world. It also produces large quantities of gold, silver, and molybdenum.

Staten Island Ferry terminal at South Ferry depicting Lower Manhattan as well as New York Harbor.

Aerial view of Phoenix, Arizona in 1885.

The eye of Hurricane Isabel, 2003. Hurricane Isabel was the costliest, deadliest, and most intense hurricane in the season. At the time of the image, Isabel had weakened to a Category 4 and was located about 450 miles northeast of Puerto Rico.

A period map of Boston, Massachusetts from the beginning of the American Revolution depicting the most rebellious city from the standpoint of British tactical interests.

A view of Hurricane Felix from the International Space Station. At the time of the photo, Felix was south of Kingston, Jamaica with winds of 165 mph (266 km/h) with higher gusts making it a category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. One hundred and thirty fatalities were directly associated with this storm.

El Caracol at the Mayan archaeological site Chichen Itza in Yucatán, Mexico, is believed to have been an observatory with doors and windows aligned to view astronomical events sacred to the feathered-serpent god Kukulkan, specifically around the path of Venus as it traverses the sky.

The Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, at night. The stadium was originally built for the 1976 Summer Olympics and its inclined tower, called la tour de Montréal, is the tallest inclined tower in the world at 175 m (574 ft) and is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.

A portion of Glen Canyon, just downstream of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in Arizona, United States.

Maya Lin's original competition submission for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.. Originally designed as a student project at Yale University's School of Architecture in 1981, the memorial is a black granite wall, in the shape of a V, on which the names of American servicemen killed or missing in action from the Vietnam War are inscribed. The architect hoped that "these names, seemingly infinite in number, [would] convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole."

A 1917 recruitment poster for women to join the United States Navy. In March 1917, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels realized that the Naval Reserve Act of 1916 used the word "yeoman" instead of "man" or "male", and allowed for the induction of "all persons who may be capable of performing special useful service for coastal defense." He began enlisting females as Yeoman (F), and in less than a month the Navy officially swore in Loretta Perfectus Walsh, the first female sailor in U.S. history. At the time they were popularly referred to as "yeomanettes" or even "yeowomen".

The "Double O Arch", a natural sandstone arch in Arches National Park in Utah, United States. This is one of over 2,000 natural arches found in the park and is so named because there are two arches that form circular holes: the easily visible large one, and the smaller hole underneath it.

A Navajo family with a loom, required for making Navajo rugs near Old Fort Defiance, New Mexico, 1873. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Traditional Navajo weaving used upright looms with no moving parts and support poles made from wood, as shown here. Steel pipe is more common today.

United States President Lyndon B. Johnson (seated) signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark piece of legislation that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. Among the guests behind him is Martin Luther King Jr. (directly behind and to the right of Johnson).

The eye of Hurricane Isabel making landfall at North Carolina's Outer Banks on September 18, 2003. This Category 5 hurricane was the costliest and deadliest in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. It quickly weakened over land and became extratropical over western Pennsylvania the next day. Moderate to severe damage extended up the Atlantic coastline and as far inland as West Virginia. Throughout the path of Isabel, damage totaled about $3.6 billion (2003 USD, $4.1 billion 2008 USD). Sixteen deaths in seven U.S. states were directly related to the hurricane, with 35 deaths in six states and one Canadian province indirectly related to the hurricane.

The Mission District of San Francisco, California, burning in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. As damaging as the earthquake and its aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of control afterward were much more destructive.

A daguerreotype of the United States Capitol in 1846, with the original green copper dome as designed by Charles Bulfinch. Over time, extensions to both the north and south wings, made to accommodate the addition of new states to the Union, made the dome aesthetically displeasing, and as a result, it was replaced by a white cast iron dome which was completed in 1866.

An 1851 daguerreotype of Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, California. Now a one-block square in Chinatown, it is located on the site of the first public square established in Yerba Buena, the Mexican community that became San Francisco. It is named after the USS Portsmouth, which raised the American flag here at the onset of the Mexican–American War.

Buffalo Soldiers of the United States Army's 25th Infantry, some wearing buffalo robes, Fort Keogh, Montana, 1890. Although the origin of the name is uncertain, the term Buffalo Soldiers became a generic term for all African American soldiers. It is now used for U.S. Army units that trace their direct lineage back to the 9th and 10th Cavalry.

Lower Consolation Lake, adjacent to Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Located in the Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park is the oldest national park in Canada and one of the most visited national parks in the world.

Peyto Lake, located in Banff National Park in the Canadian province of Alberta, as seen from a viewpoint at Icefields Parkway. The turquoise colour is caused by rock flour found in glacier meltwater.