Mexican-American War in the context of "1844 United States presidential election"

California (/ˌkælɪˈfɔːrniə/) is a state in the Western United States that lies on the Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With almost 40 million residents across an area of 163,696 square miles (423,970 km), it is the largest state by population, third-largest state by area and the largest state economy in the U.S., with a GDP of approximately $4.1 trillion.

Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, as a result of its successful war for independence. Following the U.S. conquest of California, part of the Mexican-American War, California was ceded to the United States in 1848. The California gold rush started in 1848 and led to social and demographic changes, including the California genocide. It organized itself and was admitted as the 31st state in 1850 as a free state, following the Compromise of 1850.

The Second Federal Republic of Mexico (Spanish: Segunda República Federal de México) refers to the period of Mexican history involving a second attempt to establish a federal government in Mexico after the fall of the unitary Centralist Republic of Mexico in 1846 at the start of the Mexican-American War. It would last up until the Second French Intervention in Mexico led to the proclamation of the Second Mexican Empire in 1863.

The period of the Second Federal Republic prove to be one of the most eventful periods in Mexican history, experiencing two foreign invasions, the loss of half of the national territory, constitutional change, and a civil war. It was also a period of Mexican political evolution experiencing the downfall of the Conservative Party that had predominated during the Centralist Republic, and marking the rise of a Liberal Party hegemony which would consolidate itself throughout the rest of the century.

The land which became the United States was inhabited by Native Americans for tens of thousands of years; their descendants include but may not be limited to 574 federally recognized tribes. The history of the present-day United States began in 1607 with the establishment of Jamestown in modern-day Virginia by settlers who arrived from the Kingdom of England, and the landing of the Mayflower by English pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620. In the late 15th century, European colonization began and largely decimated Indigenous societies through wars and epidemics. By the 1760s, the Thirteen Colonies, then part of British America and the Kingdom of Great Britain, were established. The Southern Colonies built an agricultural system on slave labor and enslaving millions from Africa. After the British victory over the Kingdom of France in the French and Indian Wars, Parliament imposed a series of taxes and issued the Intolerable Acts on the colonies in 1773, which were designed to end self-governance. Tensions between the colonies and British authorities subsequently intensified, leading to the Revolutionary War, which commenced with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the Continental Army and unanimously selected George Washington as its commander-in-chief. The following year, on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously declared its independence, issuing the Declaration of Independence. On September 3, 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British acknowledged the independence and sovereignty of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States. On September 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed by a majority of delegates, and was later ratified by the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the first modern U.S. government.

In the 1788-89 presidential election, Washington was elected the nation's first U.S. president. Along with his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, Washington sought to create a relatively stronger central government than that favored by other founders, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. On March 4, 1789, the new nation debated, adopted, and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which is now the oldest and longest-standing written and codified national constitution in the world. In 1791, a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee inalienable rights. In 1803, Jefferson, then serving as the nation's third president, negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the country. Encouraged by available, inexpensive land, and the notion of manifest destiny, the country underwent westward expansion in a project of settler colonialism marked by a series of conflicts with the continent's indigenous inhabitants. The most notable advocate of manifest destiny was President James K. Polk, who annexed Texas in 1845, and declared war on Mexico the next year. An overwhelming U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War led to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, where the U.S. acquired much of the American Southwest from Mexico. Whether or not slavery should be legal in the expanded territories was an issue of national contention, and led to increasing tensions over slavery.

Johnson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 179,927. Its county seat is Cleburne. Johnson County is named for Colonel Middleton Tate Johnson Sr., a Texas Ranger, politician and soldier in the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War (fighting for the Confederate States Army). Johnson County is included in the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area.