50 States United

When Americans speak of a state's "incorporation" into the Union, they mean the moment it joined the federal republic. For the original thirteen, that moment was the ratification of the United States Constitution between 1787 and 1790— the order in which each state convention voted to bind itself to the new national government. For every state that followed, it was the date Congress passed an act of admission. Together these fifty dates trace the growth of a continental nation from thirteen Atlantic colonies to an oceanto-ocean union.