Bennington, VT - USA

Bennington is a town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. It is one of two shire towns (county seats) of the county, the other being Manchester. The population was 15,764 at the 2010 census. By population, Bennington is the largest town in southern Vermont, the third-largest town in Vermont (after Essex and Colchester), and the sixth-largest municipality in the state (after Burlington, Essex, Rutland, Colchester, and South Burlington). Bennington is home to the Bennington Battle Monument, which is the tallest structure in the state of Vermont.

Vermont (ⁱ/vɜrˈmɑːnt/, [vɚːˈmɑːn(ʔ)] or [vɚˈmɑ̃(ʔ)]) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Vermont is the 6th least extensive and the 2nd least populous of the 50 United States. It is the only New England state not bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermont's western border, which it shares with the state of New York. The Green Mountains are within the state. Vermont is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north.

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator.

Earth's northern hemisphere contains most of the planet's land, and roughly 90% of its human population. See also Arctic, Temperate zone, Tropics, Seasons and Climate

Due to the Earth's axial tilt, winter lasts from the winter solstice (typically December 22) to the vernal equinox (typically March 20), while summer lasts from the summer solstice (typically June 21) through to the autumnal equinox (typically September 21).

The Arctic is the region north of the Arctic Circle. Its climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers. Precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow. The Arctic experiences some days in summer when the Sun never sets, and some days during the winter when it never rises. The duration of these phases varies from one day for locations right on the Arctic Circle to several months near the North Pole.

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. New England is bordered by New York state to the southwest, Quebec to the northwest, and New Brunswick and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

In one of the earliest English settlements in North America, Pilgrims from England first settled in New England in 1620, to form Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, the Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony. Over the next 130 years, New England fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their native allies in North America.

In the late 18th century, the New England Colonies initiated the resistance to the British Parliament's efforts to impose new taxes without the consent of the colonists. The Boston Tea Party was a protest to which Great Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government, which were termed the "Intolerable Acts" by the colonists. The confrontation led to open warfare in 1775, the expulsion of the British authorities from New England in spring 1776, and the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.

North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), about 4.8% of the planet's surface or about 16.5% of its land area. As of July 2008, its population was estimated at nearly 529 million people across 23 independent states, representing about 7.5% of the human population. North America is the third-largest continent in area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth in population after Asia, Africa, and Europe.^{[citation needed]}

The first people to live in North America were Paleoindians who began to arrive during the last glacial period by crossing the Bering land bridge. They differentiated into a number of diverse cultures and communities across the continent. The largest and most advanced Pre-Columbian civilizations in North America were the Aztecs in what is now Mexico and the Mayans in Central America. European colonists began to arrive starting in the 16th and 17th centuries, wiping out large numbers of the native populations and beginning an era of European dominance.