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Primary Source Activities – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

6040 minutes

151 Items

Columbus’s Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 1494

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40 Min

Cortés’ Account of Tenochtitlan, 1522

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Las Casas on the Destruction of the Indies, 1552

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The Florentine Codex, c. 1585

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The Oral Tradition of the Foundation of the Iroquois Confederacy

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Watercolors of Algonquian Peoples in North Carolina, 1585

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A City Upon a Hill: Winthrop’s “Modell of Christian Charity,” 1630

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Bacon vs. Berkeley on Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676

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Penn’s Letter Recruiting Colonists, 1683

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Germantown Friends’ Antislavery Petition, 1688

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Washington’s Journal: Expeditions to Disputed Ohio Territory, 1753–1754

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Maps Showing the Evolution of Settlement, 1624–1755

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John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, 1767–1768

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Junípero Serra’s Baja California Diary

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40 Min

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

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Joseph Plumb Martin, The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier, 1777

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40 Min

Art Analysis: Washington Crossing the Delaware

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40 Min

The Articles of Confederation, 1781

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Quaker Anti-Slavery Petition, 1783

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40 Min

Belinda Sutton, Petition to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1783

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The Northwest Ordinance, 1787

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Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” 1790

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40 Min

Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789

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The Judiciary Act of 1789

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The Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of New York, 1790

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Thomas Jefferson on the Compromise of 1790

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Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, Writings on the National Bank, 1785–1792

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The Jay Treaty, 1795

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Pinckney’s Treaty, 1796

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George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

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Cartoon Analysis: Property Protected—à la Françoise, 1798

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Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, 1798–1799

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Cartoon Analysis: Congressional Pugilists, 1798

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The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1805

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The Monroe Doctrine, 1823

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Cartoon Analysis: The Presidential Election of 1824

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40 Min

Henry Clay, Speech on American Industry, 1824

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John C. Calhoun, South Carolina Exposition and Protest, 1828

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David Walker, “An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,” 1829

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40 Min

Portrait of Daniel Webster.
Webster-Hayne Debates, 1830

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40 Min

Indian Removal Act, 1830, and Cherokee Chief John Ross’s Memorial and Protest to Congress, 1836

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40 Min

Andrew Jackson, Bank Veto Message, 1832

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40 Min

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

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40 Min

Jedediah Burchard, Revivalist Sermon, 1835

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40 Min

Sarah M. Grimké, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women, 1837

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40 Min

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1837

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40 Min

John C. Calhoun, “Slavery as a Positive Good,” 1837

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Dorothea Dix, Memorial to the Legislation of Massachusetts, 1843

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Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 1845

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Art Analysis: The County Election by George Caleb Bingham, 1852

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Negro Spirituals

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John O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” 1845

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William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass on Abolition, 1845–1852

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40 Min

Debating the Mexican-American War, May 1846

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Portrait of Daniel Webster.
Daniel Webster, “7th of March,” 1850

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40 Min

Fugitive Slave Act, 1850

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40 Min

Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?” 1851

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40 Min

Dame Shirley (Mrs. Clappe), Letters from a Western Pioneer, 1851–1852

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40 Min

Frank Lecouvreur, From East Prussia to the Golden Gate, 1851–1871

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Henry David Thoreau, “Slavery in Massachusetts,” 1854

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Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855

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Art Analysis: Hudson River School Landscape Paintings, 1836–1868

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Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858

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South Carolina Secession Debate, 1860

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40 Min

Art Analysis: American Progress by John Gast, 1872

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J.B. Elliott, Scott’s Great Snake (Anaconda Plan), 1861

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Daniel Emmett’s “Dixie” and Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” 1859 and 1861

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The Homestead Act of 1862

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Mathew Brady, The Dead of Antietam Photography, 1862

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Images of Total War: Sherman’s March to the Sea, 1865

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Cartoon Analysis: The “Rail Splitter” at Work Repairing the Union, 1865

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Comparing Views of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 1866

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Andrew Johnson’s Veto of the Civil Rights Act, 1866

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40 Min

Cartoon Analysis: Thomas Nast on Reconstruction, 1869–1874

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Cartoon Analysis: Thomas Nast Takes on “Boss” Tweed, 1871

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40 Min

The Dawes Act, 1887

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40 Min

Images from the Carlisle Indian School, 1880s

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Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill, 1887

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Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000–1887, 1888

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40 Min

The front page of a pamphlet titled Southern Horrors, Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
Ida B. Wells, “Lynch Law,” 1893

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40 Min

Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” 1893

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Booker T. Washington, “Speech to the Cotton States and International Exposition,” 1895

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Cartoon Analysis: Immigration in the Gilded Age, 1882–1896

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William Jennings Bryan, “Cross of Gold” speech, 1896

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Redfield Proctor vs. Mark Twain on American Imperialism, 1898–1906

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Cartoon Analysis: A Lesson for Anti-Expansionists, Victor Gillam, 1899

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Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906

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Lewis Hine, Photographs Documenting Child Labor, 1908

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Elihu Root vs. William Jennings Bryan on Women’s Suffrage, 1894–1914

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Carrie Chapman Catt, Open Address to the U.S. Congress, 1917

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Business and Advertising in the Early Twentieth Century, 1910–1917

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The Espionage Act of 1917

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George M. Cohan, Over There, 1917

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Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, 1918

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Cartoon Analysis: Elmer Andrews Bushnell, “The Sky Is Now Her Limit,” 1920

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Mitchell Palmer, “The Case against the Reds,” 1920

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Marcus Garvey, “Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,” 1920

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A group of women of different ethnicities and cultural dress stand together and hold signs that read No More War.
Alice Paul and the Equal Rights Amendment (Lucretia Mott Amendment), 1923

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Ellison DuRant Smith, “Shut the Door,” 1924

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Langston Hughes, “I, Too” and “The Weary Blues,” 1920 and 1925

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Andy Razaf (lyrics), Thomas “Fats” Waller and Harry Brooks (score), “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” Jazz and the Radio, 1929

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Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

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Art Analysis: The Art of the New Deal, 1934

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Huey Long and the American Liberty League, 1934

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Photographs: The Dust Bowl and Rural Poverty, 1936–1937

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“Sit Down,” Maurice Sugar, 1936–1937

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The Atlantic Charter, 1941

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A. Philip Randolph, The Call to Negro America to March on Washington, 1941

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World War II Propaganda Posters, 1941–1945

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Photographs: Women at Work on the Homefront during World War II, 1941–1945

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Franklin Roosevelt, Second Bill of Rights, 1944

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Dwight Eisenhower, D-Day Statement, 1944

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Phil “Bo” Perabo, Letter Home, 1945

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Images from the Congressional Committee Investigating Nazi Atrocities, 1945

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Winston Churchill, “Sinews of Peace,” March 1946

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Levittown Videos, 1947–1957

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Harry S. Truman, “Truman Doctrine” Address, March 1947

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George Kennan (“Mr. X”), “Sources of Soviet Conduct,” July 1947

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Richard Nixon, “Checkers” Speech, September 1952

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Rosa Parks’s Account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (Radio Interview), April 1956

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Critics of Postwar Culture: Jack Kerouac, On the Road (Excerpts), 1957

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Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 1961

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Nam Paik, Electronic Superhighway, 1995

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John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

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Photograph of Betty Friedan.
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963

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Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962

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Students for a Democratic Society, “Port Huron Statement,” 1962

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Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 1963

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Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” August 28, 1963

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The Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 1964

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Lyndon B. Johnson, “Peace Without Conquest,” April 7, 1965

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The Vietnam War Experience: An Interview with Veteran William Maxwell Barner III

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Walter Cronkite Speaks Out against Vietnam, February 27, 1968

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Music as Protest: “We Shall Overcome”

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National Organization for Women (NOW), Bill of Rights, 1968

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Indians of All Tribes, Alcatraz Proclamation, 1969

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Nixon Tapes: The “Smoking Gun” Tape, 1972

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Art as Protest: Images from the United Farm Workers of America, 1973–1978

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Herblock, Watergate Cartoons, 1973–1974

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Barbara Jordan, Speech on Impeachment, July 25, 1974

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Jimmy Carter sits at a desk and signs a document.
Jimmy Carter, “Malaise” Speech, July 15, 1979

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Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster, January 28, 1986

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Ronald Reagan, “Tear Down this Wall” Speech, June 12, 1987

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Herblock, Cartoons of Ronald Reagan, 1984–1987

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AIDS Memorial Quilt, 1987

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Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?”, 1989

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George H. W. Bush, Address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 23, 1991

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Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning,” January 20, 1993

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Republican House Representatives, “Republican Contract with America,” 1994

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Barack Obama, Keynote Address at the Democratic National Convention, July 27, 2004

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New Yorker Covers, 2001–2011 (Reflections on 9/11)

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