America 250 / Innovation. Digital economy, giants of the sky, and coffee beans. But in Seattle, the wonder is stained glass. And in Venice...

t's quite a leap forward today in our series of reports inspired by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which marked the birth of the United States. It's quite a leap because, after five articles dedicated to the actual origins of the United States—links at the bottom of this text—we're shifting our focus to offer you two articles focused on innovation. Ours continues to be a travel-oriented and touristic approach, of course, and the choice of themes and locations, especially in this case, is highly biased: we want to give you a taste, a starting point for a theme—that of innovation—that powerfully permeates all of American history and current affairs. Naturally, with equally powerful contradictions and negativity.