Презентация по английскому языку The United States of America

The USAThe United States of America АА 30,000 years ago America was an empty land with mountains, forests, lakes, animals and fish, but no people. Around that time, the first people probably arrived in Alaska from Asia. Native population of America They travelled south and became the North American Indians, and the Aztecs, and Incas and other peoples of Central and South America. North American Indians Native population of America Incas AztecsMayas Native population of AmericaLater came the Inuit (Eskimos) of Canada and the Arctic. Native population of America For thousands of years, America was unknown to the rest of the world. The Vikings visited Canada from Scandinavia around AD 1000, but did not stay there. Discoverers of America In 1492, a brave Italian sailor called Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean, while he was looking for a sea route from Europe to India. Columbus called the Native Americans ‘Indians’ because he thought that he had reached India. Discoverers of America Christopher Columbus undertook four voyages to America. During the first voyage he reached only the island in the Caribbean. The continental part of the continent was reached by him during the fourth voyage. Discoverers of America ‘America’ was named after an Italian businessman called Amerigo Vespucci, sailed to South America between 1499 and 1502. He proved that land discovered by Columbus was not Asia (India) but a new continent. Vespucci undertook two voyages to a new continent. The first settlers of America In the 16th century the French, the Spanish and the British started to come and live in North America. The first settlers of America In 1607, a group of farmers founded the colony of Jamestown, in Virginia. They fought with the Indians and many of them died because of hunger and illnesses. But Pocachontas, the daughter of an Indian chief, became a friend of Captain John Smith and helped him and other English people. She later married a sailor called John Rolfe and went to England. Pocachontas The first settlers of America John Rolfe discovered that it was easy to grow tobacco in Virginia and the settlers brought African people to work in the fields as their slaves.John Rolfe The first settlers of America Smoking was becoming very fashionable, and the Americansfound a big market for their tobacco in Europe. The first settlers of AmericaLater on, the slaves were used for work on cotton fields , too. The first settlers of America In 1620, another group of 101 men, women and children arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We know these people as ‘Pilgrims’ or ‘Pilgrim Fathers’. They were not agree with the Church of England, so they sailed to America in a ship called the Mayflower.Mayflower The first settlers of America The Pilgrims did not have slaves because they thought all men were equal. They also suffered from hunger and illnesses, and nearly half of them died in the first year. But the Pilgrims were helped by friendly Indians,who showed them how to grow corn. In the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims had a big dinner to give thanks for the first harvest that they hadgrown themselves. This day became known as Thanksgiving, and Americans still celebrate it every year. The War of Independence By 1770, there were 13 colonies along the east coast of North America, all governed by Britain. But Britain was a long way away, and the people of the colonies became angry at the high taxes of the British government. The War of Independence In December 1773 a group of men threw 342 boxes of tea into the sea at Boston because they did not want to pay the British tax on it. This was the ‘Boston Tea Party’.The Boston Tea Party The War of Independence In April 1775 some Americans fought a group of British soldiers at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts. A few months later, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, near Boston, it was clear that Britain was at war with Americans colonies. The War of Independence A farmer from Virginia, George Washington, became the leader of the American Army.George Washington The War of Independence But the colonies did not say that they wanted to be fully independent until the summer of 1776. Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous ‘Declaration of Independence’. The day of the Declaration of Independence is another important American holiday, celebrated each year on July 4. The War of Independence The Americans finally won the war five years later, in October 1781, and two years after that they were free to govern themselves. In 1788 George Washington was elected by Americans as their first president. The names ‘United States of America’ and ‘Americans’ were first used at the time of the War of Independence. The War of Independence The American flag, the Stars and Stripes, also first appeared at that time. It has a stripe for each of the first thirteen states and a star is added when a new state joins, so there are now fifty stars.The first American flag Territorial acquisitions of the USA The thirteen colonies, or states grew by adding land to the south and west. In 1803, Jefferson, the third president, bought a piece of rich farmland Louisiana in the mid-west from France. It was five time as big as France itself, and it only cost 15 million dollars.Thomas Jefferson Territorial acquisitions of the USA In 1819, the USA bought Florida from Spain. And by 1848, after winning Texas and the West from Mexico, it had reached all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, over 5,000 kilometres. The Civil War The great country of 31 million people was known as the Union, but in fact there were deep differences between the North and the South. The Civil War And in 1861 the Civil war broke out. At least 600,000 people died in the fighting or from illness. The war began because the southern states kept slaves to work in the cotton fields. Slaves were not allowed in the North, and the two sides argued about whether they should be allowed in the new lands of the West. The Civil War In 1860, Abraham Lincoln, who belonged to the Republican party, which was against keeping slaves, was elected president.Abraham Lincoln The Civil War On December 24, 1860 South Carolina said it wanted to be independent and the other southern states soon followed. They called themselves the ‘Confederate States of America’. The Civil WarThe Civil War began on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter. The Civil WarRobert E. Lee The South had some of the best generals – one of the great Robert E. Lee – and they had plenty of money from selling their cotton to England. The Civil War The North also had great generals. One of them was William Sherman. He took 60,000 of his soldiers on a journey from Atlanta, in Georgia, to the Atlantic coast and broke the Confederate states in two; after the war he became head of the American army.William Sherman The Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant was one more great general who helped the North to win the war. The Civil War The North had more men, more factories and also A. Lincoln, one of the best presidents that the USA has ever had. General Ulysses S. Grant represented the North at Appomattox in 1865, when the South, under Lee, accepted that they had lost the war. In 1868, Ulysses S. Grant became the 18th president of the USA. The Liberation of slaves On January the first, 1863, the Proclamation of Emancipation which gave freedom to Negro slaves in the US was signed by its author A. Lincoln. The Liberation of slaves There were about 4 million slaves in 15 southern states.And they were liberated from the bondage. The Liberation of slaves There were many dissatisfied with this proclamation people. Sadly, in April 1865, just after the end of the war, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s theatre by a man called John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died the next day.Lincoln’s funeral After Lincoln’s death the new president was not strong enough to bring the North and the South together. Anger and arguments, mostly about the rights of black people, continued. The Wild West During the 19th century , more and more people went to live in the West. In fact there were few cowboys there – no more than 40,000 – and real cowboys did not shoot each other very often. A quarter of the cowboys were black or Mexican. The Wild West The cowboys took cows from Texas up to the railway towns in Kansas and Missouri to be killed for meat. They existed about 30 years from 1862 till 1900. Then this land was given by the government to farmers and their families. The Wild West There were about 2,000,000 Native Americans (or Indians) in America in the 15tH century, when the Europeans started to colonize the country. Sadly, the Europeans brought diseases which killed the Indians. They fought and killed the Indians, because they wanted to take their land for farms and railways. By the 1900 there were less than 250,000 Native Americans. The Wild West The Indian wars ended in 1890 with the battle of Wounded Knee, when many Sioux men, women and children were killed by American soldiers. After this, Indians had to live in special places called ‘reservations’. Even today, many of the two million Native Americans live on reservations; they are often very poor and a lot of them do not have jobs. The Wild West Before the Europeans came to America there were about 60 million buffalo there. The Europeansshot millions of buffalo , so that it is said that by 1900 there were less than a thousand animals left in all of the USA. One very well-known hunter was Buffalo Bill Cody. They say that he shot 4,280 buffalo in one year!Buffalo Bill Discrimination of black Americans After the Civil war the Southerners were angry that they had lost the war and angry that the slaves were free. They showed a lot of prejudice against black people. Some whites joined the Ku Klux Klan, groups of men who dressed in white and went out to beat and murder black people. Discrimination of black Americans Black men could not vote until 1870 and even later they often did not this right because they were frightened. In the 20th century black people began to travel to the cities of the North to look for work, so there are now more black people in the North than in the South. Discrimination of black Americans But even in the North the black and white people lived separately. Discrimination of black Americans And in the South they had to sit separately on buses and eat in separate parts of restaurants. Until 1954, they also had to go to separate schools. Discrimination of black Americans In 1950s, a churchman called Dr Martin Luther King began to fight for the civil rights of black people. Groups of black people started to break the law, but not in a violent way; they refused to use buses, so that the bus companies lost money. They also went into ‘whites only’ restaurants. And in 1964, a law was passed giving black people their civil rights. Discrimination of black Americans In the same year Dr Martin Luther King was given the Nobel Peace Prize.Sadly, in 1968 Dr king was murdered. During the 1970s and 1980s, prejudice against black people slowly began to become less important, and many black people now have good jobs in business and government. The present day USA The United States of America economically is the most powerful country of the world. The present day USA The USA consists of fifty states, including Alaska and Hawaii, and the District of Columbia where the capital of the country (Washington D.C.) is situated. Each state has its own legislature. Head of State is President who is elected for a 4-year term and not more than two times. The symbols of the states