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English speaking countries

INDIA

India is a country in South Asia. It is the Seventh-Largest country by area and second-largest by population and most populous democracy in the world.

Home to the Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated there, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture.

The British first arrived in India in the early 1600s and soon established trading posts in a number of cities under the control of The East India Company. By 1765 the Company’s influence had grown to such an extent that the British were effectively controlling most parts of the country. This date is often taken as the start of what is referred to as The Raj — a period of British rule in India that lasted until Independence in 1947.

Initially English was only taught to the local population through the work of Christian missionaries — there were no official attempts to force the language on the masses. But by the 1700s, English had firmly established itself as the language of administration and many educated Indians were demanding instruction in English as a means of social advancement. By 1857 universities had opened in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. English was increasingly accepted as the language of government, of the social elite, and of the national press.

India got its independence on August 15th, 1947. It was the day when the Indians got liberated from the rule of the British.

Despite continued pressure from nationalists, English remains at the heart of Indian society. It is widely used in the media, in Higher Education and government and therefore remains a common means of communication, both among the ruling classes, and between speakers of mutually unintelligible languages. According to recent surveys, approximately 4% of the Indian population use English. That figure might seem insignificant, but out of the total population this represents 35 million speakers — the largest English-speaking community outside the USA and the UK. In addition there are speakers of English in other parts of South Asia, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where English plays a similar role. English is virtually a mother tongue for many educated South Asians, but for the vast majority it remains a second language. This means there are speakers whose spoken English is heavily influenced by speech patterns of their ethnic language, alongside those whose speech reveals nothing of their racial background and some who are ranged somewhere in between.

AUSTRALIA

Australia, officially called the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country and sovereign state in the southern hemisphere, located on its own continent between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Its capital city is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney.

Australia is the sixth biggest country in the world by land area, and is part of the Oceanic and Australasian regions. Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and other islands on the Australian tectonic plate are together called Australasia, which is one of the world's great ecozones. When other Pacific islands are included with Australasia, it is called Oceania.

23–24 million people live in Australia, and about 80% of them live on the east coast. The country is divided up into six states, and more than half of Australia's population lives in and around the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Australia is known for its mining, its production of wool, and as the world's largest producer of bauxite. Its emblem is a flower called the Golden Wattle.

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6. Overview of the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States

POLITICAL SYSTEM

In the 20th century the powers and responsibilities of the presidency were transformed. President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09) regarded the presidency as a “bully pulpit” from which to preach morality and rally his fellow citizens against “malefactors of great wealth,” and he wheedled from Congress a generous fund for railroad travel to put his pulpit on wheels. Other presidents followed Roosevelt’s example, with varying results. Woodrow Wilson (1913–21) led the United States into World War I to make the world “safe for democracy,” though he failed to win congressional approval for American membership in the League of Nations. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to use the medium of radio effectively, and he raised the country’s morale dramatically during the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan (1981–89), known as the “Great Communicator,” employed televised addresses and other appearances to restore the nation’s self-confidence and commit it to struggling against the Soviet Union, which he referred to as an “evil empire.”

Theodore Roosevelt also introduced the practice of issuing substantive executive orders. Although the Supreme Court ruled that such orders had the force of law only if they were justified by the Constitution or authorized by Congress, in practice they covered a wide range of regulatory activity. By the early 21st century some 50,000 executive orders had been issued. Roosevelt also used executive agreements—direct personal pacts with other chief executives—as an alternative to treaties. The Supreme Court’s ruling in U.S. v. Belmont (1937) that such agreements had the constitutional force of a treaty greatly enhanced the president’s power in the conduct of foreign relations.

Woodrow Wilson introduced the notion of the president as legislator in chief. Although he thought of himself as a Jeffersonian advocate of limited government, he considered the British parliamentary system to be superior to the American system, and he abandoned Jefferson’s precedent by addressing Congress in person, drafting and introducing legislation, and employing pressure to bring about its enactment.

Franklin D. Roosevelt completed the transformation of the presidency. In the midst of the Great Depression, Congress granted him unprecedented powers, and when it declined to give him the powers he wanted, he simply assumed them; after 1937 the Supreme Court acquiesced to the changes. Equally important was the fact that the popular perception of the presidency had changed; people looked to the president for solutions to all their problems, even in areas quite beyond the capacity of government at any level. Everything good that happened was attributed to the president’s benign will, everything bad to wicked advisers or opponents. Presidential power remained at unprecedented levels from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, when Richard Nixon (1969–74) was forced to resign the office because of his role in the Watergate Scandal. The Watergate affair greatly increased public cynicism about politics and elected officials, and it inspired legislative attempts to curb executive power in the 1970s and ’80s.

Several developments since the end of World War II have tended to make the president’s job more difficult. After Roosevelt died and Republicans gained a majority in Congress, the Twenty-second Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms of office, was adopted in 1951. Two decades later, reacting to perceived abuses by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Congress passed the Budget and Impoundment Control Act to reassert its control over the budget; the act imposed constraints on impoundments, created the Congressional Budget Office, and established a timetable for passing budget bills. In 1973, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Congress overrode Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Act, which attempted to reassert Congress’s constitutional war-making authority by subjecting future military ventures to congressional review. Subsequent presidents, however, contended that the resolution was unconstitutional and generally ignored it. Confrontations over the constitutional limits of presidential authority became more frequent in the 1980s and ’90s, when the presidency and Congress were commonly controlled by different parties, which led to stalemate and a virtual paralysis of government.

One challenge facing presidents beginning in the late 20th century was the lack of reliable sources of information. Franklin D. Roosevelt could depend on local party bosses for accurate grassroots data, but the presidents of later generations had no such resource. Every person or group seeking the president’s attention had special interests to plead, and misinformation and disinformation were rife. Moreover, the burgeoning of the executive bureaucracy created filters that limited or distorted the information flowing to the president and his staff. Public opinion polls, on which presidents increasingly depended, were often biased and misleading. Another problem, which resulted from the proliferation of presidential primaries after 1968 and the extensive use of political advertising on television, was the high cost of presidential campaigns and the consequent increase in the influence of special interest groups.

ELECTORAL AND PARTY SYSTEM

The electoral and party system of the United States is divided into the state and the local government.

The election process begins with the primary elections and nominating conventions, during which political parties each select a nominee to unite behind. The nominee also announces a Vice Presidential running mate at this time. The candidates then campaign across the country to explain their views and plans to voters and participate in debates with candidates from other parties.

During the general election, Americans go to their polling place to cast their vote for President. But the tally of those votes��the popular vote—does not determine the winner. Instead, Presidential elections use the Electoral College. To win the election, a candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes. In the event no candidate receives the majority, the House of Representatives chooses the President and the Senate chooses the Vice President.

Local government in the United States refers to governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state. Most states have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. In some states, counties are divided into townships. The local government elections are held during national elections. They are done in order to choose a much closer representative.

THE MEDIA

Press

The primary source of newspaper income is advertising – in the form of "classifieds" or inserted advertising circulars – rather than circulation income. However, since the late 1990s, this revenue source has been directly challenged by Web sites like eBay (for sales of secondhand items), Monster.com (jobs), and Craigslist (everything).

Additionally, as investigative journalism declined at major daily newspapers in the 2000s, many reporters formed their own non-profit investigative newsrooms. Examples include ProPublica on the national level, Texas Tribune at the state level and Voice of OC at the local level.

The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the United States are USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Television

Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one. The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), CBS (formerly the Columbia Broadcasting System), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the Fox Broadcasting Company(Fox).

Several Spanish language broadcast (as well as cable) networks exist, which are the most common form of non-English television broadcasts. These networks are not as widely distributed over-the-air as their English counterparts, available mostly in markets with sizeable Latino and Hispanic populations; several of these over-the-air networks are alternatively fed directly to cable, satellite and IPTV providers in markets without either the availability or the demand for a locally based owned-and-operated or affiliate station.

The largest of these networks, Univision, launched in 1986 as a successor to the Spanish International Network. Its major competition is Telemundo (est. 1986), a sister network of NBC (which acquired Telemundo in 2001.

Public television

has a far smaller role than in most other countries. However, a number of states, including West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and South Carolina, among others, do have state-owned public broadcasting authorities which operate and fund all public television stations in their respective states. The income received from the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations also rely on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions.

DirecTV and Dish Network are the major satellite television providers, with 20 and 14 million customers respectively as of February 2014.

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Meanwhile, the major cable television providers are Comcast with 22 million customers, Time Warner Cable with 11 million, and Cox Communications, Charter Communications, AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS with 5–6 million each.

Radio

American radio broadcasts in two bands: FM and AM. Some stations are only talk radio – featuring interviews and discussions – while music radio stations broadcast one particular type of music: Top 40, hip-hop, country, etc. Radio broadcast companies have become increasingly consolidated in recent years. National Public Radio is the nation's primary public radio network, but most radio stations are commercial and profit-oriented.Talk radio as a political medium has also exploded in popularity during the 1990s, due to the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which meant that stations no longer had to "balance" their day by programming alternative points of view. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1970 had limited the number of radio station one person or company could own to 1 AM and 1 FM locally, and 7 AM and 7 FM stations nationally. But due to extensive concentration of media ownership stemming from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, radio companies could own not more than 8 local stations per area market. Most stations are now owned by major radio companies such as iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications), Cumulus Media, Townsquare Media, and CBS Radio. A new form of radio that is gaining popularity is satellite radio. The two biggest subscriptions based radio services are Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, which have recently merged to form Sirius XM Radio. Unlike terrestrial radio music channels are commercial free and other channels feature minimal commercials. Satellite radio also is not regulated by the FCC.During the advent of the internet in the 21st century, internet radio and digital streaming services have been emerged. Among popular brands are Pandora and iHeartRadio. Although, the recording industry also sees Internet radio as a threat and has attempted to impose high royalty rates for the use of recorded music to discourage independent stations from playing popular songs.Arbitron, a consumer research company, provides ratings (similar to the Nielsen ratings) for national and local radio stations in the United States.

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6.1. Historical and cultural landmarks

M.L. King: Civil Rights Act

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and passed additional civil rights legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Vietnam war

Vietnam War, (1954–75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Called the “American War” in Vietnam (or, in full, the “War Against the Americans to Save the Nation”), the war was also part of a larger regional conflict (see Indochina wars) and a manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.

At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam.

The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war.

Nixon: Watergate Affaire

The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the early 1970s, following a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972, and President Richard Nixon's administration's subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement. After the five burglars were caught and the conspiracy was discovered, Watergate was investigated by the United States Congress. Meanwhile, Nixon's administration resisted its probes, which led to a constitutional crisis.

The term Watergate, by metonymy, has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such "dirty tricks" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides also ordered investigations of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as political weapons.

Ronald Reagan: “Star Wars”

Reagan campaigned actively for Nixon in his run for governor of California in 1962 and supported the presidential candidacy of conservative Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, serving as cochairman of California Republicans for Goldwater. In the last week of the campaign, he delivered a 30-minute nationally televised address, “A Time for Choosing,” that The Washington Post described as “the most successful political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with his ‘Cross of Gold’ speech.” Reagan’s speech, which resulted in $1 million in campaign contributions for Republican candidates (the most attributable to any political speech in history), catapulted him onto the national political stage and made him an instant hero of the Republican right.

During his two terms as governor (1967–75), Reagan erased a substantial budget deficit inherited from the Brown administration (through the largest tax increase in the history of any state to that time) and instituted reforms in the state’s welfare programs. As some observers have noted, Reagan’s administrative style as governor was essentially the same as the one he would later adopt as president: he left most of the day-to-day business of government to assistants and department heads, preferring to focus on larger issues of policy and vision. Reagan followed a rigid schedule, which his aides would prepare and type up for him daily.

At the time of the presidential election of 1984, Reagan was at the height of his popularity. Using slogans such as “It’s morning in America” and “America is back,” his reelection campaign emphasized the country’s economic prosperity and its renewed leadership role in world affairs. On election day Reagan and Bush easily defeated their Democratic opponents, Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, by 59 percent to 41 percent of the popular vote; in the electoral college Reagan received 525 votes to Mondale’s 13, the largest number of electoral votes of any candidate in history. With most of the country behind him, Reagan’s prospects in his second term appeared bright. Only two years later, however, he would become embroiled in the worst scandal of his political career, one that would cost him much popular and party support and significantly impair his ability to lead the country.

Reagan’s militant anticommunism, combined with his penchant for harsh anti-Soviet rhetoric, was one of many factors that contributed to a worsening of relations with the Soviet Union in the first years of his presidency. At his first press conference as president, Reagan audaciously questioned the legitimacy of the Soviet government; two years later, in a memorable speech in Florida, he denounced the Soviet Union as “an evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.” (The Soviets responded by saying that Reagan’s remarks showed that his administration “can think only in terms of confrontation and bellicose, lunatic anticommunism.”) The behaviour of the Soviet Union itself also strained relations—especially in December 1981, when the communist government of Poland, under intense pressure from Moscow, imposed martial law on the country to suppress the independent labour movement Solidarity; and in September 1983, when the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner en route from Alaska to Seoul as it strayed over strategically sensitive territory on Sakhalin Island. All 269 people aboard were killed, including 61 Americans. Reagan’s massive military spending program, the largest in American peacetime history, was undoubtedly another factor, though some observers argued that the buildup—through the strain it imposed on the Soviet economy—was actually responsible for a host of positive developments in Reagan’s second term, including a more accommodating Soviet position in arms negotiations, a weakening of the influence of hard-liners in the Soviet leadership, making possible the glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) policies of moderate Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after 1985, and even the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself in 1990–91

George Bush: The Gulf War

In the aftermath of Iraq’s defeat, Kurds in the north of the country and Shīʿites in the south rose in a rebellion that was suppressed by Saddam with great brutality. These actions prompted the allies to prohibit Iraqi aircraft from operating in designated “no-fly” zones over these areas. As the other allies gradually left the coalition, U.S. and British aircraft continued to patrol Iraqi skies, and UN inspectors sought to guarantee that all illicit weapons were destroyed. Iraq’s failure to cooperate with inspectors led in 1998 to a brief resumption of hostilities (Operation Desert Fox). Iraq thereafter refused to readmit inspectors into the country, and regular exchanges of fire between Iraqi forces and U.S. and British aircraft over the no-fly zones continued into the 21st century. In 2002 the United States sponsored a new UN resolution calling for the return of weapons inspectors, who then reentered Iraq in November. Member states of the UN Security Council, however, differed in their opinion of the degree to which Iraq had cooperated with inspections. On March 17, 2003, the United States and the United Kingdom, which had begun to mass troops on Iraq’s border, dispensed with further negotiations, and U.S. President George W. Bush—seeking no further UN endorsement—issued an ultimatum demanding that Saddam step down from power and leave Iraq within 48 hours or face war; he even suggested that if Saddam did leave Iraq, U.S. forces might still be necessary to stabilize the region and to hunt for weapons of mass destruction. When Saddam refused to leave, U.S. and allied forces launched an attack on Iraq on March 20 and thus began what became known as the Iraq War.

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson Clinton (Born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the presidency, he was the Governor of Arkansasfrom 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideologically a New Democratand many of his policies reflected a centrist"Third Way" political philosophy.

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rdPresident of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. Bush was elected President of the United States in 2000when he defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore after a close and controversial win that involved a stopped recount in Florida.

Barack Obama

Born in Honolulu in 1961, Barack Obama went on to become President of the Harvard Law Review and a U.S. senator representing Illinois. In 2008, he was elected President of the United States, becoming the first African-American commander-in-chief. He served two terms as the 44 president of the United States.

Between Inauguration Day and April 29, 2009, the Obama administration took action on many fronts. Obama coaxed Congress to expand health care insurance for children and provide legal protection for women seeking equal pay. A $787 billion stimulus bill was passed to promote short-term economic growth. Housing and credit markets were put on life support, with a market-based plan to buy U.S. banks' toxic assets. Loans were made to the auto industry, and new regulations were proposed for Wall Street. Obama also cut taxes for working families, small businesses and first-time home buyers. The president also loosened the ban on embryonic stem cell research and moved ahead with a $3.5 trillion budget plan.

Donald Trump

Donald John Trump is the 45th and current President of the United States who took office January 20, 2017. Previously, he was a real estate mogul, and a former reality TV star. Born in Queens, New York, in 1971 Trump became involved in large, profitable building projects in Manhattan. In 1980, he opened the Grand Hyatt New York, which made him the city's best-known developer. In 2004, Trump began starring in the hit NBC reality series The Apprentice, which also spawned the offshoot The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump turned his attention to politics, and in 2015 he announced his candidacy for president of the United States on the Republican ticket. After winning a majority of the primaries and caucuses, Trump became the official Republican candidate for president on July 19, 2016. That November, Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States, after defeating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The first 100 days of Trump’s presidency lasted from January 20, 2017 until April 29, 2017. In the first days of his presidency, President Trump issued a number of back-to-back executive orders to make good on some of his campaign promises, as well as several orders aimed at rolling back policies and regulations that were put into place during the Obama administration. Several of Trump’s key policies that got rolling during Trump’s first 100 days in office include his supreme court nomination; steps toward building a wall on the Mexico border; a travel ban for several predominantly Muslim countries; the first moves to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare); and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.

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5.1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL LANDMARKS/CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

-WINSTON CHURCHIL

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (November 30, 1874 to January 24, 1965) was a British politician, military officer and writer who served as the prime minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. Born to an aristocratic family in 1874, Churchill served in the British Army and worked as a writer before earning election to Parliament in 1900. After becoming prime minister in 1940, Churchill helped lead a successful Allied strategy with the U.S. and Soviet Union during World War II to defeat the Axis powers and craft post-war peace. Elected prime minister again in 1951, he introduced key domestic reforms.

Winston Churchill was the prime minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945, leading the country through World War II until Germany’s surrender. Although Churchill didn't initially see the threat posed by Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, he gradually became a leading advocate for British rearmament. By 1938, as Germany began controlling its neighbours, Churchill had become a staunch critic of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement toward the Nazis.

On September 3, 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was appointed first lord of the Admiralty and a member of the war cabinet; by April 1940, he became chairman of the Military Coordinating Committee. Later that month, Germany invaded and occupied Norway, a setback for Neville Chamberlain, who had resisted Churchill's proposal that Britain preempt German aggression by unilaterally occupying vital Norwegian iron mines and sea ports.

-WELFARE STATE

Welfare state is a social system based on the assumption by a political state of primary responsibility for the individual and social welfare of its citizens.

Although fair treatment of citizens and a state provided standard of living for the poor dates back further than the Roman Empire, the modern welfare states that best exemplifies the historical rise and fall of this concept are Britain and the United States. From the 1940s to the 1970s, the welfare state in Britain based off the Beveridge Report took hold, leading to a growth in the government to replace the services that were once provided by charities, trade unions and the church. In the U.S., the groundwork for the welfare state grew out of the Great Depression and the massive price paid by the poor and the working poor during this period.

Britain's system grew despite some spirited opposition by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and it continues today although it frequently needs restructuring and adjustments to keep it from getting too unwieldily. The U.S. never went to the extent of the U.K., let alone somewhere like Germany or Denmark, and Ronald Reagan had much more success than Thatcher in shrinking government. Many people look at the differing economic growth rates of the U.S. and the U.K. throughout periods where the welfare state flourished and floundered to make conclusions on whether it is good or bad for a nation as a whole. While it is true that government is rarely the most cost effective agent to deliver a program, it is also true that government is the only organization that can potentially care for all its citizens without being driven to do so as part of another agenda. Running a welfare state is fraught with difficulties, but it is also difficult to run a nation where large swaths of the population struggle to get the food, education and care to better their personal situation.

-ELIZABETH II

Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain is the longest-reigning monarch in British history. She celebrated 65 years on the throne in February 2017 with her Sapphire Jubilee.Queen Elizabeth II was born Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary on April 21, 1926, in London, to Prince Albert, Duke of York (later known as King George VI), and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. She married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947, became queen on February 6, 1952, and was crowned on June 2, 1953. She is the mother of Prince Charles, heir to the throne, as well as the grandmother of princes William and Harry. As the longest-serving monarch in British history, she has tried to make her reign more modern and sensitive to a changing public while maintaining traditions associated with the crown.On February 6, 1952, Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, died, and she assumed the responsibilities of the ruling monarch. (She and Prince Philip had been in Kenya at the time of her father's death.) Queen Elizabeth’s official coronation took place on June 2, 1953, in Westminster Abbey. For the first time ever, the ceremony was broadcast on television, allowing people from across the globe to witness the pomp and spectacle of the event.

-NORTHERN ISLAND

IRA

Bloody sunday

-MARGARET THATCHER

Born on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, England, Margaret Thatcher became Britain's Conservative Party leader and in 1979 was elected prime minister, the first woman to hold the position. During her three terms, she cut social welfare programs, reduced trade union power and privatized certain industries. Thatcher resigned in 1991 due to unpopular policy and power struggles in her party. She died on April 8, 2013, at age 87. In 1952, Thatcher put politics aside for a time to study law. She and her husband welcomed twins Carol and Mark the next year. After completing her training, Thatcher qualified as a barrister, a type of lawyer, in 1953. But she didn't stay away from the political arena for too long. Thatcher won a seat in the House of Commons in 1959, representing Finchley.

Clearly a woman on the rise, Thatcher was appointed parliamentary under secretary for pensions and national insurance in 1961. When the Labour Party assumed control of the government, she became a member of what is called the Shadow Cabinet, a group of political leaders who would hold Cabinet-level posts if their party was in power.

When Conservatives returned to office in June 1970, Thatcher was appointed secretary of state for education and science, and dubbed "Thatcher, milk snatcher," after her abolition of the universal free school milk scheme. She found her position frustrating, not because of all the bad press around her actions, but because she had difficulty getting Prime Minister Edward Heath to listen to her ideas. Seemingly disenchanted on the future of women in politics, Thatcher was quoted as saying, "I don't think there will be a woman prime minister in my lifetime," during a 1973 television appearance.

-TONY BLAIR

Tony Blair was born on May 6, 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1994, he became the youngest leader of the Labour Party. In 1997, he was sworn in as prime minister of the United Kingdom. He stepped down as prime minister and left his position as leader of the Labour Party in 2007.

Tony Blair assumed several Shadow Cabinet roles before being made Shadow Home Secretary in 1992. In 1994, his and Gordon Brown’s friendship was permanently changed when the Labour leader, John Smith, died suddenly. Tony Blair won the following leadership contest overwhelmingly, having made an agreement with Gordon Brown that, if he didn’t stand, he would become a powerful chancellor should Labour win the next election.

He was seen as a new kind of politician with enormous charisma, arguably the finest opposition leader of modern times – even succeeding in reforming ‘Clause IV’ of the Labour constitution. It was of little surprise when Labour won the 1997 general election by a landslide majority of 179. He officially became Prime Minister on May 1997.

Important constitutional changes happened quickly, with Scottish and Welsh devolution, reform to the House of Lords, the Human Rights Act and a Freedom of Information Act. One of his biggest achievements came in 1998 when the Northern Irish peace process really made progress with the Good Friday Agreement.

-CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

-POPULATION DISTRIBUTION

Towns and countryside

Measurement of the population of England's towns and cities during the 20th century is complicated by determining what forms a separate "town" and where its exact boundaries lie, with boundaries often being moved. The lists are those of the constituent towns and cities, as opposed to those of the district or conurbation. For example, Salford is measured separately to Manchester, and Gateshead to Newcastle. The only exception to this is London for which the measure is that of Greater London. See English cities by population for further discussion.

-ETHNICITY

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5.2. THE POLITICAL SYSTEM, EDUCATION SYSTEM & THE MEDIA

-THE POLITICAL SYSTEM

The constitution

The Crown

King Edward VIII

Edward VIII became King of Great Britain in January, 1936 on the death of his father and abdicated the throne in December of the same year to marry American Wallis Simpson. He is the only British monarch to willingly abdicate. Although given the title Duke of Windsor in 1937, he lived abroad for most of the remainder of his life.

King George VI

George VI became King of Britain upon the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in December, 1936. He was known for his devout religious faith, for working closely with Prime Minister Winston Churchill through World War II and for his role in helping transform the British Empire into the more loosely associated Commonwealth of Nations in the post-war years. A veteran of the British Navy and Royal Air Force, he made regular visits to the troops on several battlefronts, including France and North Africa. Recognizing the heavy toll war took on civilians, George VI regularly visited bombed portions of London and established the George Cross and George Medal to honor civilians who had displayed bravery during war time.

Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II became Queen of England upon her father's death in February, 1952. Prior to becoming queen, she served as a truck driver in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II. Her 1953 coronation ceremony was the first to be televised and broadcast throughout the British Commonwealth and the world. The reign of Queen Elizabeth II continued through the turn of the century to the present. During her reign, she oversaw significant changes to the monarchy, including opening the royal residences to the public, offering to pay income and capital gains taxes in 1992 and supporting changes to policy on male primogeniture and the ban on British royals marrying Roman Catholics. She is known for instituting the "walkabout," in which she informally meets and greets large numbers of British citizens in public.

The Government: executive branch

The executive branch is the part of government with authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state. It executes, or enforces, the law. The idea of separation of powers in a liberal democracy means that there is an executive, legislative and judicial branch, with authority thus distributed among these branches, so as to protect individual liberty in response to the possibility of tyrannical leadership. So, the legislature makes the laws, the judiciary interprets the laws, whilst the executive enforces the law.

That said, the executive branch can be the source of certain types of law, because they are able to make executive decrees or executive orders, and executive bureaucracies can be the source of regulations. So, the executive branch of government consists of leaders of offices, with the top leadership roles including the ‘Head of State’ (the Queen in the UK, a ceremonial position), the ‘Head of Government’ (the Prime Minister in the UK, and the de facto leader), in addition to a defence minister, an interior minister (the Home Secretary in the UK), a foreign minister, a finance minister (the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK) and a justice minister.

In the study of the Government of the UK, we look at the effectiveness of the checks and balances on the power of the executive provided by the legislature (in both the House of Commons and House of Lords) and the judiciary. We also look at how the civil service works with the executive and how the power of the executive itself is balanced with the power of the Prime Minister.

The Parliment: legislative branch

The Parliament of the United Kingdom, commonly known as the UK Parliament or British Parliament, is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and overseas territories.

The parliament is bicameral, consisting of an upper house (the House of Lords) and a lower house (the House of Commons).[4] The Sovereign forms the third component of the legislature (the Queen-in-Parliament).[5][6] The House of Lords includes two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual, consisting of the most senior bishops of the Church of England, and the Lords Temporal, consisting mainly of life peers, appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister,[7] and of 92 hereditary peers, sitting either by virtue of holding a royal office, or by being elected by their fellow hereditary peers. Prior to the opening of the Supreme Court in October 2009, the House of Lords also performed a judicial role through the Law Lords.

The House of Commons

House of Commons, also called Commons, popularly elected legislative body of the bicameral British Parliament. Although it is technically the lower house, the House of Commons is predominant over the House of Lords, and the name “Parliament” is often used to refer to the House of Commons alone.

Liberal government, to compel the Lords to approve the Parliament Act of 1911, which enabled a majority of the House of Commons to override the Lords’ rejection of a bill. Under this act, the House of Lords lost the power to delay legislation passed by the Commons for the raising and spending of revenue; it also lost the power to delay other legislation for a period beyond two years (reduced in 1949 to one year). The act also reduced the maximum duration of a parliamentary session to five years.

Despite its large membership, the chamber of the House of Commons seats only 427 persons. After it was destroyed by a German bomb during World War

II, there was considerable discussion about enlarging the chamber and replacing its traditional rectangular structure with a semicircular design. Among those who argued against this proposal was Winston Churchill, who maintained that a semicircular chamber.

The House of Lords

House of Lords, the upper chamber of Great Britain’s bicameral legislature. Originated in the 11th century, when the Anglo-Saxon kings consulted witans (councils) composed of religious leaders and the monarch’s ministers, it emerged as a distinct element of Parliament in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The House of Lords’ powers are defined in the Parliament Act of 1911 and 1949. Under the 1911 act, all bills specified by the speaker of the House of Commons as money bills (involving taxation or expenditures) become law one month after being sent for consideration to the House of Lords, with or without the consent of that house. Under the 1949 act, all other public bills (except bills to extend the maximum duration of Parliament) not receiving the approval of the House of Lords become law provided that they are passed by two successive parliamentary sessions and that a period of one year has elapsed between the bill’s second reading in the first session and its third reading in the second session.

The electoral party system

The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution, that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracyunder a constitutional monarchy, in which the monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is the head of state while the prime minister of the United Kingdom, currently Theresa May, is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the British government, on behalf of and by the consent of the monarch, as well as by the devolved governments of Scotlandand Wales, and the Northern Ireland Executive. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

The UK political system is a multi-party system. Since the 1920s, the two largest political participation have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.

-THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

Primary and Secondary Education

Higher education

Universities

-THE MEDIA

During the 20th century, the growth of the media was driven by technology, which allowed to duplicate the material. Physical duplication technologies such as printing, record pressing and film duplication allowed the duplication of books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences. Radio and television allowed the electronic duplication of information for the first time.

The history of radio broadcasting begins in the 1920s, and reached its apogee in the 1930s and 1940s. Experimental television was being studied before the 2nd world war, became operational in the late 1940s, and became widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, largely but not entirely displacing radio. About the press, it had a massive impact on the population due to the dependance of people on it to know about the external world.

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UNITS

UNIT 2:

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UNIT 3:

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UNIT 4:

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UNIT 5: https://historyandculturesquad.tumblr.com/post/173355839283/51-historical-and-cultural

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4. The growth of the US. American Industrial Revolution

The initial vestiges of industrialization appeared in the United States in 1790, when Samuel Slater opened a British-style textile factory in Rhode Island. While most historical accounts place the start of the full-scale American Industrial Revolution at either 1820 or 1870, factory labor and entrepreneurial innovation, such as the Slater Mill, were the driving forces of industrialization.

Industrialization was made possible by increases in productivity, capital investment and re-investment, business expansion and the rise of corporations. Economic historian Robert Higgs, in The Transformation of the American Economy, wrote that economic growth was preceded by investment in material capital and by Chief Justice John Marshall's influence in securing private property and contract rights between 1801 and 1835.

CAUSES

Embargo Act of 1807

Of the many factors that led to the Industrial Revolution, two of the biggest and most significant were the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. President Thomas Jefferson set the Embargo Act of 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars. During the Napoleonic Wars, Britain's navy had seized Americans and their cargo to help with their war. In the Chesapeake area, Britain's navy opened fire when they weren't allowed to search one of America's ships. At the time, America was neutral. Despite protests, Britain continued. Later on, they resorted to impressment, forcing American sailors into their army. Thomas Jefferson issued the Embargo of 1807 as a general embargo, restricting trade with all foreign countries, particularly Britain and France. He had hoped that this embargo would devastate Britain and France's economies because they would not receive American goods anymore. He had hoped this would persuade them to respect America's neutrality and stop impressment.

However, the embargo did exactly the opposite. Britain and France's economies continued without any problems. They were unaffected by the embargo. The United States, on the other hand, was devastated. Its economy suffered. There was high unemployment, bankruptcy, and loss of profits. Lack of trade with foreign countries limited their lives because they had to live without many foreign products. With no foreign goods, the people of the United States had to resort to other options -- producing their own goods.

War of 1812

Many factors led to the War of 1812:

Troubles with Native Americans

War Hawks

British aid to Native Americans

Impressment

Foreign nations did not respect America

Native Americans continuously fought with the Americans because of American expansion. Shawnee warrior, Tecumseh, and his brother began to unite Native Americans in order to stop American expansion. The United States could have taken care of just the Native Americans; they were a relatively small threat. However, when Britain provided aid to the Native Americans by providing them guns and ammunition, this was too much for the Americans. At the same time, around 1811, War Hawks began to take a lead in Congress. They favored going to war with Britain because of Britain's lack of respect for America. They wanted British soldiers out of America. They wanted them to vacate their posts. They wanted them to stop providing aid to the Native Americans and to stop the impressment of American sailors. All of these factors angered Congress and the people of the United States.

After the war, everyone began to realize that the United States needed to improve. It showed that they needed a better transportation system and economic independence. Before the war, America greatly relied on foreign countries. Its economy could not prosper without foreign goods. After the War of 1812 and the lack of foreign goods due to the Embargo of 1807, America needed to manufacture its own goods. It needed to be able to support itself. It needed economic independence.

CHANGES IN INDUSTRY

The textile industry, in particular, was transformed by industrialization. Before mechanization and factories, textiles were made mainly in people’s homes (giving rise to the term cottage industry), with merchants often providing the raw materials and basic equipment, and then picking up the finished product. Workers set their own schedules under this system, which proved difficult for merchants to regulate and resulted in numerous inefficiencies. In the 1700s, a series of innovations led to ever-increasing productivity, while requiring less human energy. For example, around 1764, Englishman James Hargreaves (1722-1778) invented the spinning jenny (“jenny” was an early abbreviation of the word “engine”), a machine that enabled an individual to produce multiple spools of threads simultaneously. By the time of Hargreaves’ death, there were over 20,000 spinning jennys in use across Britain. The spinning jenny was improved upon by British inventor Samuel Compton’s (1753-1827) spinning mule, as well as later machines. Another key innovation in textiles, the power loom, which mechanized the process of weaving cloth, was developed in the 1780s by English inventor Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823).

Developments in the iron industry also played a central role in the Industrial Revolution. In the early 18th century, Englishman Abraham Darby (1678-1717) discovered a cheaper, easier method to produce cast iron, using a coke-fueled (as opposed to charcoal-fired) furnace. In the 1850s, British engineer Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) developed the first inexpensive process for mass-producing steel. Both iron and steel became essential materials, used to make everything from appliances, tools and machines, to ships, buildings and infrastructure.

The steam engine was also integral to industrialization. In 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) developed the first practical steam engine (which was used primarily to pump water out of mines). By the 1770s, Scottish inventor James Watt (1736-1819) had improved on Newcomen’s work, and the steam engine went on to power machinery, locomotives and ships during the Industrial Revolution.

ECONOMIC STYLE: LAISSEZ FAIRE

Laissez-faire, (French: “allow to do”), policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society. The origin of the term is uncertain, but folklore suggests that it is derived from the answer Jean-Baptiste Colbert, controller general of finance under King Louis XIV of France, received when he asked industrialists what the government could do to help business: “Leave us alone.” The doctrine of laissez-faire is usually associated with the economists known as Physiocrats, who flourished in France from about 1756 to 1778. The policy of laissez-faire received strong support in classical economics as it developed in Great Britain under the influence of economist and philosopher Adam Smith.

Belief in laissez-faire was a popular view during the 19th century; its proponents cited the assumption in classical economics of a natural economic order as support for their faith in unregulated individual activity. The British economist John Stuart Mill was responsible for bringing this philosophy into popular economic usage in his Principles of Political Economy (1848), in which he set forth the arguments for and against government activity in economic affairs.

Laissez-faire was a political as well as an economic doctrine. The pervading theory of the 19th century was that the individual, pursuing his own desired ends, would thereby achieve the best results for the society of which he was a part. The function of the state was to maintain order and security and to avoid interference with the initiative of the individual in pursuit of his own desired goals. But laissez-faire advocates nonetheless argued that government had an essential role in enforcing contracts as well as ensuring civil order.

The philosophy’s popularity reached its peak around 1870. In the late 19th century the acute changes caused by industrial growth and the adoption of mass-production techniques proved the laissez-faire doctrine insufficient as a guiding philosophy. Although the original concept yielded to new theories that attracted wider support, the general philosophy still has its advocates.

INMIGRATION

During the American Industrial Revolution, there were massive migrational movements. The called "rural flight" (or rural exodus) was the migratory pattern of people from rural areas into urban areas. The terms are used in the United States and Canada to describe the flight of people from rural areas in the Great Plains and Midwestregions, and to a lesser extent rural areas of the northeast and southeast and Appalachia.

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3. Civil War

CAUSES

There are many causes that led to the American Civil War. While slavery is generally cited as the main cause for the war, other political and cultural differences between the North and the South certainly contributed. Below we will discuss some of these differences and how they created a divide between the North and the South that eventually caused the Civil War.

Industry vs. Farming :

In the mid-1800s, the economies of many northern states had moved away from farming to industry. A lot of people in the North worked and lived in large cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. The southern states, however, had maintained a large farming economy and this economy was based on slave labor. While the North no longer needed slaves, the South relied heavily upon slaves for their way of life.

States' Rights:

The idea of states' rights was not new to the Civil War. Since the Constitution was first written there had been arguments about how much power the states should have versus how much power the federal government should have. The southern states felt that the federal government was taking away their rights and powers.

Expansion:

As the United States continued to expand westward, each new state added to the country shifted the power between the North and the South. Southern states began to fear they would lose so much power that they would lose all their rights. Each new state became a battleground between the two sides for power.

Slavery:

At the heart of much of the South's issues was slavery. The South relied on slavery for labor to work the fields. Many people in the North believed that slavery was wrong and evil. These people were called abolitionists. They wanted slavery made illegal throughout the United States. Abolitionists such as John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe began to convince more and more people of the evil of slavery. This made the South fearful that their way of life would come to an end.

Bleeding Kansas:

The first fighting over the slavery issue took place in Kansas. In 1854, the government passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowing the residents of Kansas to vote on whether they would be a slave state or a free state. The region was flooded with supporters from both sides. They fought over the issue for years. Several people were killed in small skirmishes giving the confrontation the name Bleeding Kansas. Eventually Kansas entered the Union as a free state in 1861.

Abraham Lincoln:

The final straw for the South was election of Abraham Lincoln to President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln was a member of the new anti-slavery Republican Party. He managed to get elected without even being on the ballot in ten of the southern states. The southern states felt that Lincoln was against slavery and also against the South.

Secession:

When Lincoln was elected, many of the southern states decided they no longer wanted to be a part of the United States. They felt that they had every right to leave. Starting with South Carolina, eleven states would eventually leave the United States and form a new country called the Confederate States of America. Abraham Lincoln said they did not have the right to leave the United States and sent in troops to stop the South from leaving. The Civil War had begun

REPUBLICAN PARTY: ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854 and famously led by Abraham Lincoln, who served as President from 1861 to 1865. At that time the United States was at a breaking point between a Democratic Party that was fond of the status quo and a Republican Party that wanted America to stand up for human rights.

Abraham Lincoln found himself at the head of a government that was divided amongst itself on how to proceed, given that the southern half of the country was teetering on the edge of secession. Fearing war and in-fighting between countrymen, Lincoln was forced to act first as a strong diplomat and subsequently as a strong military leader. His actions not only changed the course of history for Africans and all future Americans, but for the Republican Party as well.During the leadership of the Great Emancipator, Republicans were considered the liberals of their time. After all, it was they who demanded modernization in terms of labor, land ownership and the rights of human beings. Essentially, the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln promoted the individual freedoms of all men as well as the rights for all to receive a public education. Democrats, at the time, spoke of social progression, but did not act on it.

CONFEDERATE STATES

Confederate States of America, also called Confederacy, in the American Civil War, the government of 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860–61, carrying on all the affairs of a separate government and conducting a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865.

Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of Pres. Abraham Lincoln (November 1860), the seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) seceded from the Union during the following months. When the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), they were joined by four states of the upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia).

The main concern of the Confederate States was raising and equipping an army. The Southern Congress first voted to permit direct volunteering up to 400,000, but conscription was begun in April 1862. The total number of Confederate soldiers is estimated at 750,000, as opposed to twice that many Federal troops. (Confederate population stood at about 5,500,000 whites and 3,500,000 black slaves, as against 22,000,000 Northerners.) In railroads, the South had only 9,000 miles, the industrial North 22,000

CIVIL WAR

The American Civil war started in 1861 and ended in1865. The two sides that fought during the Civil War were the Confederate States (a federal government established by slave states which seceded in response to the election of an anti-slavery president) and the rump United States (those states which didn’t secede). The Confederacy consisted of eleven states: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, plus the Indian Territory (future Oklahoma) and the self-proclaimed Arizona Territory (the southern halves of modern Arizona and New Mexico), plus rump or self-proclaimed secessionist governments and militia from Missouri and Kentucky. Western Virginia broke away from the seceded state and formed first a Union-loyal Virginia government and later the new state of West Virginia.

The end of the war

The Battle of Palmito Ranch, was the final battle of the American Civil War. Their leaders were Theodore H. Barrett (from the Union) and John Ford (from the Confederate States). The Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signed the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith’s surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history.

AFTERMATH OF THE WAR

Lincoln’s murder

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 a.m., in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first American president to be assassinated; his funeral and burial marked an extended period of national mourning.

Abolition of the slavery

Slavery Abolition Act, (1833), in British history, act of Parliament that abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada. It received Royal Assent on August 28, 1833, and took effect on August 1, 1834.

The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former slaves—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” One of three amendments passed during the Reconstruction era to abolish slavery and establish civil and legal rights for black Americans, it would become the basis for many landmark Supreme Court decisions over the years.

Racist laws and organisations

Enacted by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures in the late 19th century after the Reconstruction period, these laws continued to be enforced until 1965. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in 1896 with a "separate but equal" status for African Americans in railroad cars. Public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South after the Civil War. This principle was extended to public facilities and transportation, including segregated cars on interstate trains and, later, buses. Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to those which were then available to white Americans; sometimes they did not exist at all. This body of law institutionalized a number of economic, educational, and social disadvantages. Segregation by law existed mainly in the Southern states, while Northern segregation was generally a matter of fact—patterns of housing segregation enforced by private covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination, including discriminatory labor union practices.

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2.Independence

-FIRST CONFLICTS BETWEEN BRITAIN AND NA COLONIES

The relationship between Great Britain and its North American Colonies began to show signs of strain in the early 1700s. In addition, since their founding, the Colonies had been managing many of their own affairs. The Colonists, as a result, developed a sense of independence. When England began enforcing restrictions on Colonial trade and taking other actions that suggested Colonists did not have the same rights as British citizens in England, the Colonists began to take stock of their own identity and question Great Britain's authority over them.

Great Britain viewed the Colonies as both a source of raw materials, such as lumber, furs, tobacco, sugar and iron, and a market for England's goods, such as silk, linens and tea. The Colonies typically did not sell enough raw materials to England to cover the cost of imports and were expected to make up the shortfall in gold and silver. England profited from this mercantile system while the Colonies accumulated debt.

To increase their profits, Colonial merchants often resorted to carrying on illegal trade, or smuggling, with other countries. England's passage of the Navigation Acts and Staples Act in the 1600s and the Molasses Act in 1733 curtailed the Colonies' ability to trade with other countries and established vice-admiralty courts to punish smugglers. Colonial merchants resented these restrictions, which they saw as prohibitive to carrying on profitable trade.

Beginning in 1764, the British government passed a series of acts designed to assert its authority and raise revenue from the Colonies. The Colonists believed, however, that levying taxes was a right reserved for their representative Colonial legislatures. When the Colonists' opposition to the Stamp Act effected its repeal, they used similar means to oppose the Townshend Acts, this time boycotting British goods and harassing customs officials.

A clash between British soldiers and Boston citizens in 1770 -- known as the Boston Massacre -- claimed the lives of five Bostonians. The Tea Act of 1773 again raised ire among Colonials who destroyed tea shipments in Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party. The British government answered this action with the closure of Boston Harbor and the revocation of Massachusetts' Colonial charter. Instead of inducing subservience, however, each step the British government took to diminish the Colonies' liberties brought them a step closer to war.

Tea tax (Boston Tea Party)

The Tea Act was a movement made by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1773 by which they tried to reduce the amount of tea managed by the British East India Company in order to help it to go out of bankrupt. The Parliament tried to undercut the price of illegal tea. This Act let the Company ship its tea to North America. In there, the company's staff were harassed, and in many colonies successful efforts were made to prevent the tea from being landed. In Boston, this resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, when colonists boarded tea ships anchored in the harbour and dumped their tea cargo overboard.

-FIRST AND SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

First Continental Congress

On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia (which was fighting a Native-American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies) met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to Parliament’s Coercive Acts. The delegates included a number of future luminaries, such as future presidents John Adams (1735-1826) of Massachusetts and George Washington (1732-99) of Virginia, and future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and diplomat John Jay (1745-1829) of New York. The Congress was structured with emphasis on the equality of participants, and to promote free debate. After much discussion, the Congress issued a Declaration of Rights, affirming its loyalty to the British Crown but disputing the British Parliament’s right to tax it. The Congress also passed the Articles of Association, which called on the colonies to stop importing goods from the British Isles beginning on December 1, 1774, if the Coercive Acts were not repealed. Should Britain fail to redress the colonists’ grievances in a timely manner, the Congress declared, then it would reconvene on May 10, 1775, and the colonies would cease to export goods to Britain on September 10, 1775. After proclaiming these measures, the First Continental Congress disbanded on October 26, 1774.

Second Continental Congress

The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the spring of 1775 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774. The Second Congress managed the Colonial war effort and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United States by raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties such as the Olive Branch Petition.

-DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Declaration of Independence, in U.S. history, document that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and that announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. It explained why the Congress on July 2 “unanimously” by the votes of 12 colonies (with New York abstaining) had resolved that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.” Accordingly, the day on which final separation was officially voted was July 2, although the 4th, the day on which the Declaration of Independence was adopted, has always been celebrated in the United States as the great national holiday—the Fourth of July, or Independence Day.

Trumbull, John: Declaration of Independence

Jefferson, Thomas: Declaration of Independence

Trumbull, John: Declaration of Independence 1818; in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C.

Architect of the Capitol

Jefferson, Thomas: Declaration of Independence

Dramatization of events surrounding the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which was written by Thomas Jefferson and approved by the Continental Congress and signed on July 3rd.

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1. First British Colonies

-PRE-HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA

Settlement of the North American continent began at least 15,000 years ago, after the ocean level had dropped to expose a landmass beneath the modern-day Bering Strait. The people who first crossed from Asia into North America were probably small family groups or hunting parties, who came both by foot and in watercraft along the North American coastline. Over the next several thousand years, the descendents of these people developed unique societies across North America with complex political, economic, and religious systems and lifeways adapted to particular local environments.

Archaeologists refer to the earliest North Americans as Paleoindians. What is known about them comes largely from evidence found in caves, as caves offered both temporary shelter for these highly mobile groups and excellent conditions for archaeological preservation. The bones of butchered animals, flaked stone tools, and the remnant

1. Facts:

Prehistoric Shelters - Prehistoric people lived in huts and caves.

They built their huts using the large bones of the giant mammals for frames.

They covered the bone frames with branches and earth.

Prehistoric people had two homes. One home for winter and one home for summer. The winter home was near where the animals grazed in winter. The summer home was near where the animals grazed in summer.

The prehistoric hunters were nomads and followed the mammoths to their grazing lands.

When they were actually out on a hunt, they would camp out.

Prehistoric DNA - DNA findings from the Human Genome Diversity Project show that Native Americans came across Beringia from a homeland in Mongolia. This happened between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago. The DNA also shows that some prehistoric people left North America and went back across the land bridge to Asia.

Among the more popular misconceptions were those holding that the first residents of the continent had been members of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel or refugees from the lost island of Atlantis, that their descendents had developed the so-called Mound Builder culture, and that Native Americans had later overrun and destroyed the Mound Builder civilization. These erroneous and overtly racist beliefs were often used to rationalize the destruction or displacement of indigenous Americans. Such beliefs were not dispelled until the 1890s, when Cyrus Thomas, a pioneering archaeologist employed by the Smithsonian Institution, demonstrated conclusively that the great effigy mounds, burial mounds, and temple mounds of the Northeast and Southeast culture areas had been built by Native Americans.

-NATIVE AMERICANS: SIOUX, APACHE...

-FIRST ATTEMPT: JOHN CABOT

John Cabot, Italian Giovanni Caboto, (born 1450, Genoa —died 1499), navigator and explorer who by his voyages in 1497 and 1498 helped lay the groundwork for the later British claim to Canada. The exact details of his life and of his voyages are still subjects of controversy among historians and cartographers.

In 1496 Cabot made a voyage from Bristol with one ship, but he was forced to turn back because of a shortage of food, inclement weather, and disputes with his crew. In May 1497, however, he set sail from Bristol in the small ship Matthew, with a crew of 18 men. He proceeded around Ireland and then north and west, making landfall on the morning of June 24.

-FIRST ARRIVALS:

Virginia, Jamestown

In 1607, Jamestown became Great Britain's first settlement in North America. The location of Jamestown was chosen due to it being easily defended since it was surrounded by water on three sides. In addition, the water was deep enough for the colonists' ships. Finally, Native Americans did not inhabit the land. The first winter for the pilgrims who settled at Jamestown was extremely hazardous.

The London Company founded Virginia during the reign of King James I (1566-1625).

In 1624, Jamestown was made a royal colony. It had a high mortality rate due to disease, colonial mismanagement, and raids from Native Americans. Because of these issues, King James I decided to revoke the charter for Jamestown in 1624. At that point, there were only 1,200 settlers left out of 6,000 that had arrived there over the years. At this point, Virginia was brought into existence and became a royal colony that included the area of Jamestown.

Pocahontas

Pocahontas is also known as the "Indian princess" who was key to the survival of the early English settlements in Tidewater, Virginia; saving of Captain John Smith from execution by her father (according to a story told by Smith)

During Matoaka’s childhood, the English had arrived in the ‘New World’ and clashes between the colonizers and the Native Americans were commonplace. In 1607, John Smith, an Admiral of New England and an English soldier and explorer, arrived in Virginia by ship, with a group of about 100 other settlers. One day, while exploring the Chickahominy River, John Smith was captured by one of Powhatan’s hunting parties. He was brought to Powhatan's home at Werowocomoco. The accounts of what happened next vary from source to source. In John Smith’s original writing, he told of having a large feast, after which he sat and spoke with Chief Powhatan. In a letter written to Queen Anne, John Smith told the story of Matoaka throwing herself across his body to protect him from execution at the hands of Powhatan.

Virginia Company

The Virginia Company refers collectively to two joint stock companies chartered under James I on 10 April 1606 with the goal of establishing settlements on the coast of North America. The companies were called the "Virginia Company of London" (or the London Company) and the "Virginia Company of Plymouth" (or the Plymouth Company); they operated with identical charters but with differing territories. An area of overlapping territory was created within which the two companies were not permitted to establish colonies within one hundred miles of each other. The Plymouth Company never fulfilled its charter, but its territory was claimed by England and became New England.

As corporations, the companies were empowered by the Crown to govern themselves, and they conferred that right onto their colonies. The Virginia Company failed in 1624, but the right to self-government was not taken from the colony. The principle was thus established that a royal colony should be self-governing, and this formed the genesis of democracy in America.

Black Africans

It is often assumed that black Africans, out of all human populations, most closely resemble our common ancestral state. After all, is not Africa the cradle of humanity ? And did not modern humans spread ‘out of Africa’ some 50,000 or so years ago?

Indeed, we are all offspring of Africa. What is less true is the assumption that evolution stood still there while continuing elsewhere. Yes, some African groups do approximate ancestral Homo sapiens in their mode of subsistence, family structure, and physical appearance. These are the Khoisan and pygmy peoples. They still live by hunting and gathering, are overwhelmingly monogamous, and have light-brown skin and gracile, almost childlike bodies.

But they now inhabit only a few marginal environments, essentially the Kalahari and patches of rain forest. As elsewhere, time has moved on. There have arisen new populations who differ as much from ancestral Homo sapiens as do Europeans and Asians. These are the ‘true’ black Africans.

On the basis of genetic and archaeological data, black Africans seem to have radiated from a relatively small West African and possibly pygmy population within the last 20,000 years.

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3. S.XVIII - XIX

EMPIRE AND SEA POWER - VICTORIAN BRITAIN

The 19th century was one of rapid development and change, far swifter than in previous centuries. During this period England changed from a rural, agricultural country to an urban, industrialised one. This involved massive dislocation and radically altered the nature of society. It took many years for both government and people to adjust to the new conditions.

Strictly speaking, the Victorian era began in 1837 and ended with Queen Victoria's death in 1901, but the period can be stretched to include the years both before and after these dates, roughly from the Napoleonic Wars until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

The British Empire was, at its peak, the largest empire in history; it controlled just short of a quarter of the world's land area and a quarter of the population. There was a saying that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because there were colonies all around the world.

It was primarily a maritime empire; from the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 well into the 20th century Britain was by far the world's greatest naval power ("Britannia rules the waves"), and a great trading nation as well.

The independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies.

HOUSE OF HANNOVER

British royal house of German origin, descended from George Louis, elector of Hanover, who succeeded to the British crown, as George I, in 1714. The dynasty provided six monarchs: George I (reigned 1714–27), George II (reigned 1727–60), George III (reigned 1760–1820), George IV (reigned 1820–30), William IV (reigned 1830–37), and Victoria (reigned 1837–1901). It was succeeded by the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which was renamed in 1917 the house of Windsor.

After the English Revolution of 1688–89, the Act of Settlement of 1701 secured the English crown to Protestants. It made Anne (of the house of Stuart) the heir presumptive; and, if she lacked issue, the crown was to go to Sophia, electress of Hanover (granddaughter of James I), and her descendants, passing over many Roman Catholics in the normal line of succession. The electress predeceased Anne by two months, and the crown went to Sophia’s son, George I. The first two Georges were considered foreigners, especially by many Scots, and in 1715 and 1745 the Stuart claimants—James Edward, the Old Pretender, and Charles Edward, the Young Pretender—vainly attempted to regain the throne. George III, born in England, achieved wider British recognition.

Hanover (an electorate, which became a kingdom in 1814) was joined to the British crown until 1837. In that year Victoria inherited the British crown but, by continental Salic Law, was barred as a woman from succession to Hanover, which went to William IV’s brother, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL REFORMS

Reform bill of 1832

The first significant change to the political system came about with the 1832 Reform Act. This act achieved two main things: It extended the franchise so that more men could vote and In an attempt to make the system fairer, it got rid of some of the differences of the electoral system that existed from region to region.

This Bill was authored by then prime minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, and was introduced into the House of Commons in March 1831 by John Russell; it passed by one vote but did not pass in the House of Lords. An amended Reform Bill passed the Commons without difficulty the following October but again failed to pass the House of Lords, creating a public outcry in favour of the bill. When a third Reform Bill passed the Commons but was thrown out in the Lords on an amendment, Grey in desperation proposed in May 1832 that King William IV grant him authority for the creation of 50 or more Liberal peers—enough to carry the bill in the still-obstinate House of Lords.

William refused, and when Grey threatened to resign as prime minister, the king called in the duke of Wellington to try to form a new government. When Wellington tried and failed, the king yielded to Grey and pledged the authority for the creation of new peers. The threat was enough. The bill passed in the House of Lords (those who objected abstaining), and it became law June 4, 1832.

People´s Charter

This document, written in 1838 mainly by William Lovett of the London Working Men’s Association, stated the ideological basis of the Chartist movement. The Charter was launched in Glasgow in May 1838, at a meeting attended by an estimated 150,000 people. Presented as a popular-style Magna Carta, it rapidly gained support across the country and its supporters became known as the Chartists. A petition, populated at Chartist meetings across Britain, was brought to London in May 1839, for Thomas Attwood to present to Parliament. It boasted 1,280,958 signatures, yet Parliament voted not to consider it. However, the Chartists continued to campaign for the six points of the Charter for many years to come, and produced two more petitions to Parliament.

The People's Charter detailed the six key points that the Chartists believed were necessary to reform the electoral system and thus alleviate the suffering of the working classes – these were:

-Universal suffrage (all adults men over the age of 21, apart from those convicted of a felony or declared insane.)

-No property qualification (By removing the requirement of a property qualification, candidates for elections would no longer have to be selected from the upper classes).

-Annual parliaments

-Equal representation (The Chartists proposed the division of the United Kingdom into 300 electoral districts, each containing an equal number of inhabitants, with no more than one representative from each district to sit in Parliament).

-Payment of the members

-Vote by secret ballot

Liberalism

As an ideology and in practice liberalism became the preeminent reform movement in Europe during the 19th century. Its fortunes, however, varied with the historical conditions in each country—the strength of the crown, the élan of the aristocracy, the pace of industrialization, and the circumstances of national unification. The national character of a liberal movement could even be affected by religion.

In the United Kingdom, the word liberalism can have any of several meanings. However, the derogatory connotation is much weaker in the UK than in the US, and social liberals from both the left and right wing continue to use liberal and illiberal to describe themselves and their opponents, respectively. Historically, the term referred to the broad liberal political alliance of the nineteenth century, formed by Whigs, Peelites, and radicals. This alliance, which developed into the Liberal Party, dominated politics for much of the reign of Queen Victoria and during the years before the First World War.

British liberalism is now organised between two schools; 1 the social liberalism of the Liberal Democrats (member LI, ELDR) and their counterpart the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (member LI, ELDR), 2 and the economic liberalism of the Conservative Party which was adopted in the late 1970s by the late former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher whose fundamental changes to party policy aligned it to classical liberalism with its commitment to low taxation and economic deregulation. In his speech to the party conference in 2006, David Cameron described the party as a "liberal conservative" party, and in a speech in Bath on Thursday 22 March 2007, he described himself as a "liberal Conservative".

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3. The Tudors

-DATES

The Tudors were a Welsh-English family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. They came to power as a result of the victory of Henry VII over Yorkist king Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The Tudor dynasty ended when Henry's grand-daughter Elizabeth I died childless. The Throne passed to their cousins, the Scottish Stuarts, unifying Engalnd and Scotland.

Those are the monarchs that reigned during the tudors period:

-King Henry VII 1485 - 1509 -King Henry VIII 1509 - 1547 -King Edward VI 1547 - 1553 -Jane Grey 1554 -Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary) 1553 - 1558 -Queen Elizabeth I 1558 - 1603

Most important dates:

1485, 22 August: Battle of Bosworth.

1485, 30 October: Henry VII crowned at Westminster Abbey

1486, January: Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York, uniting the two houses and ending the Wars of the Roses

1487, 17 June: Battle of Stoke

1509, 21 April: Henry VII dies and is succeeded by his younger son Henry VIII

1513, 9 September: Battle of Flodden Field

1521, 17 October: the pope grants Henry VIII the title 'Defender of the Faith'

1534, November: act of Supremacy makes Henry head of the English church Henry VIII formed the 'Church of England separating England from the Roman Catholic Church.

1536: the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542 attempted to regularise the relationship between the two nations, by introducing the English legal system in Wales. English became the official language of administration.

1547, 28 January: Henry VIII dies and is succeeded by nine-year-old Edward VI

1553, 6 July: Edward VI dies and is succeeded by Lady Jane Grey

1553, 19 July: Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, becomes queen

1558, 17 November: Mary dies and Elizabeth I accedes to the throne

-Artist and movements

Tudor art was marked by lavish extravagance, as is reflected in Tudor architecture which differed from pre-Tudor architecture in that it emphasised on the use of extensive architectural decorations, multiple chimneys, elaborately designed windows, half-timber work and numerous other embellishing features.

The same trend was reflected in other arts such as the portraiture during the Tudor period in which elaborate iconography was a regular part of the portraits of the nobility. Following England’s break with the Catholic Church during the Tudor period and the subsequent Reformation, religious themes largely became absent from Tudor art and artists frequently experimented with secular themes.

The most relevant artist was the German artist Hans Holbein.

Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

-HENRY VII (NEW MONARCHY)

Henry Tudor was born on 28 January 1457 in Pembroke, Wales. His father, Edmund Tudor, had died two months earlier and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, was just thirteen. He became king the 21 April of 1509.

Edward IV died in 1483, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Woodville (the 'White Queen') a widow. His brother Richard usurped the throne from his 12-year-old nephew Edward V, making himself Richard III. Henry was now the leading Lancastrian claimant to the English crown, and saw his support grow. He promised his supporters that if he became king he would marry Edward IV's daughter, Elizabeth of York; a move that would unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster, the opposing sides in the Wars of the Roses.In 1485, Henry landed at Milford Haven. He marched across Wales and England to meet Richard III's forces at the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire. In the battle Richard III was killed and Henry was crowned King Henry VII at the top of Crown Hill, near the village of Stoke Golding.

Henry VII rebuilt the royal finances by avoiding war, promoting trade and enforcing royal taxes to the point of ruthlessness. This meant he was able to leave a fortune to his son, the future Henry VIII. Henry VII began the work of building a modern administration. The Royal Council was reborn as the Court of Star Chamber, set up to deal with judicial matters. Arrangements were made to promote better order in Wales and the north through the creation of special councils and more powers were entrusted to the justices of the peace. The combined impact of Henry VII's reforms would increase significantly the power of the King and open the way for medieval rule, with its local law and customs, to be gradually supplanted by a more centralised Tudor state.

-HENRY VIII (CHURCH, ACTS OF PARLIMENT, POLITICS...)

Henry VIII was born on 1491 and started his reign on 1509, after Henry VII's death. He was the second Tudor monarch on England and was known for his English Reformation that divided the Church of England of the global Church. After this, he named himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and he was excommunated. He also changed the English Constitution, introducing the Divine Right of Kings, also known as God's Mandate, which asserted that a monarch would not be subjected to any authority. He named Sir Thomas More Chancellor of England and Thomas Cromwell his personal chief minister.

English Reformation in Wales and Ireland (plantation)

Ireland: The Plantation was essentially the settlement of land by people who would be loyal to the English Crown. The land had been seized, or rather deemed to have been abandoned (escheated) when the Irish Earls fled the country, The persons who received land, were called "Undertakers" because they had to undertake certain conditions, including building a house and "bawn" - a fortified barn, and to settle the land with a minimum number of people of the Protestant faith who could become militia in time of troubles. The main Plantation period was from 1610 to about 1630.

Wales: North Wales is a historic plantation and national historic district located in Fauquier County, Virginia near Warrenton, Virginia. Currently it is a 1,287.9-acre (521.2 ha) historic district that includes a manor home and farm. A date of significance for the site is 1776. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

-EDWARD VII

Albert Edward was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. / The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Edward was related to royalty throughout Europe. Before his accession to the throne, he was heir apparent and held the title of Prince of Walesfor longer than any of his predecessors. / As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War.

-MARY (BLOODY MARY)

Mary was the Queen of England and Irelandfrom July 1553 until her death. She is best known for her aggressive attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII. The executions that marked her pursuit of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England and Ireland led to her denunciation as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents.

-ELIZABETH I

Elizabeth I, bynames the Virgin Queen and Good Queen Bess, (born September 7, 1533, Greenwich, near London, England—died March 24, 1603, Richmond, Surrey), queen of England (1558–1603) during a period, often called the Elizabethan Age, when England asserted itself vigorously as a major European power in politics, commerce, and the arts.

Elizabeth Tudor is considered by many to be the greatest monarch in English history. When she became queen in 1558, she was twenty-five years old.

She inherited a bankrupt nation, torn by religious discord, a weakened pawn between the great powers of France and Spain. She was only the third queen to rule England in her own right.

She ruled alone for nearly half a century, lending her name to a glorious epoch in world history. She dazzled even her greatest enemies. Her sense of duty was admirable.

Church laws

The Religious Settlement of 1559 made Elizabeth Supreme Head of the Church. However, she did not give any clear indication as to the direction of her Church and many of the clergy maintained altars and images and they refused to destroy any equipment needed for Mass.

Elizabeth was content to adopt a cautious approach in the early years of her reign. Many Catholic gentry held important positions in local government and she did not want to provoke any negative response so early on. Her formula was simple – if the Catholics were loyal to the Queen and discreet in their worship, she would tolerate them. However, Bishops had been instructed to remove all forms of Catholic practices as witnessed in services by clergy.

In 1563 a set of radical articles was introduced into Convocation that pushed for the removal of all superstition in the Church. There were four principal demands.

1) That the minister in a parish church faced the congregation when he read the Common Prayer and gave divine service.

2) That during baptism, a minister should dispense with the making of the cross on a child’s forehead as this was mere superstition.

3) That those who were unable to kneel during communion should not have to do so if they were aged or sick.

4) No minister should wear anything other than a plain surplice during a service.

Spanish Armada

On 19 July 1588 the Spanish Armada was sighted off the Lizard in Cornwall. A fast English ship conveyed the news and a series of beacons were lit along the coast to spread the warning. The English fleet based at Plymouth attempted to disrupt the Armada's passage and managed to inflict some damage but could not stop it.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 has long been held as one of England's greatest military achievements. The successful defence of the kingdom against invasion on such an unprecedented scale boosted the prestige of England's Queen Elizabeth I and encouraged a sense of English pride and nationalism.

Colonies

Scottish Kirk

Mary Queen of Scots

-JAMES VI

James VI, king of Scotland(1567–1625), was the most experienced monarch to accede to the English throne since William the Conqueror, as well as one of the greatest of all Scottish kings. A model of the philosopher prince, James wrote political treatise such as The Trew Law of a Free Monarchy (1598), debated theology with learned divines, and reflected continually on the art of statecraft. He governed his poor by balancing its factions of clans and by restraining the enthusiastic leaders of its Presbyterian church. In Scotland, James was described as pleasing to look at and pleasing to hear. He was sober in habit, enjoyed vigorous exercise, and doted on his Danish wife, Anne, who had borne him two male heirs.

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2. Vikings and Middle Ages

VIKINGS AND THE BEGGINING OF NORMAN BRITAIN

-VIKINGS INVASION

The Vikings' homeland was Scandinavia: modern Norway, Sweden and Denmark. From here they travelled great distances, mainly by sea and river.

What we call the Viking Age lasted from approximately 800 to 1150 AD. During this period, around 200,000 people left Scandinavia to settle in other lands, mainly Newfoundland (Canada), Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, England, Scotland, the islands around Britain, France (where they became the Normans), Sicily.

At 789 the Vikings begin their attacks on England. The first place the Vikings raided in Britain was the monastery at Lindisfarne, a small holy island located off the northeast coast of England. Some of the monks were drowned in the sea, others killed or taken away as slaves along with many treasures of the church.

In the years that followed, villages near the sea, monasteries and even cities found themselves besieged by these sea-based foreign intruders. Soon no region of the British Isles (Britain and nearby islands) was safe from the Vikings. They attacked villages and towns in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and England.

By 866 the Vikings had arrived in York. They made York (or Jorvik as they called it) the second biggest city in the country after London.

The last major Viking battle took place at Stamford Bridge near York in 1066, but the threat of further Scandinavian invasion, with ambitions to conquer and rule, did not diminish until well after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when William the Conqueror became King of England after the Battle of Hastings.

-KING AFRED. DANELAW.

Alfred became king in AD871 when his elder brother died.

During his reign he was advised by a council of nobles and church leaders. This council was called the Witan.

Alfred made good laws and believed education was important. He had books translated from Latin into English, so people could read them. He also told monks to begin writing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

To help protect his kingdom from Viking attacks, Alfred built forts and walled towns known as ‘burhs’. He also built warships to guard the coast from raiders and organised his army into two parts. While half the men were at home on their farms, the rest were ready to fight Vikings.

Alfred died in 899 and was buried at his capital city of Winchester.

The Danelaw was an area that covered the north and east of England during the 9th and 10th centuries. It was mainly controlled by Danish (not Norwegian) Vikings, and the Dane's law was used to rule the people (hence Danelaw).

The Danelaw area came about because the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were not powerful enough to beat back the arrival of the Danish army under King Guthrum. The only real resistance was by the Saxons, and even they were beaten back at first. The only reason they did not overrun the west was because the Danes were supplied from the east, and the west of England was simply too far for them to get supplies to their army.

This gave the Saxon King Alfred the time to regroup and form an effective defensive army.

-EDWARD “THE CONFESSOR” AND HIS SUCCESSION

Edward "The Confessor" was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. He was born in 1003 and died in 1066. Son of Æthereld "The Unready" and Emma of Normandy, Edward began his reign in 1042, after his brother's death. His deep religious habits made him gain the nickname "The Confessor". He wasn't a vigorous leader, but he was eventually canonized and became St Edward "The Confessor" after his death. This event lead to the dispute for the throne between Earl Harold (friend of the late king), Duke William of Normandy (Edward's first cousin) and Edgard Aetheling. William "The Conqueror" imposed his rule on the new kingdom.

-BATTLE OF HASTINGS

King Harold II of England is defeated by the Norman forces of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings, fought on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, England. At the end of the all-day battle, Harold was killed–shot in the eye with an arrow, according to legend, and his forces were destroyed. He was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

Two weeks before, William, the duke of Normandy, had invaded England, claiming his right to the English throne. In 1051, William is believed to have visited England and met with his cousin Edward the Confessor, the childless English king. According to Norman historians, Edward promised to make William his heir. On his deathbed Edward granted the kingdom to Harold Godwine, head of the leading noble family in England and more powerful than the king himself. In January 1066, King Edward died, and Harold Godwine was proclaimed King Harold II. William immediately disputed his claim.

On September 28 1066, William landed in England at Pevensey, on Britain’s southeast coast, with approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry. Seizing Pevensey, he then marched to Hastings, where he paused to organize his forces. On October 13, Harold arrived near Hastings with his army, and the next day William led his forces out to give battle.

After his victory at the Battle of Hastings, William marched on London and received the city’s submission. On Christmas Day, 1066, he became the first Norman king of England, in Westminster Abbey, and the Anglo-Saxon phase of English history came to an end. French became the language of the king’s court and gradually blended with the Anglo-Saxon tongue to give birth to modern English. William I proved an effective king of England, and the “Domesday Book,” a great census of the lands and people of England. Upon the death of William I in 1087, his son, William, became William II, the second Norman king of England.

MIDDLE AGES

-WILLIAM I

Also known as Guillaume le Bâtard.

He became the first by the first Normand King of England. He was born at Falaise, at 1028 and he died in 1087 in Rouen, the capital of the Normandy. Also, he became Duke of Normandy as William II, and became king of England as William I. He succeeded because of his bravery as a soldier and also, as a rule during the Middle Age. He earned lots of prestige as the mightiest noble in France, due his success during the conquest of England.

-FEUDAL SYSTEM

The Middle Ages are known for their political and military social structure. This was based on the holdings of lands in fief and on the resulting relations between lord and vassal.

This structured the society in this way:

-King & Queen: they possessed all of the power and have a large amount of influence on the people they rule. They only answered to the societal welfare of their people and the roman catholic church.

-Barons: lords and nobels would attend to business matters in relation to his land. Reports would be heard regarding estate crops, harvests and supplies. They would answer to the royal family.

-Knights: the were pardoned by the pope of all past and future sins when they gave service. They were usually utilized or crusades. Also, they had the primary obligation to the roman catholic church and pope and their service relieved them of their sins. They also served the king and queen in war.

-Villeins: they were the majority of the population and the lowest in the feudal system. Life as a pleasant would be very difficult as they had to work as farmers daily. They had an obligation to everyone in a higher feudal class especially their king and queen.

-HENRY II

King Henry II was born the 5 of March of 1133 at France and died the 6 of July of 1189 ar Chinon Castle. He was the son of Geoffrey, Cound of Anjou and Empress Matilda. He was lord of Scotland, Ireland and Wales and Count of Anjou, Brittany, Poitou, Normandy, Maine and Gascony.

His reign falls in a century flanked by the Norman Conquest and Magna Carta. He inherited his father’s duchy and became Duke of Normandy by the age of 18. At 21 he succeeded to the English throne and by 1172, the British Isles and Ireland had acknowledged him as their overlord and he ruled more of France than any monarch since the fall of the Carolingian dynasty in 891. It was Henry who set England on a path to becoming one of the world’s most dominant nations.

He married Eleanor of AquitaineEleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Aenor de Chatellerault. She had previously been the wife of Louis VII, King of France, who had divorced her prior to her marriage to Henry

Henry's carousing chum and chief administrator was a cleric by the name of Thomas a Becket. When the See of Canterbury fell empty in 1162 Henry convinced a very reluctant Becket to become the new Archbishop. Henry, of course, assumed that his friend would be sympathetic to the royal cause in the escalating battle between church and state. At that time anyone in orders could only be tried in church courts. In practice, the number of clerics was huge, including several levels of lay priests and clerks. Henry, anxious to assert the power of royal justice, claimed that the "criminous clerks" should be tried in royal courts. To his surprise, Becket refused to agree.

The Archbishop fled to France after defying Henry. They eventually were reconciled with the aid of the pope, and Becket returned. He immediately infuriated Henry by excommunicating those bishops who had prudently supported the king during Becket's exile. Henry flew into one of his famous rages. Four knights, perhaps seeking to curry favour with the king, rode from Westminster to Canterbury and killed Becket in front of the main altar of the Cathedral when he refused to relent.

-CATHOLIC CHURCH: MONASTERIES, NUNNERIES AND FRIARS

The Church was the single most dominant institution in medieval life, its influence pervading almost every aspect of people's lives. Its religious observances gave shape to the calendar; its sacramental rituals marked important moments in an individual's life (including baptism, confirmation, marriage, the eucharist, penance, holy orders and the last rites); and its teachings underpinned mainstream beliefs about ethics, the meaning of life and the afterlife.

During the Middle Ages, English clergy and laity made important contributions to the life and activities of the Roman Catholic Church. The English church, however, shared in the religious unrest characteristic of the later Middle Ages. John Wycliffe, the 14th-century reformer and theologian, became a revolutionary critic of the papacy and is considered a major influence on the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.

The break with the Roman papacy and the establishment of an independent Church of England came during the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47). When Pope Clement VII refused to approve the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the English Parliament, at Henry’s insistence, passed a series of acts that separated the English church from the Roman hierarchy and in 1534 made the English monarch the head of the English church. The monasteries were suppressed, but few other changes were immediately made, since Henry intended that the English church would remain Catholic, though separated from Rome.

-BLACKDEATH

The Vikings invaded Europe due to the overpopulation in Scandinavia. The high population levels resulted in limited amounts of farm land. These farm lands had to produce an abundance of food in order to sustain the current population. Scandinavians were forced to move into new houses, find new jobs and land. They invaded Scotland, Ireland and Britain.

The people of Scotland, Ireland, and Britain reacted with anger and fear, when the vikings invaded their homeland. Soon the towns and houses of Europe were evacuated. This act prevented the vikings from attacking. The vikings preferred effortless targets, while vacated towns were not as desirable. Once some areas of Europe were attacked, the Vikings began to settle in the attacked areas of town. This frustrated the people of Europe.

The Black Plague was also known as the Black Death. The disease was spread through rodents. The rodents fleas that carried the disease. These rodents roamed the infecting millions of people.

-RICHARD I “LIONHEART˝

1. King Richard was born in Oxford in 1157 but during his 10-year reign he only spent about six months in England.

2. It is not even clear how much English he could speak. His main languages were French and Occitan, which is now the language of Catalonia.

3. His main aim was to recapture Jerusalem from the Moslem forces of Saladin. He failed to do so despite almost bankrupting England in his efforts

-KING JOHN. MAGNA CARTA.

The reign of King John shows what often happened in the Middle Ages when a monarchlost a war – his authority was completely undermined. The barons rebelled and, on 15 June 1215, they forced John to agree to Magna Carta (The Great Charter) - a set of demands by which the barons tried to limit the power of the king to their advantage.

The reign of King John was a turning point in the history of England's government. The barons – successfully – had said 'no' to the king, and made him do as they wanted. The charter only spoke about freemen and not the majority of people who were peasants. No monarch of England ever had unrestricted, or 'absolute', power again and within a century England saw the beginnings of Parliament.

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IRON AGE (800 BD - AD 42) The Celts

-SOCIAL ORGANISATION

The Celts inhabited Great Britain from the British Iron Age to the Middle Ages.

The smallest group in Celtic society was the Fine, an extended family group that included grandparents, parents and their kids and also it could include aunts, uncles... The fine was a unit and also treated as a single person; everything belonged to everyone. For example, if a member broke the law, the whole community was responsible.

A bigger group compared with the fines was the clan, a community who went back many generations made up of several fines. Each clan had a leader, any male could be chosen as long as he had a blood relationship to the clan. Leaders had to be strong warriors and had to be able to work out disagreements with other clans and conduct trade and raid on neighboring clans.

Members of a clan supported each other, one of the major reasons they never developed an empire, as it needed a to have a central governement.

Inside each clan there were three major groups of people: at the top were the nobles, the artisans, in the middle were druid and bards and at the bottom, the peasants.

In religion, the Iron Age Celts had over 400 Gods and Goddesses, including:

-Succelos (the sky god) with a hammer that caused lightning;

-Nodens, who made clouds and rain.

The Celtic religion was closely linked to the natural world and so they believed their Gods and Goddesses lived in places like: lakes, rivers, cliffs and bushes.

The four main festivals of the Celtic year were based around the farming year:

Imbolc - 1st February

Beltane (the beginning of the warm season) - 1st May

Lughnasa (the time for harvesting crops) - 1st August

Samhain - 1st November

The Celts' priests were called druids. They sacrificed: food, precious objects and even people to their Gods and Goddesses to keep them happy.

The Celts also believed that the human soul had an afterlife so when a person died they were buried with useful objects for the journey there (like a: helmet, sword and shield).

-TOOLS

Most of the tools that they used were made of iron, which was discovered accidentally in these regions when some ore was put into a fire and cooled.

Those tools were mostly used in the camp of farming and war.

Many Celts went into battle unprotected by helmets or armour. Instead, the carried long or oval-shaped shields, spears, daggers and long slashing swords made of iron.

-HOUSES

The Celtic tribes lived in scattered villages. They lived in round houses with thatched roofs of straw or heather.The walls of their houses were made from local material. Houses in the south tended to be made from wattle and daub.

Characteristics:

1.The houses had no windows.

2.The roof was made from straw with mud placed on top to keep the warmth in.

3.The houses in the north were made with large stones held together with clay.

4.The Celts would light a fire in the middle of the roundhouse for cooking and heating. It must have been very smoky inside.

5.The smoke from the fire escaped through a hole in the roof.

6.Animals were often kept inside the house at night.

7.A wattle wall confined the animals to one area.

Farmers

Most Celts lived in scattered farming communities surrounded by a bank with wooden fencing and a ditch to keep out intruders and wild animals.Farmers grew wheat and barley, and reared sheep, goats, pigs and cattle.

Celtic Hill Forts

Sometimes groups of houses were built on the top of hills. These are called hill-forts. The largest and most complex Iron Age hill fort in Britain today is Maiden Castle in Dorset.

The vast multiple ramparts enclose an area the size of 50 football pitches!As well as small communities, there were also large settlements and heavily defended forts. Colchester was one such large Celtic settlement.

-SETTLEMENTS

From 600 BC, there was an increasing growth in the number of fortified hilltops settlements, called hillforts, throughout Britain. A hillfort was like a hut, normally built on elevated land, and was surrounded by a moat. Hillforts were normally used in different ways; some were permanent residences while others functioned as emergency refuges and ritual centres.

Although the Celts were perhaps the most powerful people in Europe in 300 BC, they preferred to keep a tribal lifestyle. As a result of this was that they were never able to build a unified kingdom to prevent intertribal warfare.

By 200 BC Britain had all the fundamental characteristics of a Celtic island. There were no real towns and most people lived on hilltops. During this period, the Britons, which were the tribe who had lived during this period, had lived in roundhouses, which were circular houses with roof covering with no windows.

Hillforts became the most important settlements in the south Grampian Mountains. The largest forts were concentrated in the Welsh borderlands and central-southern England and southeast Ireland. In the northwest Grampian Mountains, stone brochs and duns (circular stone towers) were built. In southwest Wales and southwest England, rats,or rounds (small defensive enclosures) were more commonly found.

By the first century AD, Britain was divided into 20 tribal areas, each consisting of several farms and villages. Although these tribes did not speak the same language, they understood each other because their languages were originated from the same Celtic language group. The population of Britain during this time was around 150 000.

After Julius Caesar's first expedition to Britain in 55 BC, tribes from the south of Britain, especially those who often traded with the Romans in Gaul, had closer contact with the Romans.

- OTHER INTERESTING FACTS

1. The name “Celts” is modern

No-one called the people living in Britain during the Iron Age, Celts until the eighteenth century. In fact the Romans called these people Britons, not Celts. The name Celts is a 'modern' name and is used to collectively describe all the many tribes of people living during the Iron Age.

2. They practiced slavery

When a prisoner was taken, or a criminal offered to the victim’s family as restitution for his crime, he was bound to that person or family for life. He had no right of inheritance, was forbidden from taking up arms, and was more or less simply the lowest rung of the sociological ladder. Most of what we know of slavery in Celtic society comes from remnants of law texts from places like Ireland and Wales, so obviously there are pretty massive gaps in the information we’ve got. That said, while you were afforded virtually no rights as a slave held by one of the Celts, the consensus seems to be that treatment was still more humane than slaves of many other cultures throughout history.[19:58, 14/2/2018] Esther UV: 3. Women’s´ rights in celtic society

In the celtic society women were able of owning land, detain power and social status as well as have a divorce if they wanted to. It is also known that celtic women even fight alongside with men.They evan had more rights than in Roman´s society.

4. Red hair gene

It is believed that the gene for red hair might have actually stemmed from the Ancient Celtic populations of the Iron Age. However there is an ongoing controversy because another alternative theory has also been proposed. This alternative theory affirms that the red hair gene is actually a Norse trait. According to this theory the red hair gene was spread in the British isles along with the incursions of the Norsemen during the early Middle Ages.

Regardless of the exact geographic origin, red hair is caused by a genetic mutation, specifically the MC1R gene. Carriers of this gene are mainly found in Ireland and Scotland, where they both account for almost 13% of the total population.

5. The Celts had a progressive view on gender and sexuality

It is widely believed that it was commonplace for men to seek out sexual companionship with their fellow male warriors, and likewise, women practiced free love in Celtic culture, according to historical records from their contemporaries.

6. The Celts built wooden roads (the first roads)

Although Romans are credited for building the first roads in Europe, The Celts actually overtook them at this chapter given the fact that they built a large network of wooden roads in many places throughout Europe several centuries ahead of the Romans. This route of wooden roads would ensure the fact that the Celtic settlements traded with each other.

#unit3

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historyandculturesquad · 7 years ago

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2. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

-GENERAL INFORMATION

Capital city: Washington D.C.

National Independence: July 4th

Motto: “In god we trust”

Largest cities: Jackonsville (2,265 km2), Houston (1,625km2) and Oklahoma city (1,607km2)

Highest point: Denai (on Mt. McKinley, 20,237ft or 6,190m)

Lowest point: Death Valley (in Mojave Desert, Eastern California, -282ft or -86m)

Largest state: Alaska (1,723,337 km2)

Smallest State: Rhode island (4,002 km2)

National Bird: the bald eagle

National anthem: The star-Spangled banner

-PHYSICAL FEATURES

The United States of America (USA), is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2) and with over 325 million people, the United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area and the third-most populous.

The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous and located in North Americabetween Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

-PHYSICAL RELIEF

Mountains:

The three major mountain ranges of the US are:

The Appalachian Mountains: situated along the east coast from northern Alabama to Maine. His highest point is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina (2,037m).

The Rocky Mountains: they form the longest mountain range in North America. They are situated from New Mexico to Canada with 3,000 miles of width. His highest point is Mount Elbert in Colorado (4,401 ft).

Sierra Nevada: it runs north-to-south along the west coast in the state of California and some part of Nevada. It’s around 400 miles long and 70 miles wide. His highest point is Mount Whitney (4,421m)

We can also found other ranges such as: the Adirondacks, the Brooks Range, the Cacade Range and the Ozarks.

Rivers:

The USA has a huge number of rivers, specifically over 250,000 rivers. The most important rivers from North America are:

Brazos (1,351 km): it’s located in Texas. It begins in the north and flows southeast into the Gulf of Mexico.

Churchill (1,609 km): it’s located in central Canada and flows east into Manitoba and on into Hudson Bay.

Colorado (2,333 km): it begins in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado and ends southwest in California.

Columbia (1,857 km): it’s located in the Canadian Rockis of southeast British Columbia and flows south through the State of Washington and ends in the Pacific Ocean.

Mackenzie (4,240 km): longest river in Canada, which flows northwest into Mackenzie Bay.

Missisipi (3,765 km): it’s the major river of North America. It flows from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

Missouri (4,023 km): it starts flowing from sothern Montana in the Rocky Mountains ending in the Missisipi River.

Lakes:

The Great Lakes: they’re located in the states of Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Winsconsin and Canada. They are the five largest lakes in the USA and includes Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Eire and Lake Ontario.

Great Salt Lake: it’s the largest lake in the USA. It’s situated in the state of Utah and as a curiosity, it’s considered to be more salty than the ocean.

Crater Lake: it’s the deepest lake at 595 meters deep. It’s located at the top of Mount Mazama in Oregon.

Lake Tahoe: it’s located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains between California and Nevada.

Lake Okeeochobee: it’s situates in south Florida and it’s one of the most shallow lakes with an average depth of only 2,74 meters.

-CLIMATE

The climate in the us will vary independently in which place you are. The climate mainly is very variable due the dimensions of this country. Actually, the western and the southern have warmer weather compared with the eastern and the northern parts. The eastern and the northern parts have cold winters with heavy snowfalls but in summer are extremely hot compared with cold winters. The western and southern parts have extremely hot summers and tolerable winters.

Mainly, the USA have got 6 different climates, compared with the regions, are very different between them. We can order with:

-Northwest Pacific (from Oregon and Washington to the crest of the Cascade Mountains):

It is considered the wettest country. There is registred to have scattered rain showers all year. The average temperatures are 32.2C. The summer are permanently warm but not too hot. Also, you can found fogs alongside the coast during the summer but these are less dense during.

-Mid/South Pacific Rockies (states like California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada):

Generally this state have dry and delightful summers. Have got excellent weather all year. Also have got not so cold winters and are places where you can freely ski.

-Midwest (states like Dakota, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana):

This region is considered as a dry. Precipitations are frequent in the late spring and early summer. Summers are enjoyable but winters are harsh with lots of winds, which can derivate to an extremely cold weather

-Northeast (includes states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland):

This place is moderately rainy. In winter, it experiences snow and freezing rain, summers are pleasant summers, sunny and warm. The winters are quite beautiful into the wooded areas.

-Southeast (includes states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Viriginia):

Is more or less like the Northeast which suffers moderate rains within the whole year. The Spring, Summer and Autumn are very pleasant to stay here. Winter are freezing and mild. Mainly, this country have got excellent weather the whole year.

-Southwest (includes states like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana):

It is considered the hottest and the most possible to get rainfalls of the USA. Is the place where occur more storms, thunders and rarely, tornadoes. Winters are short and will occur some freezing rains. The fall seasons are longer and generally are more confortable. The summers are really hot and very annoying.

-ECONOMY

Agriculture:

American agriculture is marked by several trends. The first is the continuing decline of small family farms. Since 1979, 300,000 small farms have disappeared in the United States, and since 1946 the number of people employed in agriculture has been cut in half. Increasingly, large companies such as Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM) have come to dominate American agriculture.

In 2000, ADM had worldwide sales of $12.9 billion. In the beef industry, 4 firms control 80 percent of the U.S. market. Almost 91 percent of U.S. farms are considered to be small (less than 1,000 acres). Large farms (more than 1,000 acres) made up just 9 percent of farms but received 51 percent of total agricultural revenues in 2000. The second trend is the increasing productivity of the sector. Agricultural production in the United States has increased by an average of 5 percent each year since 1990.

In addition, the output of each agricultural worker has grown by an average of 0.84 percent each year. On average, one American farmer produces enough food for 96 people. This improvement is partially as a result of the consolidation of farms and partially a result of new technologies and farming methods. The third trend is the growth in both exports and imports. In 1998 total agricultural exports were $60.5 billion. That same year, total imports were $48.9 billion. The fourth and final trend is the loss of agricultural subsidies . Some of these subsidies are in the form of outright payments in exchange for farmers not growing certain crops and are provided to keep the price of crops high.

Since the early 1990s, Congress has gradually reduced these subsidies. However, support and aid for certain types of farmers, including tobacco farmers, continues. After declining to a low point of $9 billion in 1997, government spending on agriculture increased to $23 billion in 1999 and $38.4 billion in 2000. The increases mainly came from emergency aid to farmers because of natural disasters during these 2 years.

#unit2

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historyandculturesquad · 7 years ago

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1. THE BRITISH ISLES AND IRELAND

Explain the differences between British Isles, United Kingdom and Great Britain.

-COUNTRIES

Flags of each country:

-Scotland

1. Flower: The thistle

2.Animal: The unicorn

3.Colour: blue and white

4.Patron saint: Saint Andrew

-Wales

1.Flower: Daffodil

2.Animal: The red dragon

3.Colour: Green and white

4.Patron saint: Saint David

-England

1.Flower: The rose

2.Animal: Barbary Lion

3.Colour: Red and white

4.Patron saint: Saint George

-Northern Island

1.Flower: Flax Flower

2.Animal: None

3.Colour: blue

4.Patron saint: Saint Patrick

-Republic of Ireland

1. Flower: Clover

2.Animal: Red deer

3.Colour:

4. Patron saint: Saint Patrick

-Channel island

1. Flower:

2.Animal: Crapauds

3.Colour: White and red

4.Patron saint: St. Heiler

-Isle of man

1. Flower: Cushag

2.Animal: None

3.Colour: White and red

4.Patron saint: St. Maughold

Explain the name Union Jack:

It is the popular name that people from Britain has given to the flag from Great Britain. The union Jack is a mixture of England, Scotland and Ireland flags.

-MAPS

The United Kingdom (UK) is a country located in the northwest of Europe. It is formed by England, Scotland, Wales and North Ireland. The British Isles are the set of islands that make up the United Kingdom (Great Britain, Ireland, The Channel Islands, The Isle of Mann, The Isles of Scilly and about 6,000 more). On a geographic level, we call Great Britain the biggest of the British Isles.

Regions:

Scotland. It is United Kingdom’s northern region. It is well known for its lakes (lochs), especially for the Loch Ness.

North East. It has famous sights, such as North York Moors and Bamburgh Castle.

North West. Its most famous city is Liverpool, known for its football team and musical history.

Yorkshire and the Humber. It is known for its historical buildings, such as Oakwell Hall and Hazlewood Castle.

Wales. It is popular for Conwy Castle and Cardiff Castle. It is also iconic the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

West Midlands. Its most famous point of interest is Coventry Cathedral.

East Midlands. It is known for its caves and the Peak District, a national park.

Eastern. Well known for Cambridge’s University and its gothic chapels.

South West. It is a mainly rural region. Its coastline goes along the Bristol Channel and the English Channel.

London. It is United Kingdom’s capital. It has many iconic references, such as the Big Ben, the London Eye and many museums, such as the Tate Modern Museum or the National Gallery.

South East. It is known for its rolling countryside, its White Cliffs overlook the English Channel.

Northern Ireland. It is famous for its Celtic and Christian monuments. It is a region surrounded by mountains and glacial valleys are common.

Main cities in the UK and Eire

These are the most popular cities in the United Kingdom. Edinburgh is Scotland’s capital, Cardiff is Wale’s one. Northern Ireland’s Belfast and England’s London. United Kingdom’s capital is London.

-PHYSICAL FEATURES

Area, distances, population UK

-PSYSICAL RELIEF UK AND IRELAND

Highland and low-land britain

Britain is unpredictable in climate and varied in scenery. The most precise distinction is geological. The rocks of most of the north and west of Great Britain are harder and older than those of the south and east. These older rocks are covered by large areas of moorland such as the Lake District, the Pennies and much of Scotland and Wales, where the soils are poor, thin and stay.

In addition, these areas are wetter and harder to reach than the lower land to the south and east. As a result, these areas of the British Isles are tiny populated except where coal or iron have been discovered. Most of the coalfields which were the home of the industrial revolution, lie along the dividing line between highland and low Britain.

The south and east are rarely flat, but instead of high continuous moorland there are bands of hills which alternate with areas of lowland. The scies are generally deeper and richer, and the climate is drier and better suited for farming. Industry benefits from easier communications. Thus human settlement in these areas in dense and more everly spread.

Mountains

Highest mountains in Scotland:

Ben Nevis (1344 m)

Ben Macdui (1309)

Braeriach (1296)

Highest mountains in Wales:

Snowdown (1085)

Carnedd Llewelyn (1064)

Glydes Fawr (1001)

Highest mountains in England:

Scarell Pike (978)

Helvellyn (950)

Skiddaw (931)

Highest mountains in Norther Ireland:

Shieve Donard (850)

Shieve Commedash (767)

Shieve Binnian (747)

Rivers

Rivers in England:

The Thames

The Tyre

The Mersey

The Severn

The Trent

Rivers in Ireland:

Shannon

River Barrow

Blackwater

River Bann

-CLIMATE

To have a preview, the British Isles are located in the temperate climatic zone and the sea is a reason which causes atmospheric instability. So, this means that depends in which area you are, you will have a different climate. Mainly, the British Isles have four types of climate, which have got slightly differences between them.

The British Isles have a mild climate constantly changing, with lots of rainfalls. Due the factors such as ocean currents, the altitude or the prevailing winds, the climate temperatures are affected for this reason. British Islands have got four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Obviously, winter is the coldest season and the summer is the hottest. Spring starts on March and finishes on May, Summer starts on June and finishes on August, Autumn starts on September and finishes on November and winter begins on December and lasts until February. During this seasons, the British Isles undergo constant rainfalls which will vary between the different parts of the Isles.

To understand why the weather is so irregular, is due the different air masses we can found all over the Isles. Each air mass gives a different effect to the place where is placed, giving them specific characteristics.

A definition of what an air mass is that some of prevailing winds which are dominant leads the wind direction in a specific area. Also, we should keep into account that the temperature of the wind is very important to determinate how strong will be a rainfall and also to determinate where the air has come form. The British isles have four air masses, each one with unique characteristics:

-Polar maritime, which gives cool and wet weather, coming from the North.

-Artic, which gives cold and quite dry weather, coming from the East.

-Tropical Maritime, which gives warm and wet weather, coming from the West

-Polar Continental, which gives cold and dry weather, coming from the South

The North-west, has got cool summers, mild winters and normally rains heavily all years

The the North-east, has got normally cool summers, cold winters and rains steadily the hole year

At the South-east, has got warm summers, mild winters, and also rains lightly the hole year, especially in summer.

At the South west, has got warm summers, mild winters, and also rains heavily the whole year, especially on winter.

-ECONOMY

Agriculture:

Agriculture in the British Isles is mostly based on the South West and East Anglia, but it occurs also in most rural locations.

The total area dedicated to agriculture is about 171,00 km. Instead, in Wales and in Scotland the 80% of farmland is designated as a “less favoured area”. Because of this, most of these lands are dedicated to sheeps and dairy farming. In England, lands are more dedicates to livestock farming.

Pastoral farming more (livestock farming) is mostly dedicated to cattle, sheeps and pigs. There are or less 17.000 dairy farms in the UK, mostly in the west; 41,000 farms that produce sheep and 4,600 farms of pigs. We can also find animals as goats (73,000), which are used mainly as milk producers.

Main energy resources:

The British Isles uses mainly energy resources such as coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil sources, renewables and gas. Nowadays, the English government is aiming to use more renewable energy sources (such as wind, solar and wave energy). Their target for 2020 is to produce a 15% energy from renewables. To help raising renewable energy, the government has decided to subside this kind of energy.

Main industry:

The industry in the BI is the sixth largest national economy in the world.

In one hand, they export goods such as manufactured goods, fuels, chemicals, food, beverages and tobacco. The main export partners of the British Isles are USA, Germany and Switzerland. In the other hand, the main imports are machinery, fuels, manufactured goods and foodstuffs. These are mainly imported from Germany and China.

The principal sectors of industry are: intensive agriculture, which produces about 60% of food needs; construction, which has improved due to the construction project of the “Crossrail” and finally, production industries where we can find electricity, manufacturing and mining.

Although, service industries have raised nowadays and It has become the dominant sector of the economy. Here we can find creative industries, education, health, social work, business services and tourism.

#unit2

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