Photo: american-picturesVocabulary Exercise. Click here.
19 February 2009
8 February 2009
A Glimpse on the USA - Project
Photo: marinifamily.files.wordpress.comJuly Fourth
July Fourth is the birthday of the United States. It is a national holiday. Another name for July Fouth is Independence Day.
Americans celebrate July Fourth as Independence Day because on July 4. 1776, the original thirteen colonies declared their independence from England.
Before 1776, the King of England ruled the thirteen colonies in America. The colonists were angry with the King because of taxes. They wanted their independence from England. A war started in 1775 between the colonists and soldiers from England. The colonists won the war. They wanted to say why they wanted their independence or freedom from England. So they chose Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence.
On July 4, 1776, the leaders of the colonies signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It said that all people were equal and had the right to live in freedom. A new nation was born, People rang bells and fired guns for the birth of the United States of America.
Today, July Fourth is celebrated in many different ways.
During the day, many people get together with friends and family members for picnics. Many cities have parades with bands in the streets. At night there are noisy fireworks. These beautiful fireworks of different colors light up the sky all across the country.
Armin
Photo: all-inspirational.com
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth president of the United States. He was president from1901 to 1909. He was a very intelligent man. Theodore was a boxer, a soldier, a rancher, and an explorer.
He was not strong when he was a boy. He had problem with his breathing. Roosevelt had asthma. His father wanted him to be strong. After he became president, Roosevelt kept his body strong. One day, another boxer hit him in the eye. After that accident, Theodore became blind in one eye. His nickname was “Teddy”. When he was president, he often went hunting. One day he went hunting with some friends and saw a small bear. He did not shoot the bear and he said, the little bear must go free.
The next day the story of the small bear was in the newspapers. Soon people called toy bears for children “teddy bears”.
Then he went to South America to explore places that nobody knew about. Everybody loved energy.
Teresa
Photo: sonofthesouth.netAbraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States. He was born in Kentucky in 1809. His family was very poor. He didn’t go to school. When Lincoln was a little boy, he worked on his family’s farm and taught himself to read and write. Later, Lincoln studied law and he became a lawyer. After that, he became a politician.
Everybody liked Abraham Lincoln because he was intelligent and hardworking. He wanted to be good at everything he did. He said that he wanted to win the “race of life”.
Lincoln became president in 1860. In 1861, there was a war between the North and de South of the United States. The people in the South wanted a separate government from the United States. The North wanted the United States to stay together as one country. Lincoln was the leader of the North. In the war, brother killed brother. The Civil War was four years long. The North won the Civil War. The war ended on April 9, 1865. Six days later, President Lincoln and his wife went to the theater. Inside the theater, a man went behind the president and shot him in his head. The man’s name was John Wilkes Booth. He was a supporter of the South. Lincoln died the next morning.
Melanie
Klick on the photo to enlarge and read the text.Photo: infinitygoods.files.wordpress.com
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was a black clergyman from Atlanta, Georgia. When King was a child, he learned that black people and white people did not mix in public places. Black and white children went to different schools. This kind of separation is called segregation. He was a good student and went to college at a young age. He was only fifteen years old, when he finished college, he began to fight segregation. He did not believe in violence. He helped black people to protest in peace. King also wanted equality for everybody. He wanted black and white men and women to have an equal chance in the United States. This is called the civil rights movement. In 1963, King was the leader of the civil rights march on Washington, D.C. Thousands of people listened to his famous speech. It begins, “I have a dream.” In 1968, an assassin killed King. He was only thirty-nine years old. His birthday, Janury 15, is a national holiday in the United States.
Mihriban, Monika
clergyman – Pfarrer
public – öffentlich
separation – Trennung
segregation – Rassentrennung
violence – Gewalt
equality - Gleichberechtigung
civil rights movement – Bürgerrechtsbewegung
speech – Rede
Nobel Peace Prize – Friedensnobelpreis
award – Auszeichnung
assassin - Auftragskiller
Photo: upload.wikimedia.org
Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore is mountain in the state of South Dakota.
The faces of four American presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt – are carved into the mountain.
These faces, known as the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, are the largest carved figures in the world. The memorial is the work of the sculptor Gutzon Borglum. The state of South Dakota chases Borglum for the job because he was famous for his huge statues. But, even for Borglum, this memorial was a challenge. Borglum began work in 1927. The only way to get up the mountain was on foot or horseback. And Borglum and his helpers hat to make the trip hundreds of times just to bring up the equipment they needed. Borglum had prepared a smaller model of the faces. Workers then used drills and dynamite to remove rock and create the faces. The Mount Rushmore Memorial took fourteen years to complete. Borglum died shortly before it was done. His son finished to work. Finally, in 1941 the memorial was opened to the public. People were amazed. The faces of the presidents looked so real, and the are about sixty feet high.
Franzi
Photo: oneworldnews.files.wordpress.com
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is a building in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. It has the offices of the U.S. Department of Defense. The Department of Defense includes the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard.
The word pentagon comes from the Greek penta, which means “five”. A pentagon is a figure with five sides. The Pentagon has five rings. The rings are inside each other. Each ring has five sides. The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world. It has seventeen miles of halls. People can get lost in the Pentagon. So the walls on each floor are a different color (brown, green, red, gray, and blue). This helps people to know where they are. There are also many maps in the halls!
The Pentagon is so big that it is like a city. Almost 30.00 people work there. The Pentagon has its own doctors, dentists, and nurses. It has its own banks and stores. It has a post office, a fire department, and a police department. It also has an important center for communications. This center guards the country. It is hundreds of feet under the ground. The Pentagon even has its own radio and TV stations.
Niki
The Government of the United States
The American President is one oft the most powerful men in the world.
He can make war or peace .
He can touch the lives of millions in many different countries. But the President cannot do just what he wants.
The Congress must agree first. In some ways, the United States is like fifty small countries and not one large one.
Every state has its own governot, its own police, and its own laws.
The government of the whole country works from Washington, the capital city. Congress has two parts, the Senate an the House of Representatives. Like the senators, they can make new laws. Americans choos a new President every four years. In America the President is the Head of State. He makes the most important devisions and chooses the members of his cabinet who will help him to govern the country.
Stefanie
The White House
Originally the White House was grey and was called the Presidential Palace.
The architect James Hoban won a contest which was held to pick a design for the president’s home. The president’s home was an important part of the plan. President Washington never lived in the Presidential Palace. The first president who lived there was John Adams and his wife. Mrs. Adams often complained about the cold in the Presidential Palace. Fifty fireplaces were not enough to keep the building warm. In war the British army destroyed the Presidential Palace. After the war James Hoban rebuilt the Presidential Palace in white.
Albert, Sebastian
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