The United States of America

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The United States consists of a federation of fifty states, forty-eight of which are on the mainland, the other two are Alaska, which lies north west of Canada and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
The landscape of the USA is varied; there are forests, deserts, mountains and plains. The three main mountains are the Pacific Range and the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east.The highest peak is Mt. McKinley in Alaska. It is 6,194 metres high.
The central part of the country is a vast plain crossed by two of the longest rivers in the country: the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers.
The USA is rich in lakes. the largest are along the Canadian border and are called the Great Lakes. They are Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
You can find every kind of climate on this territory. There is an arctic climate in Alaska and a subtropical climate in Florida.
The USA is often called "The Melting Pot" of the world. In fact, there are about 250 million Americans of different races.
The American flag has 13 stripes, which represent the original 13 states that forrmed the United States and 50 stars , the number of states which form the present federation.
The major languages are American-English and Spanish.

Homework

Copy, read and answer the questions under the map.

planning a school trip

planning a school trip

london foto 2

A WONDERFUL CITY

BIG BEN

Itinerary

 

A Great 3 Days Visit to London

Exploring London in 3 days would allow you to see its major landmarks an  attractions in a pleasant pace. Visit beautiful churches such as St. Paul's Cathedral along with some of the more important museums of Western Europe such as the National Gallery and the British Museum. Learn about the history of our planet in the Museum of Natural History and take some rest in one of the pleasant parks. If you are looking for the perfect 3 days itinerary that covers all of London's important attractions then this is this plan for you.

 

St. Paul's Cathedral

This landmark cathedral was designed by Christopher Wren and construction took 36 years until its completion in 1711. However there were five previous churches which stood on this site, the first dating back to 604AD.

National Gallery At this museum you can see the country's collection of 13th to 19th century Western European paintings. The museum first opened its doors in 1824 during the reign of King George IV.

British Museum

This museum has been open to the public for 255 years; the collections span more than two million years of human history from a number of cultures and include about 8 million pieces. The museum covers Egypt and Sudan; Greece; Rome; Middle East; Prints; Drawings; Prehistory; Europe; Asia; Africa, Oceania.

Natural History Museum

This museum is dedicated to life, nature and science, it holds more than 70 million items and covers botany, mineralogy, paleontology, zoology and entomology. The huge and rich collection has been built up over many years with some items having been collected by Charles Darwin.

The Great Gatsby

The great depression and the new deal

After the first world war a serious economic crisis struck the USA. The crisis was mainly due to overproduction: the abundant harvest of autumn 1929 caused prices of agricultural produce to fall, leaving many farmers in poverty. Besides, a lot of industrial products were offered on the market but workers couldn't afford to buy them because their salaries were very low. All this led to a situation of chaos which culminated in the so-called Wall Street Crash on October 24th, 1929. In only a few days financial investors lost all the money, prices went down, industrial production was greatly reduced, lots of farmers had to sell their properties and factories closed down. This crises was called "the great depression" and lasted 10 years.

The president F.D. Roosevelt tried to solve the crises with a policy based on vast spending of public money on important warks, such as dams, roads and other projects. His policy was called the "New Deal".

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the summary of the Jazz Age (a term he coined). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Born in Minnesota, Fitzgerald spent the first decade of his childhood primarily in New York. His parents, both devout Catholics, sent Fitzgerald to two Catholic schools and then to Newman Academy.  After graduating in 1913, he decided to stay in New Jersey to continue his artistic development at Princeton University where he firmly dedicated himself to improving his craft as a writer. There he became friends with future critics and writers.
Fitzgerald made several journeys to Europe and mostly in Paris where he met Ernest Hemingway. In 1917 he joined the army and in June 1918 he fall in love with Zelda Sayre.

Although Fitzgerald's passion lay in writing novels, only his first novel sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda adopted as New York celebrities. (The Great Gatsby, now considered to be his masterpiece, did not become popular until after Fitzgerald's death.) Because of this lifestyle, as well as the bills from Zelda's medical care for the schizophrenia that struck Zelda in 1930, Fitzgerald was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans to his friends.
Fitzgerald had been an alcoholic since his college days, and became notorious during the 1920s for his extraordinarily heavy drinking, leaving him in poor health by the late 1930s.He died at age 44  of a heart attack.

"The Great Gatsby" 

Author	F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cover artist	Francis Cugat
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Published	10 April 1925 (Charles Scribner's Sons)

The Great Gatsby is considered to be F.S. Fitzgerald’s famous novel. It is a summary of the “roaring twenties”, a devastating exposé of the “jazz age” and a work of great originality.

It tells the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby who lives in a luxurious house on the Long Island shore whose big and glittering parties have become legendary on the island. The narrator of the story: Nick Carraway has a house near Gatsby house, while Nick’s cousin: Daisy and her wealthy husband: Tom Buchanan live across the harbour. Gatsby reveals to Nick that he had a love story with Daisy before the war and her marriage, and the reason of all the glittering parties was his desire to meet her again.

The plot brings out Fitzgerald’s central theme of the dark surrounding the brightest light, the shallowness of many human friendship. It is a portrait of wealthy American society of “roaring twenties”.

Written in an easy style, it is now considered a classic of American literature from the period following the First World War, and is one of the great novels of the twenty century.

Winston Churchill

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/winston_churchill

WINSTON CHURCHILL

 

Famous Prime Ministers

The Prime Minister is the most powerful person in Great Britain from a political point of view: he/she appoints the Government and is responsible for its policy. He is responsible for a wide range of tasks, from awarding honours and titles up to taking decisions concerning the armed forces and Church.

Sir Winston Churchill

Everybody knows what the “V for victory” sign means, but not everybody knows who invented it and made it famous all over the world, using it as a weapon against his country’s enemies every time he appeared in public.

Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of Britain during World War II. A famous statesman and orator, Churchill was also a historian and a writer, he was even awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Churchill was the first to recognize the threat Hitler posed to the world, but his warnings were largely ignored. He refused to compromise with Nazi Germany and would not agree to an armistice with Hitler.

Churchill supports his people

When he spoke in public, he was inspiring. In his famous first speech as Prime Minister he declared: “I have nothing to offer but blood, tears, toil and sweat”. He then gave the “V-sign” as a symbol of British resistance to German bombing.

The Alliance

During the war Churchill’s relationship with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt guaranteed Britain food supplies, oil and ammunition without any payment. The two statesmen kept on working together  to defeat Hitler and the Nazis.

After the victory against Germany Churchill announced to the nation that Germany had surrendered. “This is your victory” he told the huge crowd and the people responded “No, it is yours!”

After the War

At the Yalta Conference, together with his good friend Roosevelt and Stalin, Churchill had the honour of defining the new post-war order  and deciding the future course of world history.

In 1951 he again became Prime Minister and witnessed many foreign crises, as well as the final decline of British Empire.

Today Churchill’s statue stands in Parliament Square in London.

LONDON

SCHOOL TRIP TO LONDON