On July 4, Americans have holiday from work. People have day-long picnics with favorite foods like hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, baked beans. Lively music is heard everywhere. People play baseball or compete at three-legged races. or pie-eating or water-melon-eating contests. Some cities have parades with people dressed as the original founding fathers who march to the music of high school bands. In the evening people gather to watch firework displays. Wherever Americans are around the globe they will get together to celebrate Independence Day.
Thanksgiving
In1620, a religious community sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World. They settled in what is now known as the state of Massachusettes. Their first winter in America was difficult. They arrived too late to grow a rich harvest. Moreover, half the colony died from desease. The following spring the Iroquois Indians taught them how to grow corn. Indians showed them also how to grow other crops and how to hunt and fish.
In the autumn of 1621 they got a beautiful harvest of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins. The colonists had much to be thankful for, so they planned a feast. Local Indian chief and ninety Indians were present. The colonists learned from Indians how to cook cranberries and dishes of corn and pumpkins.
In following years many of the colonists celebrated the harvest with a feast of thanks. After the United States gained independence, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for the whole country. Later, George Washington suggested the date November 26 as Thanksgiving Day. Then, after the civil war, Abraham Lincoln suggested the last Thursday in November to be the day of thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving Day, family members gather at the house of an older relative, even if they live far away. All give thanks for everything good they have. Charitable organization offer traditional meal to the homeless.
Food, eaten at the first thanksgiving, have become traditional. The traditional thanksgiving mean consists of roast turkey stuffed with herb-flavoured bread, cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie. Other dishes may vary as to region: ham, sweet potatoes, creamed corn.
Christmas
Christmas is Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. No one knows the exact date of Christ’s birth but most Christie celebrate Christmas on December 25. People in the United States decorate their homes with Christmas trees, wreaths and ornaments. City streets are filled with colored lights; the sound of bells and Christmas carols can be heard everywhere.
Children write letters to Santa Claus and tell him what presents they would like to get. Many department stores hire people to wear a Santa Claus costume and listen to children’s reguests. People send Christmas cards to relatives and friends.
A Christmas tree is one of the main symbols of Christmas in most homes. Presents are placed under the tree. On Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, families open their presents. Some children hang up stockings so Santa Claus can fill them with candy, fruit and other small gift.
In many parts of the United States groups of people walk from house to house and sing Christmas carols. Some people give singers money or small gifts or invite them for a warm drunk.
Many people attend church services on Christmas Eve or Christmas moning. They listen to readings from Bible and singing Christmas carols.
A traditional Christmas dinner consists of stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and a variety of other dishes. Some families have ham or roast goose of turkey. Pumpkin pie, plum pudding, and fruitcake are favourite desserts.
famous people of america
MARK TWAIN
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known to most people as Mark Twain, was born and spent his boyhood in a small town on the Mississippi River. When he grew up, he became a river pilot.
Later he went west and worked as a newspaper reporter. While he was on this job he began to sign his articles “Mark Twain”. From then on Clemens used Mark Twain as his pen-name.
Clemens worked on other newspaper, travelled, and gave lectures.
Clemens spent his summers on his farm. There he wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, published in 1876. Tom in the story is really Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn is his close boyhood friend, Tom Blankenship. The book tells of the boys’ exciting adventures.
Later Clemens wrote a sequel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn” are among the most popular books ever published in the United States. Among Mark Twain’s other books are “Joan of Arc”, “Life on the Mississippi”.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States. He was born in Kentucky in 1809. His family was very poor. When Lincoln was a boy, he worked on his family’s farm. He did not go to school. He taught himself to read and write. Later, Lincoln studied law and became a lawyer. After that, he became a politician.
Everybody liked Abraham Lincoln because he was intelligent and hard-working. Lincoln was very ambitious. He wanted to be good at everything he did. He said that he wanted to win the “race of life”. He was also kind and honest. People called him “Honest Abe”.
Lincoln became president in 1860. In 1861, there was a war between the North and the 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 theatre. Inside the theatre, a man went behind the president and shot him in the head. The man’s name was John Wilkes Booth. He was a supporter of the South. Lincoln died the next morning.
THOMAS ALVA EDISON
Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847. He was sick a lot when he was young. Edison’s mother taught him lessons at home and he only studied the things he wanted to know. At the age of ten, he read his first science book. After he read the book, he built a laboratory in his house. Soon, Edison started to invent things. He was interested in the telegraph and electricity. At the age of twenty-three, he made a special telegraphic machine and sold it for a lot of money. With this money, he was now free to invent all the time.
Edison started his own laboratory at Menio Park, New Jersey. He hired mechanics and chemists to help him. He worked day and night. Once, he worked on forty-five inventions at the same time. Edison did not sleep very much, but he took naps. He often fell asleep with his clothes on.
Did you know Edison invented wax paper, fire alarms, the battery, and motion pictures? But his favourite invention was the phonograph, or record player. He invented the phonograph in 1876. His other famous invention was the light bulb. Edison died in 1931, at the age of eighty-four. He had over 1,300 inventions to his name! Many people say that Edison was a genius – one of the smartest people in the world.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest 20th-century American writers. His incredible career, and the legend which developed around his impressive personality, was that of a man of action, a devil-may-care adventurer, a brave war correspondent, an amateur boxer, a big-game hunter and deep-sea fisherman, the victim of three car accidents and two plane crashes, a man of four wives and many loves, but above all a brilliant writer of stories and novels.
Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was a doctor who initiated the boy into the outdoor life of hunting, camping and fishing. In high school Hemingway played football and wrote for the school newspaper.
In 1917, when the United States entered the First World War, Hemingway left home and schooling to become a young reporter for the Kansas City Star. He wanted to enlist for the war but was rejected because of an eye injury from football. Finally he managed to go to Europe as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. He joined the Italian army and was seriously wounded.
His war experience and adventurous life provided the background for his many short stories and novels. He achieved success with A Farewell to Arms, the story of a love affair between an American lieutenant and an English nurse during the First World War.
Hemingway actively supported the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and wrote another successful novel of war, love and death. It was For Whom the Bell Tolls.
During the Second World War Hemingway was a war correspondent first in China and then in Europe. He fought in France, and helped to liberate Paris.
In his later years Hemingway lived mostly in Cuba where his passion for deep-sea fishing provided the background for The Old Man and the Sea. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.
Unwilling to live with the inevitable physical aging, Hemingway committed suicide, as his father had done before him under similar circumstances.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth president of the United States. He was president from 1901 to 1909. He was a very intelligent man. He was also very energetic. He was a boxer, a soldier, a rancher, and an explorer.
This energetic man was not strong when he was a boy. He had some problems with his breathing. He had asthma. His father wanted him to be strong. Roosevelt learned to box and did many other sports. Soon Roosevelt became strong and energetic.
After he became president, Roosevelt kept his body strong. He even boxed in the White House. One day, another boxer hit him in the eye. After that accident, Roosevelt became blind in one eye.
Theodore Roosevelt’s nickname was “Teddy”. Everybody called him Teddy. When he was president, he often went hunting. One day he went hunting with some friends and saw a little bear. He did not shoot the bear. He said the bear was too small and must go free. The next day the story of the little bear was in the newspapers. The newspapers named the little bear “Teddy” after the president. Soon people called toy bears for children “teddy bears”.
When he left the White House, Teddy Roosevelt went to hunt in Africa. He then went to South America to explore places that nobody knew about. Everybody loved his energy.