"Личности Соединенных Штатов Америки"

Giniyatova O.V.

Цель:

охарактеризовать роль выдающихся личностей в истории США

Задачи:

1. Формирование лингвострановедческих знаний по теме: «Знаменитые люди в истории Соединенных Штатов Америки»

2. Развитие познавательных интересов в области лингвострановедения.

3. Бережное отношение к воспитанию исторического самосознания.

Как и любая страна , США интересна в первую очередь своими людьми . Население США превышает триста десять миллионов человек , США занимает третье место в мире по этому показателю . Население США чрезвычайно разнообразно по расовым, национальным, языковым, религиозным признакам.

Соединенные Штаты Америки дали миру многих известных людей: политиков, писателей и спортсменов, президентов, актеров .

О некоторых из них я попытаюсь рассказать

1. George Washington

2. Thomas Jefferson

3. Abraham Lincoln

4. John F. Kennedy

5. Bill Clinton

6. Barack Obama

7. Martin Luther King

8 . Walt Disney

Washington, George, 1732–99, 1st President of the United States (1789–97), commander in chief of the Continental army in the American Revolution, called the Father of His Country. He was born on Feb. 22, 1732 .

At the war's end he was the most important man in the country. He retired from the army (at Annapolis, Md., Dec. 23, 1783), returned to Mt. Vernon, and in 1784 journeyed to the West to inspect his lands there. Dissatisfied with the weakness of the government (see Confederation, Articles of), he soon joined the movement intent on reorganizing it. In 1785 commissioners from Virginia and Maryland met at Mt. Vernon to settle a dispute concerning navigation on the Potomac. This meeting led to the Annapolis Convention (1786) and ultimately to the Constitutional Convention (1787). Washington presided over this last convention, and his influence in securing the adoption of the Constitution of the United States is incalculable.

After a new government was organized, Washington was unanimously chosen the first President and took office ( Apr. 30, 1789 ) in New York City. He was anxious to establish the new national executive above partisanship, and he chose men from all factions for the administrative departments.

Washington was unanimously reelected (1793), but his second administration was Federalist and was bitterly criticized

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) one of the American President of the past was born in Virginia in 1743 . When he was 14 years old, his father died and the young boy was left to choose for himself what to do. Jefferson studied literature and languages. He also studied to be a lawyer, and later he wrote many of the Virginia laws. One of the laws for which he worked very much was a law to allow many child to go to school free. Schools in America were only for the children whose parents were rich. When Jefferson was still a young man he was one of those who wanted freedom from England. His most outstanding archivment was as chief author of the Declaration of Independence, a statement of human rights and liberties. It was read to the happy people on the 4th of July, 1776 .

Jefferson also drew up the constitution for his state, Virginia, and served as its governor. He was sent to France as the foreign minister of the United States of America and afterwards was President's Washington secretary of state. A few years later he became the country's third president, serving in this position for 2 terms. The author of the Declaration of Independence did another important thing for the American people. He worked out a plan for a university where the students and teachers could live and work together in a village build for them. It was one of the first schools to teach science. Today, it is the university of Virginia. This well known man was also a self-tought architect. He introduced the simple classical design to America when he designed the Virginia State Capital Building. He also designed his own home, he remained the most influencial architect of his time. Thomas Jefferson did many useful things during his life time and he always thought of how to help ordinary people. He was a practical and theoretical scientist too. Jefferson's best traditions have been kept up by American prograssive people in their struggle for peace and democracy.

Lincoln was one of the most famous presidents of the USA. He was born in the family of a poor farmer in 1809 in Kentucky, but soon his family left for the wild forestland of Indiana. He was taught reading, writing and simple arithmetic, as his family could not afford better education. When he was 18 , he went to New Orleans and there he saw a slave market. It made a deep impression on him and he began to hate slavery and he decided to fight against it. In 1830 he went to Springfield and became a clerk in a store. He learned much and greatly improved his knowledge. He entered politics and in 1832 became a candidate for the Parliament of the State. Soon he became a force in political life and in 1860 was elected President of the USA. He was an enemy of slavery.

Some of the Southern States left the Union, and the war between the South and the North began. At first the war went badly for the North but Lincoln never lost his courage and soon they won. When the war was over, Lincoln issued a proclamation to say that slavery was abolished. Lincoln was well known all over America and everybody loved him. In 1864 he was elected President of the USA for the second time. But his enemies could not let him continue his work. He was shot in a theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865 and died the next day.

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald , 1917–63, 35th President of the United States (1961–63), b. Brookline, Mass.; son of Joseph P. Kennedy. W as born on May 29, 1917

In 1960 he entered and won seven presidential primaries and captured the Democratic nomination on the first ballot. To balance the ticket, he selected Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice-presidential candidate. In the campaign that followed, Kennedy engaged in a series of televised debates with his Republican opponent, Richard M. Nixon. Defeating Nixon by a narrow popular margin, Kennedy became at 43 the youngest person ever, and the first Catholic, elected President.

Soon after his inaugural, Kennedy set out his domestic program, known as the New Frontier: tax reform, federal aid to education, medical care for the aged under Social

Security, enlargement of civil rights through executive action, aid to depressed areas, and an accelerated space program. He was almost immediately, however, caught up in foreign affairs crises. The first ( Apr., 1961 ) was the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles trained and aided by the Central Intelligence Agency. Although the invasion had been planned under Eisenhower, Kennedy had approved it, and was widely criticized.

In June, 1961 , the President met in Vienna with Soviet Premier Khrushchev. Hopes of a thaw in the cold war were dashed by Khrushchev's threat that the USSR would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany and thus cut off Western access to West Berlin. In the period of tension that followed, the United States increased its military strength while the East Germans erected the Berlin Wall.

Clinton, Bill (William Jefferson Clinton), 1946–, 42d President of the United States (1993–2001)

In 1992, Clinton won the Democratic presidential nomination after a primary campaign in which his character and private life were repeatedly questioned and, with running mate Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, went on to win the election, garnering 43% of the national vote in defeating Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush and independent H. Ross Perot. By his election, he became the first president born after World War II to serve in the office and the first to lead the country in the post–cold war era.

In 1994, Clinton sent U.S. forces to Haiti as part of the negotiated restoration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency. He also withdrew U.S. forces from Somalia (1994), where while helping to avert famine they had suffered casualties in a futile effort to capture a Somali warlord. Clinton promoted peace negotiations in the Middle East, which bore fruit in important agreements, and in the former Yugoslavia, which led to a peace agreement in late 1995. He also restored U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995.

By 1996, Clinton had succeeded in characterizing the Republican agenda as extremist while himself adopting many aspects of it.

In 1997 , Clinton and the Republicans agreed on a deal that combined tax cuts and reductions in spending to produce the first balanced federal budget in three decades. Having taken the center, and with stock markets continuing to boom and unemployment low, Clinton enjoyed high popularity, presiding over an enormous national surge in prosperity and innovation.

At the beginning of 1998, however, ongoing investigations into his past actions engulfed him in the Lewinsky scandal, and for the rest of the year American politics were convulsed by the struggle between the president and his Republican accusers, which led to his impeachment on Dec. 19 . He thus became the first elected president to be impeached.

Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States.

His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

He went on to attend law school, where he became the first African—American president of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.

President Obama's years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed the first major ethics reform in 25 years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle to pass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world's most dangerous weapons, and bring transparency to government by putting federal spending online.

He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009.

Martin Luther King was a clergyman and one of the most prominent members of the civil rights movement.

He was born of January 15, 1929 . He became famous in the 19500 and 1960-es through opposition to racial segregation in the USA. King promoted non-violent methods of opposition such as boycotts or sit-ins.

In 1963 he helped organize March on Washington; the march drew hundreds of thou-sands of civil rights supporters to Washington, for a mass rally. At this march he delivered his most celebrated speech.

Martin Luther King was put into jail; there he wrote his famous «Letter from Birmingham Jail» which he addressed to his fellow clergymen. In this letter he defended the civil rights movement, saying that without forceful actions like this march, equal rights for black people would never be gained. He claimed «one who breaks an unjust law must o it openly, lovingly.» Such a person, King said, is showing respect for law because he insists that law should be just.

In 1964 Martin Luther King received the Nobel Prize for peace.

He was assassinated by James Earl Ray in 1968. A national holiday each January 15 commemorates his life.

Walt Disney was born on December 5th, 1901. The first Mickey Mouse cartoon was drawn in 1928 . Donald Duck was created in 1936 . The first full-length-cartoon feature film. "Snow White and the seven Dwarfs", was made in 1937 . In 1955 Disneyland was opened in California. Disney World was opened in Florida in 1971 . Walt disney died in California at the age of 65. His films are still shown regularly at the cinema, and because of their timeless quality will be shown for years to come.

The Walt Disney company has come a long way since Mickey Mouse first was created in 1928 and Walt Disney wanted his love for original animation and entertainment to live on. As Walt was growing older he said, "I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - it was all started by a mouse!" With many animated successes today and many other successful films, the Walt Disney Company has reason to believe that Walt and the other founders should be very proud of their success.