miércoles, 21 de marzo de 2012

United States of America

History

- In 1492, the explorer Christopher Columbus, sponsored by the Spanish Cown, reached several Caribbean islands, making the first contact with indigenous peoples.
- In 1607 in Jamenstown was the first British settlement.
- The tensions between the Colonists and the British during the decades of 1760 and 1770 led to the War of Independence, which lasted from 1775 to 1781.
- At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the U.S.A declared itself neutral.
- United States, officially neutral during the early stages of World War II initiated the provision of supplies to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease Program.
- During the "Cold War", the U.S. and the Soviet Union fought for power  after the end of the Second World War, dominating themilitary affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
- On the 11th of September of 2001, terrorists of al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington,D. C., in a series of attacks that killed nearly three thousand people.

Culture

- The United States is a multicultural nation, composed of a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions and values.
- The common culture for most Americans is a Western culture, which comes from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from African slaves and later the Asian and Latin American immigrants.
- Their culture is characterized by multiculturalism and individualism. 
- Art Since European settlement, American art has been coupled with European artistic trends. In the mid nineteenth century, began to appear the first indigenous movement and thereafter have continued to create.
- The Statue of Liberty is one of the most famous sculptures in the world and an icon representative of the whole country.
- At Hollywood, a film is considered the hub of world cinema.
- There are a lots of music tipes: African-American music, folk music, blues, jazz, rock and roll, funk, hip hop, house music, ...
-During the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century American literature took most of its influence in Europe. In the midnineteenth century, American writers began to bear fruit of their own.
- Since the late nineteenth century, baseball has been regarded as the national sport, while football, basketball and ice hockey are the three other major professional  team sports. The varsity also attract large audiences.  Football is the most popular sport in America.