B) The First English Settlements
The English had visited America at different times. But they had never stayed very long. John Cabot came to Newfoundland in 1498. In 1577 Sir Francis Drake sailed along the western coast of America on his voyage around the world. In the year 1606, some English people decided they didn’t like the way their king, James I, was treating them. They formed a group, which they called the London Company, and sailed for America. For weeks the little boats were tossed about like corks upon the ocean. Then, in April 1607, the people saw the green shores of the Bay in Virginia. The ships sailed up the river, which the colonists named the James in honor of their king. About thirty miles up the James, the party landed. A fort and a few log houses were built, and the settlement was named Jamestown. That was the first permanent settlement, in what was to become the United States.
Life was very hard in the little colony. Nearly all the men had come from the well-to-do families, and couldn’t work. They believed the stories of the riches, which lay everywhere in the New World, as they had been told. Many people died as they hadn’t enough food. The Indians gave them some corn and taught the colonists to grow tobacco. And soon ships with tobacco sailed for England and returned with things that the colonists needed. Twenty Negroes were brought to Jamestown in 1619 and sold to the tobacco planters. This was the beginning of slavery in America.
In the north-east the Pilgrim Fathers, who came there on board the Mayflower, founded another colony in Plymouth, in 1620. The English crown supported the foundation of colonies in North America and looked upon them as an effective means of extending English influence against French and Spanish competition and of increasing their incomes.
To the end of the 17th century thirteen colonies were established on the Atlantic coast of North America, — New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Georgia and others were among them.
c) Colonial America
The three main nations — England, Spain and France — were the chief nations to establish colonies in the present United States. The first permanent settlement in the North America was Saint Augustine (Florida), founded in 1565 by the Spaniard Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Spanish control came to be exercised over Florida, Texas and a large part of the Southwest, including California. The French established strongholds on the St. Lawrence River (Quebec and Montreal) and spread their influence over the Great Lakes country and along the Mississippi; the colony of Louisiana was a flourishing French settlement. The first English settlement was founded in 1607 on the present territory of Virginia. The next settlements were initiated by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony in 1620. The more important Massachusetts Bay colony was built by the Puritans in 1630.
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From the Atlantic coast colonists gradually penetrated into the depths of the continent, driving back the native population, taking away their lands by force and deception and destroying them. The religious and political turmoil of the Puritan revolution in England, as well as the repression of the Huguenots in France stimulated emigration to the English colonies. The main stimulus for emigration to America was the desire to own land. Almost all the colonists took up agricultural work. Small family farms based on natural economy prevailed in the northern colonies and tobacco and cotton plantations in the south.
By the late 17th century small farms in the coastal areas of the South were beginning to give way to large plantations which were worked by Negro slaves from Africa. Africans were imported in ever-increasing number. The development of trade, industry and agriculture in the colonies constantly conflicted with the economic policy of Britain.
d) The Independent Movement
In the 18th century there were thirteen English colonies in North America, which were under British rule. After the Seven Years’ War (1756—1763) the British Government increased its pressure on the colonies and put all possible obstacles in the way of their independent industrial development and trade. Britain exploited its American colonies and imposed new taxes and duties which affected the interests of the colonists, thus making them pay for the Seven Years’ War.
In Philadelphia in 1774 merchants, ship-owners, lawyers and others revolted and decided to stop trade with Britain and boycott the British goods.
The British Government’s decision to grant the East India Company the right of tax-free export of tea to the colonies caused indignation among the colonists, and especially the merchants involved in the sale of smuggled tea. In December 1773 a group of members of an organization called “Sons of Liberty”, dressed as Indians, boarded the British ships lying at anchor in the port of Boston. They took all the boxes of tea and dropped them into the water of the harbour. This incident was named the Boston Tea Party. In answer to this the British Government closed the Boston port and prohibited all kinds of public gatherings. British soldiers were billeted in the city. All these measures further sharpened the conflict between the metropolis and the colonies; it was the last straw in the independence movement.
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The machinery of colonial power was shaken, a people's militia was formed, skirmishes with British troops stated. And the war between Britain and its American colonies soon began. It was the war for the independence of American colonies from British rule.
e) The War of Independence
The War for independence of the American colonies began with a victorious battle of colonists against British troops in April 1775 at Concord and at Lensington not far from Boston. But the war lasted for eight years, from 1775 to 1783.
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress declared the united colonies to be independent of Great Britain. The new state was called the United States of America and July 4 became its national holiday. The Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the equality of all people, their right to “life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness”. Thomas Jefferson, a representative of the revolutionary-democratic wing of the “patriots”, as supporters of the revolution called themselves, was the author of the Declaration. George Washington was commander-in-chief of the North American army and he did very much for the victory of the colonists.
The battle at Saratoga in 1777, when the Americans forced a large British army to capitulate, was a turning point in the long, hard War of Independence. The Americans were supported by France, Britain’s hereditary enemy. In 1783 Britain finally and formally recognized American independence.
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The American Revolution did away with the heritage of feudalism, cleared the way for the development of capitalism in trade, industry and agriculture. But it did not solve a number of problems connected with the bourgeois development of the United States, the most important one being the abolition of slavery. However it had a very progressive international meaning in its time.
After the end of the War of Independence in 1783, 13 states were formed and they chose George Washington as their first President.
f) The American Civil War
On the eve of the Civil War the United States was a nation divided into two quite distinct regions: the industrialized North with free labour and the agricultural South with slave labour.
Negro slaves, taken from Africa by force or by some trick and brought to America, worked on tobacco and cotton plantations in many southern states. The life of the slaves was very hard: they worked from morning till night and were beaten and starved. Sometimes their owners sold them, separating husbands and wives, mothers and children. There were many revolts of the slaves and sometimes white people helped them in their struggle but the revolts came to nothing.
In the political struggle of this period, the forces of the enemies of slavery were united in the Republican Party. It was founded in 1854, led by the industrial bourgeoisie of the North and supported by the workers and farmers. Its rival, the Democratic Party, founded in 1828, stood for slavery. In 1860 the republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, who came from the lower classes, was elected president of the U.S.A. His election signified the end of domination of the government by the Southerners and was interpreted as a signal for a long-plotted rebellion. At the beginning of 1861, the southern states left the Union, founded a Confederation and started military action. That was how the four-year war began; the war which became the second American Revolution.
The population of the 23 northern states was 22 million, and that of the 11 southern states was 9 million, but the army of the South was well organized and ready for war. This could not be said of the army of the North. So in the first months of the war the South won several victories. Only when General Grant became commander-in-chief of the Northern army, the North began to win the war and in April 1865 it ended.
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The Civil War swept away the obstacles to capitalist development and did away with slavery. It spread the American way of agricultural development all over the country and consolidated the American nation both territorially and ethnically.
g) The Late 19th Century
American industry developed very rapidly after the Civil War. Whole families of immigrants moved into the United States from all the countries of Europe and there was work on land for all who were willing to work hard. The population increased quickly. The industrial revolution was coming to an end. The railroad network was growing fast actively promoting the development of the western part of the country. New states gradually came into being on these lands.
Great mineral wealth was discovered and exploited, and important technological innovations sped industrialization, which had already gained great impetus during the Civil War. Thus developed an economy based on steel, oil, railroads and machines, an economy that a few decades after the Civil War ranked first in the world.
The latter part of the 19th century also saw the rise of the modern American city. Rapid industrialization attracted great numbers of people to cities. Electricity was widely used to power streetcars, elevated railways and subways; it made cities viable at night as well as during the day. With the appearance of skyscrapers, which used steel construction technology, cities were able to grow vertically as well as horizontally.
By the 1890s a new wave of expansion was affecting the U.S. foreign policy. With the purchase of Alaska in 1867 and the rapid settlement of the last Western territory, Oklahoma, American capital and attention were directed toward the Pacific and the Caribbean. The United States established commercial and then political hegemony in the Hawaiian Islands and annexed them in 1898. In that year expansionist energy found release in the Spanish-American war, which resulted in U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, and Guam, and in a U.S. quasi-protectorate over Cuba.
H) The Twentieth Century
In 1929 there began the Great Depression. President Herbert Hoover proposed a moratorium on foreign debts, but this and other measures failed to prevent economic collapse. To meet the critical financial emergencies the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, instituted a “bank holiday”. Congress enacted a social security program, by which the state could promote economic recovery and social welfare. Roosevelt continued and expanded the policy of friendship toward the Latin American nations. This “good-neighbour” policy favoured Roosevelt to be reelected twice, even though he was breaking the no-third-term tradition.
By the late 1930s Germany, Italy and Japan had already disrupted world peace. America tried to keep the country neutral. But after the fall of France in June, 1940, it extended lend-lease aid to the British and the Russians. The threat of war had caused to build the armed strength of the nation. The U.S. government froze all Japanese assets in the United States. On December 7, 1941 Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbour, a U.S. naval base in Hawaii. The United States promptly declared war, and 4 days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The war underscored the prestige and power of the U.S. in world affairs. A series of important conferences outlined the policies for the war and the programs for the peace after victory; among them was the Yalta Conference, at which Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin planned for postwar settlement. Before the war ended with the defeat of Japan, the United States developed and used a fateful weapon of war, the atomic bomb.
Soon after the World War II, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union worsened, the cold war intensified. In 1948 the United States played the leading role in forming a new alliance of Western nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In the Korean War the U.S. played the chief part in combat actions between the North and South Korea. Thus, the United States cast off its traditional peacetime isolationism and accepted its position as a prime mover in world affairs.
In the race for technological superiority the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, but was second to the USSR in launching (Jan. 31, 1958) an artificial satellite and in testing an intercontinental guided missile. However, spurred by Soviet advances, the United States made rapid progress in space exploration and missile research.
In 1959 Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states of the Union. Despite hopes for “peaceful coexistence”, negotiations with the USSR for nuclear disarmament failed to achieve accord, and Berlin remained a serious source of conflict.
After breaking relations with Cuba, which under Fidel Castro had clearly moved within the Communist orbit, the United States supported an ill-fated invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro forces. In 1962, in reaction to the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the United States blockaded Soviet military shipments to Cuba and demanded the dismantling of Soviet bases there. The two great powers seemed on the brink of war, but within a week the USSR acceded to U.S. demands. In the meantime the United States achieved an important gain in space exploration with the orbital flight around the earth in a manned satellite by Colonel John H. Glenn. The tension of the cold war eased when, in 1963, the United States and the Soviet Union reached an accord on a limited ban of nuclear testing.
On Nov. 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson was able to bring many Kennedy measures to legislative fruition. Significant progress toward racial equality was achieved. But Johnson pursued an aggressive policy, dispatching troops to the Dominican Republic during disorders there and escalating American participation in the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War provoked increasing opposition at home, manifested in marches and demonstrations in which thousands of people were arrested. An impression of general lawlessness and domestic disintegration was heightened by serious race riots and various racial and political assassinations, notably those of Martin Luther King, famous fighter for the Civil Rights, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The new President, Richard M. Nixon, promised an end to the Vietnam War and began a slow withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.
10. Britain and the USA in the late 20th century.
In the 1980s, Britain was governed by a strong Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher, who reversed the policies of her predecessors, returning nationalized industries to private control and cutting government expenditures. Benefiting from a military victory over Argentina in a war (1982) over the Falkland Islands, the Conservatives won reelection in 1983 and retained their majority over a divided opposition in 1987 and 1992. In 1990, Thatcher resigned after quarrelling with other party leaders over her opposition to European integration. Her Conservative successor, John Major, was more favorable to the European connection but was continually hampered by the “Eurosckeptics” in his own party, who shared Thatcher’s views. In May 1997 the Conservatives were voted out of office, and John Major was replaced by Tony Blair at the head of a moderate Labour government. Talks aimed at a peace settlement for Northern Ireland, sponsored jointly by the British and Irish governments, produced an agreement in April 1998. In 1999, Britain was a leading supporter of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia.
In 1999 a Scottish Parliament with the power to tax and make laws was established for the first time since 1707; a Welsh Assembly with more limited powers was also created.
Republican Ronald Reagan promised to restore American supremacy both politically and economically. Reagan’s foreign policy was aggressively anti-Communist as he discarded the policy of détente employed by Nixon and Carter. He revived Cold War, referring to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”, enlarged the U.S. nuclear arsenal and suggested the Strategic Defense Initiative, a plan popularly known as “Star Wars”. In 1981 Reagan imposed sanctions against Poland; he sought aid for counterrevolutionaries trying to overthrow the Marxist-oriented Government in Nicaragua; he ordered the invasion of the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada. In 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff, killing the entire seven-person crew, including six astronauts and a civilian schoolteacher. Reagan improved his image before he left office, however, by agreeing to a series of arms reduction talks initiated by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachov.
In foreign affairs George H. W. Bush was as aggressive as his predecessor. In 1989, after a U.S.-backed coup failed to oust President of Panama, Bush ordered the invasion of Panama by U.S. troops. Bush’s major military action, however, was the Persian Gulf War. After Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, Bush announced the commencement of Operation Desert Shield, which included a naval and air blockade and the steady deployment of U.S. military forces to Saudi Arabia.
President Bill Clinton was generally considered a political moderate. The economy gradually improved during Clinton’s first year in office. Clinton withdrew U.S. troops from Somalia and helped in reestablishing democratic rule in Haiti. In April 1995, in the act of terrorism a bomb was exploded at the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 people.
The 2000 presidential election brought George W. Bush to power. Internationally, the United States experienced some friction with its allies, who didn’t like the Bush administration’s desire to abandon both the Kyoto Protocol (designed to fight global warming) and the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (in order to proceed with developing a ballistic missile defense system). But the politics and concerns of the first months of 2001 became secondary on September 11, when terrorists hijacked four planes, crashing two into the World Trade centre, which was destroyed, and one into the Pentagon; the fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Some 3,000 persons were killed or missing as a result of the attacks. The U.S. government sought to build an international coalition against Al Qaeda group and the Taliban and, more broadly, against terrorism, working to influence other nations to cut off sources of financial support for terrorism.
In October air strikes and then ground raids were launched against Afghanistan by the United States with British aid. By December the Taliban government had been ousted and its Al Qaeda’s fighters largely had been routed. A force of U.S. troops was based in Afghanistan to search for Bin Laden, the main leader of terrorists.
President Bush ordered the deployment of a ballistic missile defense system to be effective in 2004; the system would be designed to prevent so-called rogue missile attacks. In advance of this movement the United States had withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia.
In 2003 Bush continued to press for Iraqi disarmament. In February, however, the nation’s attention was pulled away from the growing tension over Iraq by the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia as it returned to earth. Seven astronauts were killed in this second shuttle mishap.
U.S. weapon inspectors reported in January 2004 that they had failed to find any evidence that Iraq had possessed biological or chemical weapons stockpiles prior to the U.S. invasion.
In July the U.S. commission investigating the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for failings that contributed to the success of the attacks, and called for reorganization of those agencies.
ASSIGNMENTS
I. Answer the following questions:
1. What do you know about the Celtic tribes? 2. When did the Romans occupy Britain? 3. Who was the famous Queen of the Iceni tribe who waged war on the Romans? 4. What Germanic tribes invaded Britain? 5. Who won the battle of Hastings? 6. What do you know about the Domesday Book? 7. What was Magna Carta? 8. Why did England start the Hundred Years War? 9. What was the cause and outcome of the Wars of the Roses? 10. What were the reasons for the English Reformation? 11. Why was the reign of Elizabeth I called the Golden Age? 12. What was the Gunpowder Plot? 13. What led to the Civil War in England? 14. What two calamities brought a lot of suffering to the English people in the 17th century? 15. What kind of monarchy was established after the Glorious Revolution? 16. What discoveries and inventions led to the Industrial Revolution? 17. Why do historians speak about the Victorian Age? 18. What was the impact of the two world wars on Britain? 19. When and how did the British Empire fall? 20. How did Englishmen call their first colonies established in America? 21. What caused the War of Independence? 22. What did the Declaration of Independence proclaim? 23. What was the reason for the Civil War in America? 24. What was the life of slaves on the southern cotton plantations? 25. What changes took place in the US after the Civil War? 26. What foreign policy did the US pursue at the end of the 19th century? 27. When did the Great Depression begin in the USA? 28. What event made the USA start fighting in World War II? 29. What progress did America achieve in space exploration? 30. How did the world happen to be on the brink of a nuclear war? 31. What effect did the Vietnam War have on US society? 32. What eased the tension of the cold war between America and the USSR? 33. What happened on September 11, 2001 in America? 34. Why did the USA invade Iraq in 2003?
II. Explain in English what is meant by:
Stonehenge, druid, Londinium, Hadrian’s Wall, sheriff, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Danelaw, the Prince of Wales, the Black Death, the Spanish Armada, the Methodist Church, the Boers, the Triple Entente, the welfare state, the New World, the Pilgrim Fathers, abolitionist, the good-neighbour policy, Eurosceptics, “Star Wars”, the Kyoto Protocol.
III. Choose a topic for project work or a report from those given below:
1. The Celts in Britain.
2. Roman Britain.
3. Anglo-Saxon England.
4. The Vikings in Britain.
5. The Norman Conquest.
6. Medieval England.
7. The Plantagenets.
8. King Henry VIII.
9. The Stuart Age (1603–1714).
10. The reign of Elizabeth I.
11. Oliver Cromwell.
12. Victorian England.
13. Winston Churchill.
14. Margaret Thatcher.
15. The Civil War in America.
16. The Great Depression.
17. The Vietnam War.
18. Great American presidents.
19. 10 most important events in American history.
20. 10 most important events in British history.
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