2015-05-26
894
Рыбинская государственная авиационная
Технологическая академия
Им. П. А. Соловьева
Кафедра Иностранных языков
Сборник текстов
По домашнему чтению
для студентов 1 курса
(США)
Составитель
преп. Цветкова С. И.
2008 г.
Preface (1511)
English language is very important in our life. It is learnt in schools, colleges, Universities. But it is impossible to learn language and not to know everything about the country speaking this language. So, if you study English, you should know at least some facts about English-speaking countries. One of them is the United States of America.
What was America like more than 200 years ago? There was no United States of America in the early 1770s. Americans did not have constitution or states. They lived in thirteen colonies along the Atlantic coast. They were not independent. Great Britain was then a powerful country more than two thousand miles away across the Atlantic Ocean and ruled the American colonies.
The United States of America were founded on July 4th, 1776. The name America comes from an old German word "amalric" or "emmerich", and softened in Latin to "Americus" and in Italian to "Amerigo". It was first applied to Brazil.
Since 1783, when the War of Independence ended, the USA has increased its power, and the original 13 states have grown to 50.
The United States of America is the greatest capitalist country in the world. Its large territory and different climatic regions allow developing agriculture, growing such many plants, fruit, crops and vegetables that the USA is one of the leading states in agricultural field. The existence of great number of mountains gives the country a lot of natural resources. A great number of rivers on the country's territory mean that they give electric power to it. So we can find out that geographical location and climatic and physical features play a great role in the life of this country. But, of course, as any highly-developed country the USA has its own problems, such as: polluted rivers, destroyed forests, disappearing wild animals.
