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35. American holidays

Americans celebrate a variety of federal holidays and other national observances throughout the year. American holidays can be secular, religious, international, or uniquely American.

With the wide variety of federal holidays, and the many levels of American govern-ment, it can be confusing to determine what public and private facilities are open on or around a given federal holiday. You can usually find such information in the daily newspaper or by calling the office you wish to visit.There are 8 major uniquely American holidays. Thanksgiving Day – 4th Thursday of November (people thank God for good harvest, which saved Pilgrims from hunger in 1621 and eat roast turkey, pumpkin pie, etc. Gathers family for traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner. Many people attend religious services. The next day most people return to work, but some take day off). Martin Luther King Day – 3rd Monday of January (to honor a black clergymen, who tried to win civil rights for Blacks & was assassinated in 1968). President’s Day – 3rd Monday in February (to honor all past presidents of US). Memorial Day – 4th Monday of May( to honor soldiers, who died in the Civil War. Is also considered as beginning of summer season). Independence day – 4th of July ( the birthday of US as a free & independent Nation). Labor Day – 1st Monday of Septem-ber (to honor nation’s working people). Columbus Day – 2nd Monday in October. Veteran’s Day – 11 November (originally it was called Armistice Day – to honor soldiers, who served in WW1, but now it honors veterans of all the wars).Other holidays: Mother’s Day – 2nd Sunday in May, Father’s Day – 3rd Sunday in June.( Father's Day began in 1909 in Spokane, Washington, when a daughter requested a special day to honor her father, a Civil War veteran who raised his children after his wife died), Christmas (December25, Christmas is a Christian holiday marking the birth of the Christ Child. Decorating houses and yards with lights, putting up Christ-mas trees, giving gifts, and sending greeting cards have become holiday traditions even for many non-Christian Americans), New Year’s Day(most Am-s celebrate with friends. One of the nosiest and crowded of New Year’s Eve celebration takes place in New York at Times Square), Easter (always falls on Sunday. It’s a day of worship and gathering of the family), Halloween (the last day of October. Originally a religious holiday – the evening before All Saints), Valentine’s Day (14th of February. Am-s give symbolic gifts).

36. The media of the US consist of several different types of communications. M.: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet. Many of the M. are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. Am M. conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large profits as well as large criticism in many parts of the world. Television in the US is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).There are several thousand local stations, of which many belong to the7 nationwide commercial broadcast networks. Traditionally, there were 3: NBC, ABC, and CBS.4 newer networks are Fox, The CW, My Network TV and ION Television. There is also a noncommercial public T. network - PBS, which is partially subsidized by the federal government. Public access T. are open cable channels allowing for citizen produced programming to appear on local cable networks. Radio - American R. broadcasts in 2 bands: FM and AM. Some stations are only talk R. — featuring interviews and discussions—while music R. stations broadcast one particular type of music. National Public Radio - is the nation's primary public R. network, but most R. stations are commercial and profit-oriented. Motion - All major metropolitan areas have their own local NPs (newspapers). Most general-purpose NPs are either being printed one time a week, usually on Thursday or Friday, or are printed daily. Weekly NPs tend to have much smaller circulation and are more prevalent in rural communities or small towns. Major cities often have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s)(New York City's Village Voice or Los Angeles' L.A. Weekly).Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries and papers for local ethnic and social groups. The primary source of NP income is advertising, rather than circulation income. The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the US are USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Magazines (MZ) - Thanks to the huge size of the English-speaking North American M. market, the United States has a large MZ industry with hundreds of MZs serving almost every interest. Most MZs are owned by one of the large M. conglomerates or by one of their smaller regional brethren. The U.S. has three leading weekly news MZs: TIME, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. The U.S. also has over a dozen major political MZs. There are also dozens of MZs published by professional organizations for their members, such as Communications of the ACM (for computer science specialists) and the ABA Journal (for lawyers). Internet - The I. has provided a means for NP and other M. organizations to deliver news and the means to look up old news. Some organizations only make limited amounts of their output available for free, and charge for access to the rest. Other organizations allow their archives to be freely browsed. It is possible that the latter type obtain more influence, as they are true to the spirit of freedom of information by virtue of making it free. While proprietary archives are slowly exposed to the public after many decades, organizations that maintain immediately-updating resources have more control over what will be remembered by the general public in the near future.

37. Medicine and healthcare.

In the final decades of the 20th century vastly increases medical knowledge; each new discovery or procedure brings with it new questions to be answered. Surgery, drugs and radiation treatments keep cancer patients alive longer. Hospitals now require a bewildering number of technical specialists to administer new tests and operate advanced medical equipment. As a result, hospital costs and physicians' fees rose steadily. By 1986, the average cost of a stay in the hospital had climbed to more than $500 a day. Americans pay their medical bill with the help of medical insurance. About 5 out of 6 workers, along with their families, are covered by group health insurance plans, paid for jointly by the em-ployer and employee or by the employee alone. In return, the insurance company covers most major medical costs, except for a minimum amount, called the "deductible," which the employee pays each year before insurance coverage begins. Medicare is a federal program financed through the Social Security Administration, which provides a national system of retirement and other benefits. Medicare pays a substantial part of the medical bills of Americans who are over 65 years of age or are disabled. Health care challenges Although Americans, on the average, are healthier and live longer today than ever before, a number of challenges still confront the medical care system in the United States. While advanced technology can provide artificial hearts or transplanted kidneys to a few at high cost, others still suffer from diseases, such as tuberculosis Welfare The poor receive help from the federal and state governments. The public welfare system in the United States is very large. In addition to federal programs, there are programs in each of the 50 states which are designed to help people in need. Among the many programs that help people living in poverty are: • Welfare payments—sums of money which are given by the government each month to those whose income is too low to provide necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. • Medicaid—free medical and hospital care. • Food stamps—books of special stamps which can be used to buy food at any store. • School breakfast and lunch programs providing free meals to schoolchildren. • Surplus food programs, under which food is purchased in huge quantities by the government and distributed free of charge to the poor. In addition, the poor can become eligible to live in public housing. Public housing developments are groups of apartment buildings built at government expense. There are a number of other ways in which the federal or state governments help people: Unemployment Insurance: Each state provides money to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Veteran's Benefits: Persons who have served in the armed forces can receive inexpensive or cost-free hospital care at special veteran's hospitals. Education: Public schools are located in all states, all cities also have free public library systems. Anyone can come to these libraries to read or borrow books, magazines or phonograph records. Job Training: Government programs help young people and adults from poor families or minority groups learn a skill that will get them a good job

38. The American Family. Clearly the American Family, like all families in the Western Industrial countries, is now profoundly different from what it had been in the recorded past. It is typically a household with few children, with both parents working and with mothers producing their children at ever older ages. At the same time more adults then ever before are living alone or with unmarried companions and more women are giving birth out of wedlock. The traditional family with a single breadwinner working alone to sustain the family is no longer the norm. Only one in 5 married couples had just a single male, working outside the home. Only 36% has the mother staying at home with children and not working. More and more women are reducing the number of children they have. Women are marrying later and begin child bearing at later ages. Today both marriage partners need to bring in income to meet family bills. Although women are less financially dependent on their husbands. They continue bear the major burden of household and child care. After the Industrial Revolution the Amer.Family has been stripped of two of its traditional social functions: serving as unit for economic production and as the school for the vocational training of children. Two functions remains: the physical and emotional gratification of the family’s adult members and the socialization of the children into community. There are some social policies that are needed to protect the AF. 1) Protection of young mothers and their children against poverty (payment locks mothers into a cycle of dependency; health care coverage is uncertain and variable; Medicaid covers half of the coast of health care at best). The second policy calls for a federal legislation mandate at least 3 month paid leave with guaranteed job protection for either the mother or father after the birth of an infant. In 1990 Bush voted an unpaid leave bill. Even were parental leave available not all mothers would use it. When there is a father and he prefers to be the one to stay home with the baby, that may be a welcome alter native. The third element is high quality infant and child day care. And the fourth element is education for parenthood. These policies will not bring about the Golden Age of the family. The most they can do is to cushion children against poverty and monitor the state of the children.

39. Mid.Atl.States.3 states: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania.From early colonial times, the M-A region was settled by a wider range of European peoples than in New Eng. or the South. Early settlers were farmers, traders, fishermen.Pennsylvania (Harrisburg) has been known as the Keystone State, based in part upon its central location among the original 13 Colonies. It was also a keystone state economically, having both the industry common to the North and the agriculture common to the South. Philadelphia is the largest city and is home to a major seaport and shipyards on the Delaware River. P's diverse geography also produces a variety of climates. Straddling 2 major zones, the southeastern corner of the state posses the warmest cl. P became the 2d state to ratify the Constitution in 1787. P ranks 19th overall in agricultural production. New York (Albany) is the 3d most populous, 27th largest state. NY City is known for its history as a gateway for immigration and its status as a financial, cultural and manufacturing center. NY was inhabited by the Native Am groups in the early 17th c. About 1/3 of all of the battles of the Revolutionary War took place in NY. It became an independent state in 1776. NY borders 2 Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario). Contrasting with NYCity's urban atmosphere, the vast majority of the state is dominated by farms, forests, mountains, lakes. NY's Adirondack Park is the largest state park in the US. Niagara Falls is a popular attraction. New Jersey(Trenton)is inhab-ited by Native Am-s for more than 2,800 years, the 1 European settlements in the area were established by the Swedes and Dutch in the early 1600s. The State's name was taken from the largest of the Eng. Channel Islands, Jersey. The Eng. later seized control of the region. NJ was an imp. site during the Am Revolutionary War. Later, working-class cities such as Paterson and Trenton helped to drive the Ind. Rev. in the 19th c. NJ can be broadly divided into 3 geographic regions: North J, Central J, South J. The summers are very warm to hot and humid. The winters in NJ are cold. NJ's economy is centered around the pharmaceutical industry, chemical development, food processing, electric equipment, tourism. Shipping is a strong industry because of the state's strategic location. NJ is the birthplace of many modern inventions such as: FM radio, the motion picture camera, the light bulb, the electric train.

40. US is a democracy. The constitution, laws and traditions of the US give the people the right to determine who will be the leader, who will make the laws and what the laws will be. The constitution guarantees freedom to all. Am. polit. system is based on principles of representative government & individual freedom. President of the US is head of state, head of government, and of a de facto two-party legislative and electoral system. The federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments, with the Supreme Court balancing the powers of each. Legisl.branch is made up of elected representatives from all states. Only they can make federal laws, levy taxes, declare war, put foreign treaties into effect. It consists of Congress (The House of representatives(comprise lawmakers who serve 2-year term) + Senate(serve 6-y term)). The executive brunch.The chief executive of US is the President, who together with vice president is elected to a 4year term. They can be elected to only 2 terms. Powers of presidency are formidable, but not without limitations. President proposes legislation to Congress, can veto any bill, influence public opinion, appoint federal judges, issues regulations & derectives regarding the work of the federal departments & agencies, appoints ambassadors & other officials. Pr.is also a comander-in-chief of the armed forces. The judicial brunch is headed by the Supreme Court, specifically created by constitution. Federal judges are appointed for life or voluntary retirement. Federal courts have jurisdiction over laws & treaties, maritime cases,issues involving foreign citizens/governments. Supr. Court consists of a chief justice & 8 associate justices.

41. America between the first and second World Wars.

The history of the United States from 1918 through 1945 covers the post-World War I era, the Great Depression, and World War II. After World War I, the U.S. rejected the Versailles Treaty and did not join the League of Nations.

In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by an amendment to the United States Constitution. Possession of liquor, and drinking it, was never illegal. The overall level of alcohol consumption did go down, however, state and local governments avoided aggressive enforcement. The federal government was overwhelmed with cases, so that bootlegging and speakeasies flourished in every city, and well-organized criminal gangs exploded in numbers, finances, power, and influence on city politics.

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of sustained prosperity. Agriculture went through a bubble that collapsed in 1921 and that sector remained depressed, and coal mining was being displaced by oil. Otherwise most sectors prospered. Prices were stable, and the gross national product grew steadily until 1929, when the financial bubble burst.

In foreign policy the nation never joined the League of Nations, but instead took the initiative to disarm the world, most notably at the Washington Conference in 1921-1922. Washington also stabilized the European economy through the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans, especially Jews, Italians and Slavs, who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression led to government efforts to re-start the economy and help its victims. The recovery, however, was very slow. The nadir of the Great Depression was 1933, and recovery was rapid until the recession of 1938 proved a setback. There were no major new industries in the 1930s that were big enough to drive growth the way autos, electricity and construction had been so powerful in the 1920s. GDP surpassed 1929 levels in 1940.

By 1939, isolationist sentiment in America had ebbed, but after the fall of France in 1940 the United States began rearming itself and sent a large stream of money and military supplies to Britain, China and Russia. After the sudden Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war against Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany, known as the "Axis Powers". Italy surrendered in 1943, and Germany and Japan in 1945, after massive devastation and loss of life, while the US emerged far richer and with few casualties.

42. America after WW2.World War Two finally ended in August of nineteen forty-five. Life in the United States began to return to normal. Soldiers began to come home and find jobs. Factories stopped producing war materials and began to produce goods for peacetime.At the same time, other changes began to take place in society. Many Americans were no longer satisfied with their old ways of life. They wanted some-thing new and better. And many were now earning enough money to find that better life.The American work force also changed significantly. During the 1950s, the number of workers providing services grew until it equaled and then surpassed the number who produced goods. And by 1956, a majority of U.S. workers held white-collar rather than blue-collar jobs. At the same time, labor unions won long-term employment contracts and other benefits for their members.

Farmers, on the other hand, faced tough times. Gains in productivity led to agricultural overproduction, as farming became a big business. Small family farms found it increasingly difficult to compete, and more and more farmers left the land. As a result, the number of people employed in the farm sector, which in 1947 stood at 7.9 million, began a continuing decline; by 1998, U.S. farms employed only 3.4 million people.

World War II accelerated the pace of change, obviously in weaponry, but also in transportation, communications, electronics, medicine, and in other ways. both technological and social. Toffler anticipated further acceleration in the rate of change, and from perspective in the first decade of the 21st century, it is hard to imagine a world without many of the things they take for granted. A little over a quarter of a century ago, about the time Ronald Reagan was being elected president, no one except a few obscure scientists had ever heard of the Internet. Cell phones were unknown. Office has had desktop computers, but they were huge machines costing tens of thousands of dollars that could only do word processing. Only a handful of geeks had what we now call a PC, and it probably had a 10 inch screen which displayed only white or green type.

Once the dust has settled from World War II and the millions of displaced persons had been more or less settled and the European and Asian cities rebuilt from the piles of rubble created by the war, things began to change more rapidly. Beneath the ominous cloud of fear generated by the Cold War, people looked ahead with both anticipation and doubt. In 1970 Alvin Toffler published a book called Future Shock, in which he described the manner in which the future was rushing toward us at an accelerated rate. He wrote, “Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future.”

With the first decades of alternating complacency and turbulence The American people hoped for much, achieved much and had their faith in their social and political institutions both strengthened and shaken, often at the same time and sometimes by the same events. Welcome to the postwar world.

1. Geography and environment of the USA. General characteristics.

2. New England.

3. American Demography. Some facts and Figures. Prospects for the future.

4. Labour in America.

5. Social Security in the USA. Benefit programs.

6. The South Atlantic States.

7. The US congress, presidency, election system.

8. The central southeast states.

9. The US Constitution. Amendments to the Constitution.

10. The Southwest

11. History from Leif Ericson to 1865. New Land. English settlements.

12. The Midwest. The Great Lakes Industrial Belt.

13. Colonial era, revolution, devising a constitution, a new nation.

14. Ethnic groups and minorities.

15. The Central Northwest.

16. Civil war.

17. The West. The Mountain States.

18. The Pacific states. California.

19. The pacific States. Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii.

20. The largest metropolitan cities.

21. The American city.

22. Elementary and Secondary education in the USA.

23. Higher education in the USA.

24. Black Slavery. Civil Rights movement.

25. The Native Americans. Broken treaties.

26. Urban culture, 1912-1918.

27. Urban culture. Early years 1625-1812

28. Science and technology.

29. Immigration to America.

30. American agriculture, Historical overview. Current farm policies.

31. Nature of American business today.

32. American economy and financial institutions.

33. History 1865-1929 reconstruction. Moving west. Industrial growth, labour, immigration.

34. Religion in America.

35. American holidays.

36. Media and communication

37. Medicine, healthcare and Public well fare system in America.

38. The American family.

39. The Middle Atlantic States.

40. The USA political system. Executive legislative and judicial branches of government.

41. America between the first and second World Wars.

42. America after the Second World War