The general outline, including geography

LECTURE 11

LECTURES IN AMERICAN STUDIES

Top 10 Britons of all time.

10.4.1. British history is particularly rich in great names – the nation is proud of its many outstanding people who contributed to both world civilization and culture. Yet some people are more famous, some people less. It makes sense to resort to the opinions of the members of British public for advice on who’s who in British history. An opinion poll involving some 30.000 people was carried in the UK at the turn of the present century. The aim was to list 100 top Britons of all time. The results of the poll published in the Internet are of peculiar interest for us, experts in British studies.

10.4.2. You may well do this as out-of-class activity.Work individually first, then do the same in small groups. The table below presents the first 10 out of 100 top British names. The left column of the table below contains the alphabetical list. Fill in the other two columns – your list and group list. The lecturer will provide you with information on the original Top Ten list.

Alphabetical list	Your priority list	Group priority list		The original list
Brunel
Churchill
Cromwell
Darwin
Diana
Elizabeth I
Lennon
Nelson
Newton
Shakespeare				Cromwell

10.4.3. It makes no less sense to remember some of the names which appear in the other half of the top 100 list. For instance, these are King Arthur (51), Florence Nightingale (52), Captain Robert Falcon Scott (54), Sir Alexander Graham Bell (57), Freddie Mercury (58), George Stephenson (68), Sir Charles Chaplin (66), Tony Blair (67), William Caxton (68), Edward Jenner (78), Geoffrey Chaucer (81), James Watt (84), James Clerk Maxwell (91), John R.R. Tolkien (92), David Livingstone (98), Professor Tim Berners-Lee (99), Mary Stopes (100). If you have a good story to tell about most of the people mentioned above, then you do know a thing or two (or even three) about British history and culture.

10.4.4. And, by the way, here is one last question. Do you know what gave Mary Stopes the 100^th place on the list?If you don’t, go and find out, will you?

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11.1. General description: what comes to mind first?

11.1.1. The United States of America, commonly called the United States or simply America (which is not correct, of course, but nobody cares), lies in the central part of the North American continent with the Atlantic Ocean to the East, the Pacific to the West, Canada to the North, and Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico to the South. The United States covers an area of 9,6 million square km. It has a population of about 300 million people. The states form a federation, each state being different from another in size and population. The largest states in area are Alaska, Texas, and California. The smallest state is Rhode Island. The state with the largest population is California followed by Texas, and New York. Only 480,907 people live on the plateaus and rugged mountains of Wyoming, the least populous state.

11.1.2. The scenery of the United Sates is as varied as the size of its states. There are great rivers, the longest being the Mississippi with its west tributary the Missouri. World-famous is the region of the Great Lakes, situated in the north-east of the United States bor­dering Canada. It is a system of five great lakes (Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario) joined together by natural channels. The Niagara Falls, great rapids situated on the short Niagara River joining Lakes Erie and Ontario, are famous all over the world.

The country was one of the first to establish national parks on a large scale. A number of picturesque areas have become national parks such as Yellowstone National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Rocky Mountains National Park in the Rocky Mountains area; Yosemite National Park on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; Grand Canyon National Park etc. There is a place that associates with US leadership, Mount Rushmore. Architect Borglum covered the face of Mount Rushmore with the heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

11.1.3. American lifestyle is associated with large modern cities. The most well-known of these are New York, Washington D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and a number of others. The capital Washington DC has a lot of symbols of the country such as t he Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Memorial, the White House and many others. Another symbol of the USA is the Statue of Liberty located on an island in New York Harbor.

11.1.4. Still, a great proportion of the country consists of open land dotted with farm-houses and small towns. In some regions small communities are still provincial. The usual town of average size, in any part of the United States, has its "main street", with the same types of stores selling the same products. Every town has the same type of drug-store and supermarket. 'One-storied' America still exists.

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