рабочий лист Past Simple - Страноведческий материал (США)
материал по английскому языку (10 класс) по теме

Past Simple

The Pilgrim Fathers

For thousands of years, America and its peoples ________ (to be) unknown to the rest of the world. The Vikings ____________ (to visit) Canada from Scandinavia around AD 1000, but did not stay. Then, in 1492, a brave Italian sailor called Christopher Columbus _____________ (to reach) the Caribbean, while he was looking for a sea route from Europe to India. Columbus ____________________ (not to stay)  either.

It was only in the sixteenth century that the French, the Spanish, and the British all ____________ (to start) to come and live in North America. In the early seventeenth century, two very different groups of English people ___________ (to make) the dangerous journey across the Atlantic.

In 1607, a group of farmers _________(to begin) the colony of Jamestown, in Virginia. They fought with the Indians and many _________ (to die) because they were ill and did not have enough to eat. But Pocahontas, the daughter of an Indian chief, ___________ (to become) a friend of Captain John Smith and helped him and the other English people. She later __________ (to marry) a man called John Rolfe and ________ (to go) to England, where she died.

The farmers ________________ (to discover) that it was easy to grow tobacco in Virginia, so they __________ (to bring) African people to work in the fields as their slaves. Smoking was becoming very fashionable, and the Americans __________ (to find) a big market for their tobacco in Europe. In 1620, another group of 101 English men, women and children ____________ (to arrive) in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We know these people, who had very strong ideas about religion, as the 'Pilgrims', or 'Pilgrim Fathers'. They did not want to live in England because they ________________ (not to  agree) with the Church of England, so they sailed to America in a ship called the Mayflower. They became not only farmers, but also businessmen who __________ (to buy) and (to sell) ___________ animal skins. They __________ (to think) that all men were equal and so they did not have slaves. The Pilgrims too were often ill and hungry, and nearly half of them died in the first year. But they were helped by friendly Indians, who ___________(to show) them how to grow corn. In the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims ________(to have) a big dinner to give thanks for the first food that they had grown  themselves.

This day became known as Thanksgiving, and Americans still celebrate it every year, on the fourth Thursday of November. It is one of the most important holidays in the year, and people often travel many hundreds of kilometres to be with their family.

USA facts

'America' ______________ (to name; Passive Voice) after an Italian businessman called Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed to South America between 1499 and 1502. Columbus called the Native Americans 'Indians' because he thought that he had reached India.

Past Simple

The War of Independence

By 1770, there _________ (to be) thirteen colonies along the east coast of North America, all governed by Britain. But Britain _______ (to be) a long way away, and the people of the colonies ____________ (to become) angry at the high taxes that the government made them pay.

In December 1773 a group of men __________ (to throw) 342 boxes of tea into the sea at Boston because they did not want to pay the British tax on it. This was the 'Boston Tea Party'. The British government was now angry too, and in April 1775 some Americans ____________ (to fight) a group of British soldiers at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts. A few months later, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, near Boston, it was clear that Britain was at war with its American colonies.

A farmer from Virginia, George Washington, ______________ (to become) the leader of the American army. But the colonies did not say that they _____________ (to want) to be fully independent until the summer of 1776. Thomas Jefferson _____________ (to write) the famous 'Declaration of Independence', where he ___________ (to say)  that the king, George III, had broken his agreement with his people, because he had not let them have their rights: rights to life, freedom and happiness. The day of the Declaration of Independence is another important American holiday, celebrated each year on July 4. The Americans finally __________ (to win) the war five years later, in October 1781, and two years after that, they were free to govern themselves. In 1788 they __________ (to make) GeorgeWashington their first president. The thirteen colonies, which became known as 'states', ____________ (to grow) by adding land to the south and west. In 1803, Jefferson, the third president, ____________ (to buy) a piece of rich farmland in the mid-west from France; it was five times as big as France itself, and it only _________ (to cost)  $15 million. In 1819, the USA bought Florida from Spain. The United States ________ (to be)  now twice as big as it had been in 1781. And by 1848, after winning Texas and the West from Mexico, it had grown again so that it reached all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, over 5,000 kilometres.

USA facts          

The American flag, the Stars and Stripes, also first _____________ (to appear) at that time. It has a stripe for each of the first thirteen states and a star is added when a new state joins, so there are now fifty stars.