Учебно-методическое пособие по английскому языку для подготовки студентов к интернет-тестированию Уфа 2007
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Universities in the United States
There are about 3,000 universities that offer undergraduate programs. More than 1,000 universities that offer Masters programs, and approximately 400 of these offer Doctoral and Post-Doctoral degrees (PhD). There are several types of universities in the U.S.
Public Universities
These are state-affiliated institutions and some may include the words "State University" in their title. They are relatively inexpensive when compared to the other universities nation-wide, but getting admission into these universities can be more difficult than a private institution. State universities tend to be very large with enrollments of 20,000 or more students. Also, many government-funded research projects are allocated to state universities, which provide research assistantship opportunities for highly qualified students. Most of the universities offer partial or full tuition fee waivers to teaching and research assistant students.
Private Universities
Private institutions are supported by student tuition, investment income, research contracts, and private donations. Tuition fees tend to be higher at private universities than at state universities, but they charge the same tuition to both state and out-of-state residents.
The quality of education is equal between public and private universities. The main differences are funding and fees. Public universities are funded by state governments, student tuition payments, and private donations. Since public universities are supported by state governments, they give enrollment preference and lower tuition fees to the in-state students. All international students are subjected to out-of-state tuition. However, the tuition is usually lower at most state institutions than at private institutions, even for those who are out-of-state residents.
Community Colleges
These are institutions normally run by a certain community for their own people. Many high school graduates who cannot afford to go to a university, or who simply are not ready for a four-year institution, will choose to go to community college. These institutions accept international students, but they have a fewer number of attendees, as most students are commuters from the near-by area. Although community colleges focus on undergraduate programs, some offer good graduate programs as well. These institutions will be mostly located in suburbs, and the basic advantage in these institutions is minimum academic fees.
Technical Institutes
These are institutions mainly specializing in engineering degrees, mostly at the Masters and Doctoral level. These institutions are famous for their renowned research programs and most international students are attracted to these sorts of institutions.
Admission into universities is very competitive, and decisions are made based on the student's application package, including resume, samples of previous work, and letters of recommendation. Academic fees vary from university to university and usually range $7,000-35,000 per year. An average academic fee is $10,000-12,000 per year, excluding living expenses.
University Ranking
Various organizations define U.S. university ranking by various factors, such as number of programs, acceptance percentage, and enrollment. There is no official university ranking list available to students by the government or any educational-related organization. The most commonly used ranking report is the one published by US News.
TOP 20 Ranked universities.
| Rank | Institution Name | City | State |
| 1 | University of Southern California | Los Angeles | CA |
| 2 | Columbia University | New York | NY |
| 3 | Purdue University, Main Campus | West Lafayette | IN |
| 4 | New York University | New York | NY |
| 5 | University of Texas at Austin | Austin | TX |
| 6 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Champaign | IL |
| 7 | University of Michigan - Ann Arbor | Ann Arbor | MI |
| 8 | Boston University | Boston | MA |
| 9 | University of California - Los Angeles | Los Angeles | CA |
| 10 | The Ohio State University, Main Campus | Columbus | OH |
| 11 | Texas A&M University | College Station | TX |
| 12 | University of Maryland College Park | College Park | MD |
| 13 | Indiana University at Bloomington | Bloomington | IN |
| 14 | Penn State University - University Park | University Park | PA |
| 15 | University at Buffalo - SUNY | Buffalo | NY |
| 16 | University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia | PA |
| 17 | University of Wisconsin - Madison | Madison | WI |
| 18 | Harvard University | Cambridge | MA |
| 19 | Florida International University | Miami | FL |
| 20 | University of Houston | Houston | TX |
Vocabulary notes
Hire-нанимать
Schoolmaster-школьный учитель
plot of land-участок земли
attend-посещать
elementary and secondary school-начальная и средняя школа
curriculum-учебная программа
guidance and funding-управление и финансирование
upon completion-по завершении
enroll-включать в список
obtain-получать, достигать
be admitted-быть принятым
bachelors degree-степень бакалавра
prior to-до
graduate school- аспирантура
approximately-приблизительно
allocate-размещать, распределять
tuition fee-плата за обучение
waiver-отказ
partial-частичный
investment income
private donations-частные пожертвования
community-сообщество
suburb-пригород
application package-пакет документов
samples of previous work-образцы предыдущей работы
average-средний
excluding living expenses-исключая расходы на жизнь
Famous American People
Presidents
George Washington
First President
1789-1797
Born: February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia
Died: December 14, 1799 in Mount Vernon, Virginia
Married to Martha Dandridge Washington
On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States.
He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year was an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock. From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses.
When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six gruelling years.
Washington soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, they Washington President.
Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second.
He died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him
Thomas Jefferson
Third President
1801-1809
Born: April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia
Died: July 4, 1826 in Monticello in Virginia
Married to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the "silent member" of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.
Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington's Cabinet. He resigned in 1793.
Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.
He became Vice President, in1796. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson's election.
When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.
During Jefferson's second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson's attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, worked badly and was unpopular.
Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for t
he University of Virginia. He died on July 4, 1826. Abraham Lincoln
Sixteenth President
1861-1865
Born: February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Hardin County, Kentucky
Died: April 15, 1865. Lincoln died the morning after being shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. by John Wilkes Booth, an actor.
Married to Mary Todd Lincoln
The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years.
In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.
Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South.
T
heodore RooseveltTwenty-Sixth President
1901-1909
Born: October 27, 1858 in New York, New York
Died: January 6, 1919 in Oyster Bay, New York
Married to Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, 43, became the youngest President in the Nation's history.
He was born in New York City in 1858 into a wealthy family, but he too struggled--against ill health--and in his triumph became an advocate of the tenuous life.
During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment, which he led on a charge at the battle of San Juan. Boss Tom Platt, needing a hero to draw attention away from scandals in New York State, accepted Roosevelt as the Republican candidate for Governor in 1898. Roosevelt won and served with distinction.
Roosevelt emerged spectacularly as a "trust buster" by forcing the dissolution of a great railroad combination in the Northwest. Other antitrust suits under the Sherman Act followed.
Roosevelt steered the United States more actively into world politics. He liked to quote a favorite proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick. . . . "
Aware of the strategic need for a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific, Roosevelt ensured the construction of the Panama Canal. His corollary to the Monroe Doctrine prevented the establishment of foreign bases in the Caribbean and arrogated the sole right of intervention in Latin America to the United States.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War, reached a Gentleman's Agreement on immigration with Japan, and sent the Great White Fleet on a goodwill tour of the world.
Some of Theodore Roosevelt's most effective achievements were in conservation. He added enormously to the national forests in the West, reserved lands for public use, and fostered great irrigation projects.
Leaving the Presidency in 1909, Roosevelt went on an African safari, then jumped back into politics. In 1912 he ran for President on a Progressive ticket. To reporters he once remarked that he felt as fit as a bull moose, the name of his new party.
While campaigning in Milwaukee, he was shot in the chest by a fanatic. Roosevelt soon recovered, but his words at that time would have been applicable at the time of his death in 1919: "No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way."
Harry S Truman
Thirty-Third President
1945-1953
Born: May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri
Died: December 26, 1972 in Independence, Missouri
Married to Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman
Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884.
He went to France during World War I as a captain in the Field Artillery. Active in the Democratic Party, Truman was elected a judge of the Jackson County Court (an administrative position) in 1922. He became a Senator in 1934. During World War II he headed the Senate war investigating committee, checking into waste and corruption and saving perhaps as much as 15 billion dollars.
Soon after V-E Day, the war against Japan had reached its final stage. An urgent plea to Japan to surrender was rejected. Truman, after consultations with his advisers, ordered atomic bombs dropped on cities devoted to war work. Two were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese surrender quickly followed.
In June 1945 Truman witnessed the signing of the charter of the United Nations, hopefully established to preserve peace.
In 1947 as the Soviet Union pressured Turkey and, through guerrillas, threatened to take over Greece, he asked Congress to aid the two countries, enunciating the program that bears his name--the Truman Doctrine. The Marshall Plan, named for his Secretary of State, stimulated spectacular economic recovery in war-torn western Europe.
He was negotiating a military alliance to protect Western nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949.
Deciding not to run again, he retired to Independence; at age 88.
John Kennedy
Thirty-Fifth President
1961-1963
Born: May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts
Died: November 22, 1963. Killed by an assassin's bullet in Dallas, Texas
Married to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy
On November 22, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die. Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy.
Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history.
Shortly after his inauguration, Kennedy permitted a band of Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their homeland. The attempt to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro was a failure. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union renewed its campaign against West Berlin. Kennedy replied by reinforcing the Berlin garrison and increasing the Nation's military strength, including new efforts in outer space. Confronted by this reaction, Moscow, after the erection of the Berlin Wall, relaxed its pressure in central Europe.
Instead, the Russians now sought to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in October 1962, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled on the brink of nuclear war, the Russians backed down and agreed to take the missiles away. The American response to the Cuban crisis evidently persuaded Moscow of the futility of nuclear blackmail.
Kennedy now contended that both sides had a vital interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms race--a contention which led to the test ban treaty of 1963.
Ronald Reagan
Fortieth President
1981-1989
Born: February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois
Died: June 5, 2004 in Bel-Air, California
Married to Nancy Davis Reagan
On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer. A screen test in 1937 won him a contract in Hollywood. During the next two decades he appeared in 53 films.
As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan became embroiled in disputes over the issue of Communism in the film industry; his political views shifted from liberal to conservative. He toured the country as a television host, becoming a spokesman for conservatism. In 1966 he was elected Governor of California by a margin of a million votes; he was re-elected in 1970.
On January 20, 1981, Reagan took office. Only 69 days later he was shot by a would-be assassin, but quickly recovered and returned to duty. Dealing skilfully with Congress, Reagan obtained legislation to stimulate economic growth, curb inflation, increase employment, and strengthen national defence. He embarked upon a course of cutting taxes and Government expenditures, refusing to deviate from it when the strengthening of defence forces led to a large deficit.
A renewal of national self-confidence by 1984 helped Reagan and Bush win a second term. In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes. At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression.
In foreign policy, Reagan sought to achieve "peace through strength." During his two terms he increased defence spending 35 percent, but sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union. In dramatic meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he negotiated a treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. By ordering naval escorts in the Persian Gulf, he maintained the free flow of oil during the Iran-Iraq war. In keeping with the Reagan Doctrine, he gave support to anti-Communist insurgencies in Central America, Asia, and Africa.
R
ichard M. NixonThirty-Seventh President
1969-1974
Born: January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California
Died: April 22, 1994 in New York, New York
Married to Patricia Ryan Nixon
During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation.
His election in 1968 had climaxed a career unusual on two counts: his early success and his comeback after being defeated for President in 1960 and for Governor of California in 1962.
During World War II, Nixon served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific.
On leaving the service, he was elected to Congress from his California district. In 1950, he won a Senate seat. Two years later, General Eisenhower selected Nixon, age 39, to be his running mate.
His accomplishments while in office included revenue sharing, the end of the draft, new anticrime laws, and a broad environmental program. As he had promised, he appointed Justices of conservative philosophy to the Supreme Court. One of the most dramatic events of his first term occurred in 1969, when American astronauts made the first moon landing.
Some of his most acclaimed achievements came in his quest for world stability. During visits in 1972 to Beijing and Moscow, he reduced tensions with China and the U.S.S.R. His summit meetings with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. In January 1973, he announced an accord with North Viet Nam to end American involvement in Indochina.
Within a few months, his administration was embattled over the so-called "Watergate" scandal, stemming from a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 campaign. The break-in was traced to officials of the Committee to Re-elect the President. Nixon denied any personal involvement, but the courts forced him to yield tape recordings which indicated that he had, in fact, tried to divert the investigation.
Faced with what seemed almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign the next day to begin "that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."
In his last years, Nixon gained praise as an elder statesman. By the time of his death on April 22, 1994, he had written numerous books on his experiences in public life and on foreign policy
Literature
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Benjamin Franklin, whom the Scottish philosopher David Hume called America's "first great man of letters," embodied the Enlightenment ideal of humane rationality. Franklin recorded his early life in his famous Autobiography. Writer, printer, publisher, scientist, philanthropist, and diplomat, he was the most famous and respected private figure of his time. He was the first great self-made man in America, a poor democrat born in an aristocratic age that his fine example helped to liberalize. While a youth, Franklin taught himself languages, read widely, and practiced writing for the public. Franklin’s Poor Richard's Almanack, begun in 1732 and published for many years, made Franklin prosperous and well-known throughout the colonies. In this annual book of useful encouragement, advice, and factual information, amusing characters such as old Father Abraham and Poor Richard exhort the reader in pithy, memorable sayings: "God helps them that help themselves." "Early to Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy, and wise." "A small leak will sink a great Ship."
He was an important figure at the 1787 convention at which the U.S. Constitution was drafted.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin; or. Life Among the Lowly was the most popular American book of the 19th century. Its passionate appeal for an end to slavery in the United States inflamed the debate that, within a decade, led to the U.S.Civil War (1861-1865).
Reasons for the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin are obvious. It reflected the idea that slavery in the United States was an injustice of colossal proportions.
Stowe herself was a perfect representative of old New England Puritan stock. Stowe conceived the idea of the novel — in a vision of an old, ragged slave being beaten — as she participated in a church service. Later, she said that the novel was inspired and "written by God."
SAMUEL CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN) (1835-1910)
Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, grew up in the Mississippi River frontier town of Hannibal, Missouri. Ernest Hemingway's famous statement that all of American literature comes from one great book, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, indicates this author's towering place in the tradition. Twain was the first major author to come from the interior of the country, and he captured its distinctive, humorous slang and iconoclasm.
Twain's masterpiece, which appeared in 1884, is set in the Mississippi River village of St. Petersburg.
Huckleberry Finn has inspired countless literary interpretations.
Samuel Clemens's pen name, "Mark Twain," is the phrase Mississippi boatmen used to signify two fathoms (3.6 meters) of water, the depth needed for a boat's safe passage. Twain's serious purpose, combined with a rare genius for humor and style, keep his writing fresh and appealing.
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
The 1925 work An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, like London's Martin Eden, explores the dangers of the American dream. Its precise details build up an overwhelming sense of tragic inevitability. The novel is a scathing portrait of the American success myth gone sour, but it is also a universal story about the stresses of urbanization, modernization, and alienation.
An American Tragedy is a reflection of the dissatisfaction, envy, and despair that afflicted many poor working people in America's competitive, success-driven society.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Hemingway came from the U.S. Midwest. Born in Illinois. He volunteered for an ambulance unit in France during World War I, but was wounded and hospitalized for six months. After his novel The Sun Also Rises (1926) brought him fame, he covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the fighting in China in the 1940s. The Old Man and the Sea (1952), a short poetic novel about a poor, old fisherman who heroically catches a huge fish devoured by sharks, won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953; the next year he received the Nobel Prize. Discouraged by a troubled family background, illness, and the belief that he was losing his gift for writing, Hemingway shot himself to death in 1961.
Hemingway's excellent short stories are "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." His best novels include The Sun Also Rises, about the demoralized life of expatriates after World War I; A Farewell to Arms, about the tragic love affair of an American soldier and an English nurse during the war; For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), set during the Spanish Civil War.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
John Steinbeck is held in higher critical esteem outside the United States than in it today, largely because he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 and the international fame it confers. Steinbeck, a Californian, set much of his writing in the Salinas Valley near San Francisco. His best known work is the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which follows the travails of a poor Oklahoma family that loses its farm during the Depression and travels to California to seek work. Family members suffer conditions of feudal oppression by rich landowners. Other works set in California include Tortilla Flat (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937), Cannery Row (1945), and East of Eden (1952).
Sport
B
abe RuthOutfielder/Pitcher
Born: February 6, 1895
Died: August 16, 1948 (aged 53)
George Herman Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948), also known as "Babe", "The Great Bambino", "The Sultan of Swat", and "The Colossus of Clout", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914-1935. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball players in history. Many polls place him as the number one player of all time.
He hit 29 home runs to break Ned Williamson's record for most home runs in a single season.
In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of professional baseball. In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth Number 1 on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players."
M
ichael JordanPosition - Shooting guard
Nickname - Air Jordan, His Airness, MJ,
Height - 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m)
Weight - 216 lb (98 kg)
Nationality - United States
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player. Widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he became one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was instrumental in popularizing the NBA (National Basketball Association) around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.
His leaping ability, illustrated by performing slam dunks from the foul line at Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness." He also gained a reputation as one of the best defensive players in basketball. Jordan holds the NBA record for highest career regular season scoring average with 30.1 points per game, as well as averaging a record 33.4 points per game in the playoffs. In 1999, he was named the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN, and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press's list of athletes of the century.
Jordan is also noted for his product endorsements. He fueled the success of Nike's Air Jordan sneakers, which were introduced in 1985 and remain popular today.
Music
ELLA FITZGERALD
Ella lived in an orphanage in New York. At age 15, she entered a contest in New York. A famous jazz musician named Chick Webb was in the audience. He was looking for a new singer for his band. When he heard Ella's voice, he gave her the job.In 1938 Ella wrote a song with Chick Webb. This song was a great success. Ella was a star.
Chick Webb died, but Ella sang with his band for three more years. Then she sang alone. She traveled all over the world. She had an amazing voice. She could sing any kind of song. Ella sang for almost 60 years. She sold over 25 million records and sang with more than 40 orchestras. People called her the "First Lady of Song." Ella died in 1996.
Louis Armstrong (1991 – 1971)
He was the greatest of all Jazz musicians. Armstrong defined what it was to play Jazz. Like almost all early Jazz musicians, Louis was from New Orleans. He was from a very poor family, his amazing playing soon made him a sensation among other musicians in Chicago. The New Orleans style of music took the town by storm and soon many other bands from down south made their way north to Chicago. The records made by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven are considered to be absolute jazz classics. He and his band toured extensively travelling to Africa, Asia, Europe and South America until Louis' failing health caused them to disband. Armstrong became known as America's Ambassador. In 1963 Armstrong scored a huge international hit with his version of "Hello Dolly". This number one single even knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts. In 1968 he recorded another number one hit with the touchingly optimistic "What A Wonderful World". Armstrong's health began to fail him and he was hospitalized several times over the remaining three years of his life, but he continued playing and recording. On July 6th 1971 the world's greatest Jazz musician died in his sleep at his home in Queens, New York.
Elvis Presley.
Birth name - Elvis Aaron Presley
Also known as Elvis, The King
Born - January 8, 1935 Tupelo, Mississippi, USA
Origin - Memphis, Tennessee
Died - August 16, 1977 (age 42)Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Genre(s) - Rock and roll, Rockabilly Country, Gospel, Country rock
Occupation(s) - Singer, Musician, ActorAmerican soldier
Instrument(s) - Vocals, Guitar, Piano, BassDrums, Percussion, Ukulele
Years active - 1954–1977
Label(s) - Sun, RCA Records
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), was an American singer, musician and actor. He is often known simply as Elvis; also "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", or simply "The King".
Presley began his career as a singer of rockabilly, performing country and rhythm and blues songs. He developed a versatile voice and sang a combination of country music and blues with a strong back beat, and an energetic delivery - one of the earliest forms of rock & roll. He also had success with other genres, including gospel, blues and pop. Presley made 33 movies and set many records for concert attendance, television ratings and records sales. He subsequently became one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music.
His premature death, aged 42, shocked his fans worldwide.
Arts and Entertainment
GRANDMA MOSES
Grandma Moses started a new job at age 76.
She worked on other people's farms to make money. In 1930 Anna Mary Moses was 70 and a grandmother, she painted pictures. She made paintings of country life. One day, her daughter took her paintings to a store in town. A man from New York saw the paintings in the window and bought them.
The man liked Grandma Moses's paintings. So he took her paintings to galleries in New York. Otto Kallir had a famous gallery there. In 1940 Grandma Moses's paintings were in Kallir's gallery. She was 80 years old and suddenly became famous. So she painted more and more. She won many prizes for her paintings. She became famous in the United States and Europe. She was on television, and people made a movie about her.
When she was 100 years old, the state of New York made her birthday "Grandma Moses Day." After her 100th birthday, she painted 26 more paintings. She died at age 101.
C
harlie ChaplinBirth name - Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr.
Born - 16 April 1889(1889-04-16)Walworth, London, England
Died - 25 December 1977 (aged 88) Vevey, Switzerland
Years active - 1914 - 1967
Spouse(s) - Mildred Harris (1918-1920)
Lita Grey (1924-1928)
Paulette Goddard (1936-1942)
Oona Chaplin (1943-1977)
Notable roles
The Tramp (1914-1936)
Monsieur Verdoux in Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr. KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977), better known as Charlie Chaplin, was an English comedy actor. Chaplin became one of the most famous performers as well as a notable director and musician in the early to mid Hollywood cinema era. He is considered to be one of the finest mimes and clowns ever caught on film and has greatly influenced performers in this field.
Chaplin was also one of the most creative and influential personalities in the silent film era. He acted in, directed, scripted, produced, and eventually scored his own films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 65 years, from the Victorian stage and music hall in England as a child performer, almost until his death at the age of eighty-eight. Chaplin's high-profile public and private life encompassed highs and lows with both adulation and controversy.
His principal character was "The Tramp" (known as "Charlot" in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Turkey). "The Tramp" is a vagrant with the refined manners and dignity of a gentleman. The character wears a tight coat, oversized trousers and shoes, a derby, carries a bamboo cane, and has a signature toothbrush moustache.
Walt DisneyBorn - December 05, 1901(1901-12-05) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died - December 15, 1966 (aged 65) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation - Film producer, Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions
Spouse - Lillian Disney
Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Disney is notable as one of the most influential figures in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Walt became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. Walt Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He received twenty-two Academy Awards and forty-eight nominations during his lifetime, holding the record for the individual with the most awards and the most nominations. Disney has also won seven Emmy Awards. Disney and his staff created a number of the world's most famous fictional characters, including the one many consider Disney's alter ego, Mickey Mouse. He is also well-known for giving his name to Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, France, Japan and China.
Walt Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966, a few years prior to the opening of his Walt Disney World dream project in Orlando, Florida
The Disney entertainment empire
Today, Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carries his name. The Walt Disney Company today owns, among other assets, five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network
Walt Disney also received the Congressional Gold Medal on May 24, 1968 and the Legion d'Honneur in France in 1935.
Science and Inventions
ISAAC SINGER'S SEWING MACHINE
Isaac Singer was an inventor. He was born poor. He was the eighth child of a German immigrant. At age 12, he ran away from home and became an actor. An actor did not make much money, so Isaac also learned to be a mechanic.
In 1851 Singer was working as a mechanic in Boston. Someone told him he could make a lot of money if he could make a good sewing machine. There were already several kinds of sewing machines. But none of them worked well. In eleven days, Singer made the first sewing machine that really worked.
Singer and two other people started the Singer Company. They made sewing machines. The Singer Company used a great new idea to sell its machines. People did not have to pay all the money at one time. They could pay a little money every month or every week.
For the first time, people could buy ready-made clothes and shoes.
Isaac Singer became a very wealthy man. He stopped work and retired.
GARRET A. MORGAN'S TRAFFIC LIGHT
The next time you stop for a red light, thank the inventor, Garret A. Morgan.
In 1875 Garret A. Morgan was born to a poor African-American family. When he was 14 he left school and went to work. He did not have much education. But he was very imaginative.
In 1901 Morgan invented a special belt for sewing machines. He sold the idea for $150. But this was only the beginning. Morgan invented many things. In 1914 Morgan invented a helmet to protect miners and firefighters from smoke and gas. He won a gold medal for this invention.
The streets were crowded with cars. There were many accidents. Morgan had an idea. What about a light at each street corner? The light tells the cars to stop or go. He invented a timer that automatically changed the light.
Cities all over the country wanted to have Morgan's traffic lights. He couldn’t produce enough traffic lights. In 1920s he sold his invention to the General Electric Company.
McDonald’s
Maurice ("Mac") and Richard McDonald had a dream. They wanted to be movie stars. They went to California from the East Coast. But they could not find jobs in the movies. They decided to open a restaurant in San Bernardino. They wanted to try something new—a fast-food restaurant. They borrowed money and opened a restaurant. They called the restaurant McDonald's. Hamburgers, milk shakes, and French fries were on the menu. That's all. No one thought it would work. But people loved it. The food was simple, fast, and good. Soon, people waited in line outside the restaurant.
A salesman named Ray Kroc from Chicago could not understand why the restaurant needed so many milk-shake machines. So he went to California to see this restaurant. He was amazed. Kroc asked the brothers to open other restaurants like this. He would give them some money for these restaurants. The brothers agreed.
In 1955, Kroc opened two other McDonald's. Soon there were hundreds of McDonald's. The brothers sold McDonald's to Ray Kroc.
Thomas A. Edison
Thomas A. Edison in his laboratory in New Jersey, 1901
Born: February 11, 1847
Died: October 18, 1931
The phonograph and the motion-picture projector were only a few of Thomas Alva Edison's more than 1,000 inventions. One of the most famous inventors in the history of technology, Edison also created the first industrial research laboratory, in Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1876.
H
enry FordHenry Ford, c. 1919
Born - July 30, 1863 Greenfield Township, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Died - April 7, 1947 (aged 83) Fair Lane, Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation - Business
Spouse - Clara Jane Bryant
Parents - William Ford and Mary Ford
Children - Edsel Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. He was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents. As sole owner of the Ford Company he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism", that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line which could finish a car in 98 minutes. Henry Ford's intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put a dealership in every city in North America, and in major cities on six continents. Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation but arranged for his family to control the company permanently