Text 2. The Suffragette Movement

One of the most famous protest campaigns in Britain was the Suffragette Movement. At the beginning of this century women (and some men) couldn’t vote in British elections. The Suffragettes wanted to change this. They were led by Emmeline Pankhurst. She organized meetings and protect marches to demand “Votes for Women”.

At first the protects were peaceful, but they became more and more violent. Speeches in Parliament were interrupted and the windows of public buildings were smashed by Suffragettes. In turn, eggs and tomatoes were often thrown at Suffragette speakers.

In 1913 Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. She was released when she started a hunger strike. But she was arrested again after she had chained herself to the railings outside Buckingham Palace.

We will never know how successful the Suffragettes were, because in 1914 the First World War started and the protests were stopped. During the war many men’s jobs were done by women, because the men were in the army. The war changed people’s ideas about many things. When it ended in 1918 the vote was given to all men over twenty-one and to women over the age of thirty. A few years later it was given to all adults over the age of twenty-two.

 

·Mark the sentences as T (true) or F (false).

 

1. The Suffragette Movement was the most famous one.

2. Some women could vote in British elections.

3. Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the Suffragette Movement.

4. Eggs and tomatoes were often thrown by Suffragettes.

5. Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

6. The Suffragettes were successful.

7. The protests were stopped because of the First World War.

8. The vote was given to all men over twenty-one and to women over the age twenty-five.

Text 3. THIS IS THE USA

The United States of America - the richest and one of the biggest countries in the world - has several names. People say “the United States”, “the States”, “America”, or just “the USA” or “the US”.

There are fifty states in the USA (including Alaska and Hawaii), and over 200 million people live in them.

There is no “American climate” or “American countryside”. Every part of the country is different, from Alaska in the North, covered with snow and ice, to tropical Florida in the South.

Who are the Americans? Where did they come from? Why did so many people go across the sea to the New World?

The American Indians were the first people to live in that vast land. They had a fascinating, ancient culture, and a rich tradition of language and customs.

When Christopher Columbus arrived, in 1492, there were probably about 1,500,000 Indians in North America.

But then, the immigrants came. By the early nineteenth century, the population was more than 17 million. Most came from Europe, but there were also many from the Middle East and the Far East, as well as millions of Africans, caught in the terrible slave trade.

Immigration went on growing. In 1907 alone, one and a quarter million people arrived. By 1914, the population was 92 million. Now there are more than 25 million British Americans (nearly half the population of Britain), about 23 million African Americans, 25 million German Americans and more Irish Americans than the whole population of Ireland.

You can find almost anything in America. There are mountains and deserts, old churches and moon rockets, homes with three cars and homes with no electric lights at all. There are people who speak Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Swedish, Japanese - in fact, almost every language under the sun.

Do you like wild empty lands? You'll love the great deserts of Nevada and Arizona, the high Rocky Mountains, and the miles of snow and ice in arctic Alaska.

Are you more interested in city life? You'll prefer the North East Coast, where 75% of Americans live on 1.5% of the land. You can drive from Boston through New York to Washington, D.C. and you will be in a town all the time. The three great cities of the East Coast, Boston in the north, New York in the middle and Washington, D.C. in the south, are the most important centres of American culture, education and government. Boston is a city full of history and old world charm. Near it is Harvard, America's oldest university. New York, full of life and colour, also has wonderful museums, art galleries and concert halls. Washington, D.C, of course, is the capital city, where the President of the USA lives in the famous White House.

Perhaps you prefer a more peaceful, agricultural landscape? Then go to the Midwest, to Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin. There the huge, flat farmlands, covered in wheat, go on and on as far as the eye can see. Out in the country, small towns offer a meeting place for the farmers - a church, a few shops, and a hotel for visitors. But there are huge cities in the Midwest as well. Chicago and Detroit, near the Great Lakes, are the old industrial heartlands of America. Millions of people live and work here, making steel, cars, TV sets and everything Americans love to buy.

Everyone knows about the great cattle ranches of Texas, but not all American cattle farmers are big landowners. Some farmers live on quite small farms, which a family can manage with no extra help.

If you like warm, sunny weather and an exciting atmosphere where new ideas are always welcome, California on the West Coast is the place for you. In this perfect climate, oranges, peaches and grapes grow easily, and on the wonderful beaches giant waves roll in from the Pacific Ocean. Near Los Angeles, California's largest city, is Hollywood, where film stars past and present have their homes. A visit to the film studios here is something you will always remember.

Is California not hot enough for you? Go to the deep South, to Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, where the old paddle boats still go down the great, wide river. Life is different here, quieter, slower, more old-fashioned. In the cotton fields of the South it is difficult to believe that the cities of the North East and the mountains of the North West are all part of the same huge country.

· Match the features to the places

wild empty lands	the North East Coast
peaceful, agricultural landscapes	the Midwest
huge cities	Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin
city life	Nevada, Arizona, Alaska
warm, sunny weather and an exciting atmosphere	Texas
the great cattle ranches	Hollywood
old-fashioned life	California
film studios	Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi

Text 4. US CONSTITUTION

The US Constitution is the framework of the US government. It establishes the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It is also the supreme law of the land, which all public officials are bound by oath to enforce. Moreover, the Constitution guarantees each American certain basic rights.

A «constitution» in American political language means the set of rules, laws, regulations and customs which together provide the political norms or standards regulating the work of the government. The document known as the Constitution of the United States, though a basic document, is only a part of the body of rules and customs which form the whole of the American Constitution. Supreme Court decisions, interpreting parts of the US Constitution, laws, regulations, customs are part of the basic law (the so-called *live constitution). Most historians regard the US Constitution as an essentially conservative document.

One remarkable feature of the US Constitution is its endurance. It is the oldest written national constitution in use in the world. Another remarkable feature of the Constitution is its ability to adapt itself to changing conditions.

The founding fathers knew that the Constitution might have to be changed. So they provided two methods of proposing amendments: by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or by a national convention called by Congress at the request of the legislatures in two-thirds of the states. Once proposed, an amendment does not take effect unless it is ratified either by the legislatures in three-fourths of the states or by special ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states.

The US Constitution consists of the Preamble, seven articles and twenty six amendments, the first ten of them called collectively the Bill of Rights and adopted under the popular pressure in 1791. When the Constitution was first proposed in 1787, there was widespread dissatisfaction because it didn’t contain guarantees of certain basic freedoms and individual rights. The Constitution consolidated those gains of the revolution that were advantageous for the capitalist class. Significantly, nothing was said about the elementary bourgeois-democratic freedoms. In December, 1791, the Congress adopted ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, which contains most of the basic rights. The Bill also enumerated *what the government controlled by the oligarchy was not going to be allowed to do. It was, of course, an important democratic gain for the people at that time. But nowadays some of these ten amendments are relatively unimportant.

The First Amendment protects the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms. The Third Amendment protects against quartering of soldiers in private homes, and the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Fifth Amendment provides a right to due process of law and gives rights to accused people, including protection against self-incrimination. The sixth Amendment provides the rights to a lawyer, an impartial jury, and a speedy trial in criminal cases.

The Seventh Amendment provides for jury trials in civil cases.

The Eighth Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment and excessive bail or fines. The Ninth Amendment declares that the rights spelled out in the Constitution are not all the rights that people have. Finally, the Tenth Amendment reserves to the states and the people any powers not belonging to the federal government.

The Bill of Rights was designed to protect Americans against the power of the federal government. Nothing in the Constitution specifically requires state governments to abide by the Bill of Rights. But in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, passed after the Civil War, the Supreme Court has extended most Bill of Rights protections to the states.

In addition to the Bill of Rights, later amendments provide other important rights. The Thirteenth Amendment forbids slavery and outlaws involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime. The Fourteenth Amendment requires equal protection of the laws for all citizens. It also provides that no state can deprive any citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Several amendments protect and broaden the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment forbids denying the right to vote based on race or colour. The Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote. The Twenty-fourth Amendment gives citizens of Washington D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections, and the Twenty-sixth Amendments gives all people 18 years of age or older the right to vote.

*«live constitution» — «живая конституция»

*what the government controlled by the oligarchy was not going to be allowed to do.... что правительству, которое контролировалось олигархией, не разрешалось делать.

· Match the Russian to the English equivalents

прочность, выносливость	regulations	рабство	bourgeois
существенно, в сущности	dissatisfaction	перечислять	to abide
упорядочение, правило	advantageous	буржуазный	to enumerate
распространенный	essentially	придерживаться	to extend
неудовлетворённость, недовольство	endurance	лишать	servitude
выгодный	wide-spread	расширять, распространять	to deprive

· Work in pairs. Say the beginning of the word combinations and let your group mate complete them.

in American political ……………..; the set of ………………; Supreme Court …………….; to be aimed at …………………..; to regard as …………………; wide-spread ………………..; guarantees of basic …………………; to consolidate ………………….; to be advantageous………………; the elementary ………………..; ability to adapt …………………; the freedoms of religion, ……………….; to bar ………………; without …………….….; to forbid ………………..; the rights to a ………………..