1. The U.S. physical and political geography, rivers, lakes, montains and deserts, climate, natural resources.

These major divisions are the:

• Laurentian Highlands - part of the Canadian shield that extends into the northern United States Great Lakes area.

• Atlantic Plain - the coastal regions of the eastern and southern parts includes the continental shelf, the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast.

• Appalachian Highlands - lying on the eastern side of the United States, it includes the Appalachian Mountains, Adirondacks and New England province.

• Interior Plains - part of the interior contentintal United States, it includes much of what is called the Great Plains.

• Interior Highlands - also part of the interior contentintal United States, this division includes the Ozark Plateau.

• Rocky Mountain System - one branch of the Cordellian system lying far inland in the western states.

• Intermontane Plateaus - also divided into the Columbia Plateau, the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range Province, it is a system of plateaus, basins, ranges and gorges between the Rocky and Pacific Mountain Systems. It is the setting for the Grand Canyon, the Great Basin and Death Valley.

• Pacific Mountain System - the coastal mountain ranges and features in the west coast of the United States.

Highest point: Mount McKinley

Lowest point: Death Valley

Two enormous drainage systems dominate the U.S. landscape: the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River (serves the northern reaches of the country) and the Mississippi-Missouri rivers drainage areas (encompasses much of the central United States, includes the Ohio River, draining the Midwest and the northern segment of the Appalachian Mountains, and the Tennessee River, dominating the southern Appalachian region).

US deserts

Great Basin-between the Wasatch Range on the east and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range on the west. Mojave Desert, arid region in southern California, part of the Great Basin. Sonoran Desert is a large, low, arid region lying primarily in southwestern Arizona, southeastern California, and northwestern Mexico. The desert supports numerous Native American reservations and United States military bases and air force and gunnery ranges. Natural hazards: tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquake activity around the Pacific Basin.

Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the American South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Some parts of the American West, including San Francisco, California, have a Mediterranean climate. The humid East and the arid West. Winters in the northern part are very cold with much snowfall. In the southern part, rainfall is plentiful; summers are very hot but winters are mild. America leads the world in the production of phosphate, an important ingredient in fertilizers, and ranks second in gold, silver, copper, lead, natural gas, and coal. Petroleum production is third in the world. US has the following natural resources: coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, potash, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, timber. The nation’s three chief mineral products are fuels.

3. Native Americans: their origin, their ancient and present history.

Migration began more than 20,000 years ago. In 11^th century Scandinavians traveled to North America. Then the 1^st recorded voyage - in 1497 Italian navigator John Carbot(sailed to Newfoundland).

Christopher Columbus, 1492, The names applied to Native Americans are (also Original Americans, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, American Indians, Amerindians),

They lived scattered across the continent in small bands called tribes. They were fine craftsworkers, made pottery, baskets, carvings and wove cotton and plant-fiber cloth. They had reached a level of culture: personal wealth, fine buildings and religious.

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the Native Americans. Up to 80% of some Native populations may have died due to European diseases and many tribes and cultures were completely eliminated.

In the 20^th century the situation with Native Americans has changed. The Government was becoming proud of its diverse population and to try to compensate them for the unfair treatment they had received before. In 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, according to which all the Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States were declared to be citizens.

Current status of Native Americans. Military defeat, cultural pressure, confinement on reservations, slavery ,health problems include poverty, alcoholism, heart disease, diabetes, and New World Syndrome.

1970s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs

In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes. Most Native American communities have established court systems.

One third of the Native Americans in the United States live in three states: California, Arizona and Oklahoma.

4.European colonization of North America. Two main reasons of English migration to America.

16th century the first Englishmen. Purpose: the hope of finding gold. At the beginning of the colonial period there was a strong pull to come to America for its possible imperial riches.

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the Native Americans. up to 80% of some Native populations may have died due to European diseases and many tribes and cultures were completely eliminated. Originally, keeping Native Americans as slaves was tried, but eventually almost all slaves were blacks. The first African slaves arrived in the present day United States in 1526.

In North America the French, Dutch and even Russian colonists established rudimentary societies and, more importantly, elaborate trading networks, only the English established colonies of agricultural settlers, whose interests in Native Americans was less about trade than about the acquisition of land.

English migrants 

The 1 reason was tied to the English Reformation. King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church in the 1530s. Appearance of Protestants or puritans. They fled from religious repression in England. Puritans came to America seeking religious freedom or in other words “religious domination”. They hoped that America would be a “redeemer nation”. Purit. social ideal- “nation of saints” or the “City upon a Hill”.

The 2 reason for English colonization was that land in England had become scarce. The population of England doubled from 1530-1680. Landholders evicted tenants from their land – a growing number of young, unemployed, often desperate people. They migrate to America as workers, servants. In Am. were a few eligible women to start the families with.

The Colony of Roanoke, resulted in failure – the lost colony of Roanoke (people were lost; discovered only mysterious word on a tree CROATOAN). England made its first successful efforts only at the start of the 17th century.

Four regions in the lands that became the eastern United States: New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay and the Southern Colonies. The frontier – the fifth colony.

5.Africans and the economic value of plantation slavery for the U.S. development

The first African slaves arrived in the present day United States in 1526. Between 1619 and 1808 about 500,000 Africans were brought to the colonies as slaves. Africans also brought the skills and trades of their homeland to North America, without the skills of Africans and their descendants, the rice fields of South Carolina and Louisiana might never have existed.

The poets Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes, jazz -the popular music. Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton

“Uncle Tom”. It is used by blacks as a derogatory (humiliating) term for members of their race. The real “Uncle Tom” was Josiah Henson ( 1789-?), a slave who escaped with his family via the Underground railroad and later attained economic success , he used part of the profits to open a manual training school; helped 118 other slaves escape to freedom.

Racism

Freedom in the wake of the Civil War was a first step in eradicating this prejudice. The civil rights era of the mid-20th century saw even more advancement, but prejudice against black Americans has not been entirely eliminated. On 18 December 1865 the outlaw of slavery.

The most prominent advocate and activist of African American civil rights was Reverend Martin Luther King. He is one of the most significant leaders in U.S. history and in the modern history of nonviolence, and is considered a hero, peacemaker.

6.Colonial America. Early colonial attempts (the Chesapeake, Puritan New England, the Pilgrims, the Middle Colonies, the Middle Colonies, etc.).