title: Olympic Games

text: There have been many countries deliberately missing the Olympics in order to make political statements. The most famous examples of countries missing the Olympics happened in 1980 and 1984. The Cold War opponents missed each other's Games. 65 nations refused to compete at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union and 14 of its Eastern Bloc partners (except Romania) countered by missing the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984. The countries stated that they could not guarantee the safety of their athletes. Soviet officials defended their decision to withdraw from the Games by saying that "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in the United States".


title: Olympic Games

text: The Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its inception. Nazi Germany wished to portray the Nationalist Socialist Party as benevolent and peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games. The Games were also intended to show the superiority of the Aryan (white) race. This goal was not met due in part to the achievements of athletes such as Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at this Olympics.


title: Olympic Games

text: Individual athletes have also used the Olympic stage to promote their own political agenda. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, in Mexico City, two American track and field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished first and third in the 200meter sprint race, performed the Black Power salute on the podium. The runner up Peter Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in support of Smith and Carlos. IOC President Avery Brundage then told the United States, to either send the two athletes home or withdraw the track and field team. The United States chose to send the pair home.


title: Olympic Games

text: In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities. For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas J. Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his coach. The only Olympic death linked to doping happened at the Rome Games of 1960. During the cycling road race, Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen fell from his bicycle and later died. A coroner's inquiry found that he was under the influence of amphetamines. By the mid-1960s, sports federations were starting to ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The IOC did likewise in 1967. The IOC created the World Anti-Doping Agency in 1999. The IOC-established drug testing regimen (now known as the Olympic Standard) has set the worldwide benchmark that other sporting federations around the world attempt to emulate. The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics, who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use.


title: Olympic Games

text: The Olympics have not brought lasting peace to the world, even during the Games. Three Olympic Games were not held due to war. The 1916 Games were cancelled because of World War I, and the summer and winter games of 1940 and 1944 were cancelled because of World War II. Terrorism has also threatened the Olympic Games. In 1972, when the Summer Games were held in Munich, West Germany, eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the terrorist group Black September. This event is now known as the Munich massacre. The terrorists killed two of the athletes soon after they had taken them hostage and killed the other nine during a failed rescue attempt. A German police officer and 5 terrorists also died. During the Summer Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, a bomb was detonated at the Centennial Olympic Park, which killed 2 and injured 111 others. Eric Robert Rudolph is currently serving a life sentence for the bombing.


title: Olympic Games

text: The host city for an Olympic Games is chosen seven years ahead of the event. The process of selection is carried out in two phases that span a two-year period. The process starts when a city wanting to host the games applies to its country's Olympic group. If more than one city from the same country gives a proposal to its NOC, the national group chooses which city will run for host. The first step once the deadline passes (To tell the IOC that you want to hold the Games), is to ask the cities to complete a questionnaire which covers many key points in the organization of the Olympic Games. The evaluation of the filled questionnaires by a group provides the IOC with an idea of each cities project and their potential to host the Games. On the basis of this evaluation, the IOC chooses the applicants that will proceed to the candidature stage.


title: Olympic Games

text: Once the candidate cities are chosen, they must give to the IOC a bigger presentation of their project as part of a candidature file. Each city is analyzed by an evaluation group. This group will also visit the cities. The group give a report on its findings one month prior to the IOC's final decision. During the interview process the candidate city must also guarantee that it can fund the Games. The IOC members gathered in the meeting have the final vote on the host city.


title: Olympic Games

text: By 2016, the Olympic Games will have been hosted by 44 cities in 23 countries. The United States has hosted four Summer and four Winter Olympics, more than any other nation. Among Summer Olympics host nations, the United Kingdom has been the host of three Games, and hosted its third Olympics in 2012 in London. Germany, Australia, France, and Greece are the other nations to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice. Among host cities, only Los Angeles, Paris, Athens and London have played host to the Olympic Games more than once, with each holding that honor twice. With the 2012 Games that took place in London, the British capital holds the distinction of hosting the modern Olympics Games three times, more than any other city. Paris will be the second city to host the modern Olympics Games three times in 2024, while Los Angeles will be the third city in 2028.


title: Olympic Games

text: In the Winter Olympics, France has hosted three Games, while Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Japan, and Italy have hosted twice. The most recent Games were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea's first Winter Olympics and second overall. The next Winter Games will be in Beijing, China in 2022, which will be the first time this nation has hosted.


title: Syed Ahmed Khan

text: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (October 17, 1817– 27 March 1898) was a teacher and politician. He was a philospher as well. He was also a social reformer. He founded the school that would later become Aligarh Muslim University.


title: Syed Ahmed Khan

text: In 1857 there was a rebellion in India. This is known as the First Indian War of Independence. During this time, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan kept loyal to the British; He also saved many European lives. After the rebellion he wrote a book where he said the British were in fact those who caused the rebellion. In order to settle the question of whether Sir Syed was a communitarian or a communalist, we need to assess the speeches and articles which he wrote. One such speech of Sir Syed which he gave in Meerut in the year 1888 clearly shows that Sir Syed turned to arguments fielded by religious fanatics in order to develop a communal alliance between Indian Muslims and British Christians. He said,


title: Syed Ahmed Khan

text: He was unhappy about the position of Muslims in India as their social and economic status was declining. According to Sir Syed, Muslims had to bring a positive approach to the British and accept their ways of education. He wanted the Muslims to benefit from the British. To achieve this task he had to bring about cooperation between the Muslims and the British. To do this he did the following things:


title: Syed Ahmed Khan

text: Sir Syed played a vital role in the educational uplift of the Muslims in India. He did the following things to improve the educational standards:


title: Syed Ahmed Khan

text: Sir Syed also increased the political awareness of Muslims in the Sub-continent. At first he believed in Hindu-Muslim unity but later resolved to the two-nation theory. In 1885 the Indian National Congress was set up. It claimed to be the body of every Indian regardless of religion. However it later proved to be functioning only for the Hindus and tried to eradicate the Muslims. The Congress made three demands:


title: Syed Ahmed Khan

text: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan played a vital role in improving the Muslim status. He worked tirelessly to restore relations between the Muslims and the British. He brought the Muslim revival through the Aligarh movement and showed the importance of education. He brought an idea about the Two-nation theory and is hence known as "The Father of The Pakistan Movement"


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: The Dark Knight Rises is a 2012 British-American superhero movie, and a sequel to "The Dark Knight" and a second sequel to "Batman Begins". It was the last movie in "The Dark Knight Trilogy".


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: Eight years after Harvey Dent's death and the defeat of the Joker, the Dent Act grants the Gotham City Police Department to organized crime. Feeling guilty for covering up Dent's crimes, Police Commissioner James Gordon writes a resignation speech telling the truth, but decides not to tell because it was not the right time. Batman has disappeared, with Bruce Wayne becoming an outcast. Cat burglar Selina Kyle steals Bruce's fingerprints from his home, kidnaps a congressman, then disappears. Selina hands Bruce's fingerprints to Phillip Stryver, an assistant to Bruce's business rival John Daggett, in hope of having her criminal record erased. Stryver double crosses Selina, but she uses the congressman's stolen phone to alert the police of their location. Gordon and the police arrive to find the congressman, then chase the criminals into the sewers while Selina escapes. A masked man called Bane who had escaped from a hijacked CIA Plane captures Gordon. Gordon escapes, and is found by John Blake, a patrol officer who grew up as an orphan and has known Batman's true identity from their similar backgrounds. Gordon promotes Blake to detective, with Blake reporting directly to him.


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: Wayne Enterprises is on the point of becoming bankrupt after Bruce wasted almost all of the companies money on a fusion reactor project when he learns that the core could be weaponized. Later, Bane attacks the Gotham Stock Exchange, using Bruce's fingerprints to bankrupt Wayne Enterprises. Alfred Pennyworth, concerned that Bruce has not moved on from being Batman, reveals to him that Rachel Dawes had intended to marry Dent before she died, and resigns in an attempt to dissuade him. Fearing that Daggett, Bane's employer, would gain access to the reactor, Bruce and Lucius Fox asks board member Miranda Tate to take over his company. Bane later kills Daggett. After being promised to erase her records, Selina agrees to take Batman to Bane, but instead betrays him to a trap. Bane appears and reveals that he intends to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's mission to destroy Gotham with the League of Shadows. He breaks Batman's back and takes him to a foreign, well-like prison where escape is impossible. The inmates tell Bruce the story of Ra's al Ghul's child, born in the prison and cared for by a fellow prisoner before escaping, the only prisoner to have ever done so; Bruce thinks the child is Bane.


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: Meanwhile, Bane had kidnapped Fox, Tate, and Fredricks in order to turn on the bomb. While in the stadium, Bane triggers bombs under Gotham that causes the tunnels to collapse and traps most of the Gotham's police underground. He kills Mayor Anthony Garcia and forces an abducted physicist, Dr. Leonid Pavel, to convert the reactor core into a nuclear bomb before killing him. Bane uses the bomb to hold the city hostage and isolate Gotham from the world. Using Gordon's stolen speech, Bane reveals the cover-up of Dent's crimes and releases the prisoners of Blackgate Prison, causing a revolution. The wealthy and powerful have their property destroyed or taken, are dragged from their homes, and given show trials presided over by Dr. Jonathan Crane, where any sentence likely means death.


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: After months of recovery and re-training, Bruce escapes from the prison; thanks to the prison doctor, and enlists Selina, Blake, Tate, Gordon, and Fox to help stop the bomb's detonation. While the police and Bane's forces fight at Gotham City Hall, Batman defeats Bane, but Tate later stabs Batman, revealing herself to be Talia, Ra's al Ghul's child, who escaped the prison thanks by her fellow prisoner, Bane. She plans to complete her father's work by activating the bomb and destroying Gotham, but Gordon blocks her signal, which makes the remote of detonation useless. Talia, then leaves to find the bomb. Bane prepares to kill Batman, but Selina kills Bane using the Batpod. Batman pursues Talia with the Bat, an aircraft created by Fox, to bring the bomb back to the reactor, where it can be stabilized. Talia's truck crashes, but she remotely destroys the reactor before dying. With no way to stop the detonation, Batman uses The Bat to haul the bomb over the bay, where it detonates.


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: In the months after, Batman is thought to be dead but is honored a hero. With Bruce also presumed dead, Wayne Manor is left to the city to become an orphanage, and Wayne's remaining estate is left to Alfred. Fox discovers that Bruce had fixed The Bat's autopilot, and Gordon finds the Bat-Signal refixed. While visiting in Florence, Italy, Alfred saw Bruce and Selina together. Blake resigns from the police force and finds the Batcave.


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: The movie is based on DC Comics character Batman. It is distributed under Warner Bros.. The movie was directed by Christopher Nolan and produced by Emma Thomas. The music was scored by Hans Zimmer. The cast includes Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Matthew Modine, Cillian Murphy, Nestor Carbonell, Ben Mendelsohn, Liam Neeson, Tom Conti, Joey King, Juno Temple, and Alon Abutbul. The locations of filming were in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Newark, New Jersey, Los Angeles, California, and in New York City, New York.


title: The Dark Knight Rises

text: "The Dark Knight Rises" was released on July 20, 2012, on which same day a shooting happened in Aurora, Colorado during the movie's premiere inside an area theater. The movie is the 3rd highest-grossing movie in the world with $1,081,041,287 worldwide. "The Dark Knight Rises" currently ranks #7 in the list of the highest-grossing movies in history. "The Dark Knight Rises" came out on DVD and Blu-ray on December 4, 2012. It was one of the top movies on AFI in 2012.


title: Electronics

text: Electronics is the study of electricity (the flow of electrons) and how to use that to build things like computers. It uses circuits that are made with parts called components and connecting wires to do useful things. The science behind Electronics comes from the study of physics and gets applied in real-life ways through the field of electrical engineering.


title: Electronics

text: Many people can name several simple electronic components, such as transistors, fuses, circuit breakers, batteries, motors, transformers, LEDs and bulbs, but as the number of components starts to increase, it often helps to think in terms of smaller systems or blocks, which can be connected together to do something useful.


title: Electronics

text: A television set, for example, has as its input a broadcast signal received from an antenna, or for cable television, a cable.


title: Electronics

text: Signal processing circuits inside the television set use the brightness, colour, and sound information contained in the received signal to control the television set's output devices. The display output device may be a cathode ray tube (CRT) or a plasma or liquid crystal display screen. The audio output device might be a magnetically driven audio speaker. The display output devices convert the signal processing circuits' brightness and colour information into the visible image displayed on a screen. The audio output device converts the processed sound information into sounds that can be heard by listeners.


title: Electronics

text: Analysis of a circuit/network involves knowing the input and the signal processing circuit, and finding out the output. Knowing the input and output and finding out or designing the signal processing part is called "synthesis".


title: Electronics

text: People started experimenting with electricity as early as 600 B.C.E, when Thales of Miletus discovered rubbing fur on amber would cause them to attract each other.


title: Electronics

text: Starting in the 1900s, devices used glass or metal vacuum tubes to control the flow of electricity. With these components a low power voltage can be used to change another. This revolutionized radio, and allowed other inventions.


title: Electronics

text: In the 1960s and early 1970s transistors and semiconductor began replacing vacuum tubes. Transistors can be made much smaller than vacuum tubes and they can work using less energy.


title: Electronics

text: At about the same time, integrated circuits (circuits that are integrated inside other circuits) became commonly used. Integrated circuits made it possible to reduce the number of parts needed to make electronic products and made the products much cheaper in general.


title: Electronics

text: Analog circuits are used for signals that have a range of amplitudes. In general, analog circuits measure or control the amplitude of signals. In the early days of electronics, all electronic devices used analog circuits. The frequency of the analog circuit is often measured or controlled in analog signal processing. Even though more digital circuits are now made, analog circuits will always be necessary since the world and its people work in analog ways.


title: Electronics

text: Pulse circuits are used for signals that require rapid pulses of energy. For example, radar works by using pulse circuits to create and send high powered bursts of radio energy from radar transmitters. Radar antennas are used to send ("transmit") the high powered bursts in the direction the antenna is pointed.


title: Electronics

text: The radar transmitter's pulses or bursts of radio energy hit and bounce back (they are "reflected") from hard or big metallic objects. Hard objects are things like buildings, hills, and mountains. Big things made of metal include aircraft, bridges, or even objects in space, like satellites. The reflected radar energy is detected by radar pulse receivers which use both pulse and digital circuits together. The pulse and digital circuits in radar pulse receivers are used to show the location, distance, and speed of objects which have reflected the radar transmitter's high powered pulses.


title: Electronics

text: Digital circuits are used for signals that only turn on and off instead of often working at levels somewhere between on and off. Active components in digital circuits typically have one signal level when turned on, and another signal level when turned off. In general, in digital circuits a component is only switched on and off.


title: Electronics

text: Computers and electronic clocks are examples of electronic devices that are made up of mostly digital circuits.


title: Climate

text: Climate means the usual condition of the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, and other meteorological patterns in an area of the Earth's surface for a long time. In simple terms, climate is the average condition for about thirty years. Climate and weather are different: weather is the day to day conditions in the atmosphere.


title: Climate

text: The latitude, ground, and height can change the climate of a location. It is also important to note if oceans or other large bodies of water are nearby. Climates are most commonly classified by temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification was the Köppen climate classification, first made by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system, which was used from 1948, not only uses temperature and precipitation information, but evapotranspiration too. This makes it useful for studying how many different kinds of animal species there are, and about the things that could happen when climates change. The Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus more on where the air masses which help make climates come from.


title: Anthony Eden

text: Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 — 14 January 1977) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was better known throughout his time in office as Sir Anthony Eden. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford.


title: Anthony Eden

text: Eden was one of the best-known politicians of his generation. He was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1935 by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and resigned in 1938 in protest at Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler. He was Churchill's Foreign Secretary during World War II, and again in 1951—1955.


title: Anthony Eden

text: He had an operation to remove gallstones in 1953. The operation went wrong, and his health was ruined. He became Prime Minister in 1955 when Winston Churchill retired. He stopped being Prime Minister in 1957 when Harold Macmillan replaced him. The Suez Crisis of 1956 was a critical period. This and his health led up to his resignation as Prime Minister. Eden died of liver cancer, aged 79. His widow, Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon, was born in 1920. She is a niece of Winston Churchill.


title: Anthony Eden

text: Eden's life can be described in two halves. The first half, in the 1930s and in wartime, was brilliant. But he is often ranked among the least successful British Prime Ministers of the 20th century. although two broadly sympathetic biographies (in 1986 and 2003) have gone some way to redressing the balance of opinion. D.R. Thorpe says the Suez Crisis "was a truly tragic end to his premiership, and one that came to assume a disproportionate importance in any assessment of his career".


title: Anthony Eden

text: He volunteered for the British army at the beginning of the First World War, participated in the fighting in France.


title: Anthony Eden

text: In 1919—1922 he was a student at the Faculty of Oriental Languages at Oxford, graduating with honors.


title: Anthony Eden

text: Eden had three sons. The elder and middle sons died before him. His Earl of Avon title was inherited by the younger son, Nicholas. When Nicholas died, the title became extinct.


title: Anthony Eden

text: From 1935 to 1938 (Baldwin's cabinet) Minister of Foreign Affairs. He resigned as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chamberlain's cabinet on February 20, 1938, due to disagreement with the Prime Minister's policy of "appeasement" towards Italy and Germany.


title: Anthony Eden

text: He served as Foreign Minister in Churchill's military government (1940—1945), was considered Churchill's successor, but distinguished himself primarily as Foreign Minister in the war. Leader of the House of Commons from 1942—1945.


title: Anthony Eden

text: After Churchill's resignation in 1955, he was appointed prime minister. His premiership turned out to be short-lived and unsuccessful, both from a foreign policy point of view (the Suez crisis of 1956, which ended catastrophically for Great Britain), and from a domestic political point of view (he had to resign after mass protests by the population and cede leadership in the party to Macmillan).


title: Quit India Movement

text: The Quit India Movement was a movement started by Mahatma Gandhi on 9 August 1942. The movement wanted to end British rule in India. The movement was started in a speech in Bombay, where Mahatma Gandhi asked Indians to "Do or Die." The Congress launched a protest asking the British to withdraw from India. However, the British imprisoned most of the Congress leadership within a day of the speech to suppress the movement. All of the British refused to grant independence until the war ended. We have relived to be confident and versions for the Quit India movement. People destroyed symbols of British authority such as rail tracks, post office, and police station. Leaders of the Quit India movement are Sucheta Kriplani, Ram Manohar Lohia, Aruna Asaf Ali, and Jaiprakash Narayan.


title: Quit India Movement

text: The failure of the crips mission & effects of World War II created widespread discontentment in India. This led Gandhi to launch a movement calling for complete withdrawal of the British from Quandale dingle.


title: Quit India Movement

text: The Congress Working Committee, in its meeting in Wardha on 14 July 1942, passed the historic Quit India resolution demanding the immediate transfer of power to Indians & quit India. On 8 August 1942 in Bombay, the All India Congress Committee called for a non-violent mass struggle on the widest possible scale throughout the Mahatma Gandhi delivered the famous "Do or Die" speech: The call for Quit India a most to a standstill in large parts of the country as people voluntarily threw themselves into People observed hearts and demonstrations and processions were accompanied by the movement was truly a mass movement which brought into its ambit thousands of idents, workers and peasants. It also saw the active participation of leaders, namely onps Aruna Asal Al and Ram Manohar Lohia and many women such as Matangini Hazera in Bengal Kanta Berry in Assam and Rama Devi in Odisha. The British responded with much force, yet it took more than a ps the movement. In Quit India Movement, Sucheta Kripalani also played main role. For the record gandhi was kek.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus of Nazareth (, romanized: Iēsoûs, likely from Hebrew/Aramaic: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšūa), known to Christians as Jesus Christ, was a Jewish teacher and reformer of religion who has become the main and central figure of Christianity. Christians follow the example of Jesus, accept his words to be true, and believe him to be the Jewish messiah who was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and the "Logos" (Word) Incarnated. He is one of the most famous, most recognized, and most influential persons in the world's history.


title: Jesus

text: Most historians agree that Jesus did indeed exist, and was a Jew from a place called Galilee, in a town called Nazareth, in what is now Israel. They also agree that he was thought of as a teacher and a healer, and that he was baptized by John the Baptist. He was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of Pontius Pilate, and Christians believe that he came back to life - "rose again" - three days later.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus taught mostly love and forgiveness for others, as well as being humble about one's religion. He talked many times about the kingdom of God, and told others, "The kingdom of God has come near." He said that one must be mild, like a child, and never boast. He taught that people who ignore God and other people do not deserve his blessing, but God would still forgive them if they repented. Jesus opposed the other Jewish priests because they used religion to boast. Jesus was put on trial and convicted to death by the Jewish leaders, then sent to his execution on a cross by Roman authorities.


title: Jesus

text: There are stories about the life of Jesus by different writers. The best known are the four Christian books called the Gospels. They form the beginning of the New Testament, a part of the Bible. The word "gospel" means "good news". They tell a little about his birth and hidden early life, but mostly about his public life: his teachings, miracles, ministry, death, and resurrection (return from death).


title: Jesus

text: Several Jewish and Roman historians, such as Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius include Jesus in their writings. They usually only tell of his execution or problems between the Roman government and his followers; they do not talk about his life.


title: Jesus

text: Manichaeans, Gnostics, Muslims, Bahá'ís, and others have found prominent places for Jesus in their religions. In Islam, Jesus was a Muslim. Bahá'í teachings consider Jesus to be a "manifestation of God", a Bahá'í concept for prophets. Some Hindus consider Jesus to be an avatar or a sadhu. Some Buddhists, including Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, regard Jesus as a bodhisattva who dedicated his life to the welfare of people.


title: Jesus

text: The name "Jesus" came from the Aramaic name "Yeshua", from Hebrew "Yah-shua", meaning "God is salvation (or deliverance)" in English, and was a popular name of the time. Jesus is often called "Jesus Christ" or "Christ". The word "Christ" comes from the Greek word "christos" and means "the one marked on the head with oil" or "the anointed one". In Jesus' country, anointing was done to show that a person was chosen to be a king or a leader. Jesus is also called Messiah, which comes from the Hebrew term "Mashiakh", and also means "the anointed one".


title: Jesus

text: The Gospels of Matthew and Luke say that before the birth of Jesus, both Mary, His mother, and the man that she was promised to, Joseph, knew that Jesus was going to be the "Messiah" or King that had been promised to the Jewish people, in the ancient Jewish books.


title: Jesus

text: Luke's Gospel tells most of the story. When Jesus was born, the Roman Empire ruled most of the Middle East. The Government wanted every single family to have their name taken down to be taxed, so everyone had to go back to the place where they came from. Joseph came from the small town of Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, so even though Mary was close to giving birth to her baby, they had to travel, with thousands of other people.


title: Jesus

text: When they got to Bethlehem, every room was full. Jesus was placed in a manger as there was no room for them at the inn. Shepherds who were minding their sheep on the hillside came in to see the baby, and went away singing thanks to God for the newborn king.


title: Jesus

text: In the Gospel of Matthew, it says that wise men from a far country saw a new star in the sky and travelled to find the young Jesus because they knew that the Messiah was going to be born under a star, and that the star was a sign that Jesus was born to be a king. They brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.


title: Jesus

text: Most Christians celebrate the day that Jesus was born as the holiday of Christmas. Although the Gospels do not say what day Jesus was born, the date chosen was of December 25, because there was already a Roman holiday on that day.


title: Jesus

text: The arrival of Jesus was known by John the Baptist. He baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. During the baptism, the Spirit of God, like a dove, came down upon Jesus, and the voice of God was heard. According to the Bible, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert where he fasted for 40 days. There, he resisted the Devil's temptations. Then Jesus went into Galilee, settled in Capernaum, and began to preach about the Kingdom of God. He was about 30 years old.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus taught mainly by telling stories. He taught that God alone was the true king, and that people should love God and love each other as the scriptures told them to do. And he taught his followers how to pray. Jesus performed miracles that were signs of God's power, such as giving hungry people food and wine, healing sick people, and making dead people alive again. He also set people free from evil spirits.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus gathered together twelve men, known as the "Twelve Apostles", whom he chose and trained to spread his message. He had many other disciples, including many women, but because of Jewish customs, the women disciples could not travel to distant places on their own as teachers.


title: Jesus

text: The Bible says Jesus became famous. He went to Jerusalem, where many were visiting the city for Passover. When they heard that he was coming, they greeted him as if he was a king. They thought he would free them from the Roman rule, but Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, as a sign that he came in peace.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus did certain things which upset the Jewish religious leaders. They thought he showed disrespect for customs that the Jews had kept for many centuries. For example, Jews did no work at all on the 7th day of the week, the "Sabbath", because it was a holy day. In John's Gospel, chapter 5, there is the story of Jesus healing a crippled man. Jesus saw a man lying on a mattress. He healed the man, and told him to pick up the mattress and go home. Carrying the mattress on the Sabbath was against religious custom, so the religious leaders argued with Jesus about it. They then watched everything he did, and remembered all the things that were against the religious customs.


title: Jesus

text: In Mark's Gospel, chapter 11, it says that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the Jewish Temple. He became angry at what he saw. There were people selling things there, and money lenders who were cheating poor people. Jesus chased away all the people who were selling things. He said the chief priests and scribes had turned the temple into a den of thieves because they were making money from the poor and taking away homes from poor women who had no other way to pay for the temple worship.


title: Jesus

text: The Gospels say that the temple leaders were angry and wanted to kill him. They told the Roman government that Jesus' followers wanted him to become the king of the country and take it over. The gospels say the Roman governor thought that Jesus should be set free, but that the Jewish leaders said, "If you do that, then you are not the friend of Caesar!" (Caesar was the Roman ruler.)


title: Jesus

text: The Governor sentenced him to death because his followers had claimed he was king. The Roman soldiers killed Jesus by crucifixion. He was nailed up to a high cross by his hands and feet. This was a common way for the Romans to kill rebels and criminals.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus' body was buried in a tomb which belonged to one of his followers. On the day after the Sabbath, early in the morning, women went to treat the body with spice and perfumed oil. But the Gospels say that the body of Jesus was gone, and that he was seen alive afterwards. This is called the Resurrection.


title: Jesus

text: Some people, like the disciple Thomas, said, "I'm not going to believe this, until I have seen it with my own eyes!" But the Bible says that more than 500 people, including Thomas, saw Jesus alive again. There are many stories in the Gospels about what Jesus did after he was resurrected. Finally, the Gospel of Luke says that Jesus took his disciples to a hill, where he blessed them and told them to spread his teaching through all the world, and that then clouds came down, and he was lifted up to Heaven.


title: Jesus

text: Most Christians celebrate the time that the Gospels say he died and was raised from the dead as the holiday of Easter.


title: Jesus

text: The Christian Church is founded on Jesus. The things that Christians believe about Jesus are based on the four Gospels of the Bible, and on letters or "Epistles" that were written in the 1st century, explaining Jesus' teachings to his followers.


title: Jesus

text: Jesus did not write these letters. They were mainly written by a Jewish man named Paul. At first he tried to stop Christianity from spreading. Then he became a Christian himself and was an important leader. As Christian churches started in different towns and countries, Paul wrote letters to them. A lot of the ideas that Christians believe are written in Paul's letters. There is also lots of instruction for running churches and families.


title: Jesus

text: There are other letters in the New Testament by other writers including Peter, James, and John. These letters all help to build the beliefs that modern Christians have.


title: Jesus

text: Whether or not Jesus is God has been argued about for a long time. Most Christians, including those from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant denominations, believe Jesus was both God and man. Jesus is described in different parts of the New Testament as being "the Word of God", "the Son of God", "the Son of Man", and God himself.


title: Jesus

text: These teachings, which are believed by most Christians, are not believed by many other people. The Islamic teaching is that Jesus was a prophet, but he was not part of God or the "Son of God". In Jesus' own time, many Jews became very angry at Jesus for saying that he was the "Son of God" and also because his followers said he was the "Messiah". Most Jews do not believe this.


title: Jesus

text: Many Christians believe that these verses say Jesus is God. All Christians believe that Jesus' death on the cross allows all people to be forgiven by God for their sins (bad things they have done). Most Christians believe that if a person asks God to forgive them He will do so, and they will get to live forever with him in Heaven.


title: Jesus

text: Many Christians believe that, by the teaching of the Bible, Jesus was not only truly God but also truly human and that this was part of God's plan to bring humans closer to understanding him.


title: Jesus

text: In "Matthew's Gospel", Jesus is often called "the Son of Man". Matthew has borrowed these words from the Old Testament where they are often used to show that humankind is very far from God. In the Bible, God is often praised and thanked for helping ordinary humans, who are called "the sons of man". In Psalm 8, the writer, King David, asks God ""what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?""


title: Jesus

text: In Matthew's Gospel, 24:30 Jesus says ""Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."" Like King David, in Psalm 8, Jesus is making a difference between his ordinary human life and his great power as the "Son of God".


title: Jesus

text: In the Gospels, Jesus often spoke about himself as being like a shepherd, caring for sheep. He called himself the "Good Shepherd" who would even give his own life, to protect his sheep. He told the Jewish people, referring to non-Jewish or "Gentile" believers, that he had "other sheep" that do not belong to this flock. (John, 21:16). In one of his last conversations with his disciple Peter, he told him, ""Feed my sheep!"", in other words ""Take care of my people."".


title: Jesus

text: In Judaism, from ancient times, people are seen as sinful or bad. They need to be forgiven by God. They believed that there were two ways to get God's forgiveness, by prayer and by sacrifice. Prayer could be done anywhere, but sacrifices were done at the temple. A person would bring an animal, often a lamb, or if they were poor, a dove. They would put their hands on the animal to lay their sins on it. Then the animal would be killed, as a punishment for the sin. This type of sacrifice continued until the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 71 AD. Paying money to the temple was also a sort of sacrifice. When Jesus drove the traders out of the temple, they were the people who sold lambs and doves, and the people who exchanged Roman money into special temple money.


title: Jesus

text: Part of Christian belief is that Jesus Christ did not just come as a human person so that he could teach a better way of life. Christians also believe that Jesus was the "ultimate" sacrifice for the sin of humankind, that Jesus is the "Saviour": the one who is here to save. Christians believe that, unlike ordinary people, Jesus was completely pure and free from sin, but that when he died on the cross, he took on himself all the sins of every person who would believe in him, like the lamb sacrificed in the temple.


title: Jesus

text: Based on John's Gospel, Christian teaching is that the death and resurrection of Jesus are the sign of his power to forgive the sins of any person who turns to him and truly asks for forgiveness. The Bible says that sinners who are forgiven should try to live a "new life" and not go back to their sinful behaviour. Christians believe that knowing about God's love helps people to live a new and better life.


title: Jesus

text: ""For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John's Gospel, 3:16."


title: Jesus

text: "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."" John's Gospel, 14:6.


title: Jesus

text: ""If we say we have no sins, we are fooling ourselves and not telling the truth. But if we tell our sins humbly to God, then He has promised to listen and to forgive our sins and make us clean from all our badness."" from the First Letter of John.


title: Jesus

text: Some people who are not Christians believe that Jesus lived at the time that the Gospels say, but do not believe that Jesus was the "Son of God" or "Savior". They believe that Jesus was an ordinary, but very good person, a teacher and perhaps a prophet.


title: Jesus

text: Mohandas Gandhi said, "I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian, and a Jew," even though he was born a Jain.


title: Jesus

text: Muslims believe Jesus was the second-to-last Prophet (messenger of God). They believe that Muhammad was the very last Prophet. They believe that both Jesus and Muhammad were ordinary men, chosen by God to be his servant and teach the word of Islam.


title: Jesus

text: Muslims do not believe that Jesus was God or "the Son of God". Islam is strictly monotheistic: it says that there is only one God. Muslims believe that Jesus cannot be part of God, because there is only one God. If someone other than God is worshiped, it is thought to be polytheism (belief in more than one god). It is also thought to be idolatry: idolizing someone other than God.


title: Jesus

text: Islam teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross, but another man disguised as him went on the cross for Isa (Qur'an 4:157). This is very different from Christianity. Jesus' death is a very important part of the Christian belief about salvation. Muslims always say "peace be upon him" after saying Jesus' name as a sign of respect in short and Arabic a.s.


title: Jesus

text: Muslims also accept some other teachings about Jesus. These teachings say that Jesus will return to the earth in the End Of Days; he will then destroy the false messiah or Anti-christ before the day of judgment. Muslims also accept Jesus' claims to be a healer. They believe in the many miracles he is said to have performed, like raising the dead to life and giving sight to the blind. They believe that all his miracles were granted to him from God.


title: Jesus

text: The Qur'an (like the Bible), mentions the virgin birth of Jesus but then it says other things about Mary (Islamic-Maryam). The Bible says that Joseph helped Mary give birth to Jesus, but in Islam there is no Joseph. Instead, Mary walked the desert alone in labor and found a tree. The angel Gabriel (Jibreel) asked if she was hungry, then told her to shake the tree and dates fell for her to eat. Then he asked if she was thirsty and he said look down at your feet and there was water and there she gave birth to Jesus. (Qur'an 19) This is why Muslims fast and how they break their fast. Mary knew she had to go back to her town and when she did, with Jesus in her arms, the people were shouting at her for adultery. Mary wanted to explain herself but the Angel told her not to speak.


title: Jesus

text: Even though Jesus was a Jew and his teaching came out of the Jewish religion, most Jewish people do not believe that Jesus was the "Messiah" that is promised in the Jewish Scriptures.


title: Jesus

text: In the Gospels, it tells that Jesus made the Jewish teachers very angry with his teachings. It says that part of their anger was because he told them they were "hypocrites" which means that they externally made themselves appear to be living a holy life, but internally their hearts were far from God's.


title: Jesus

text: In the Gospels, the other reason that they became angry was that Jesus acted as if he was the "Messiah", and said he was the "Son of God". This meant that he was either a terrible liar, that he was mad and just imagined it, or that it was true. But Jesus did not seem to be mad. So that left only two choices. If Jesus was lying, then he was doing something badly against the Jewish religion. It was because of the claims that Jesus was the "Son of God" that some of the Jewish leaders wanted him killed and they handed him to the Roman rulers. The Romans did not care if Jesus said something that was against the Jewish beliefs. But they knew that people had also said that Jesus was "King of the Jews". The Jewish leaders claimed this was against the Roman Government's laws. Although the Roman leaders did not agree, they had him killed to prevent a possible riot.


title: Jesus

text: Although, today and through history, most Jews do not believe what Christians say about Jesus, there are some Jews who do believe that Jesus was the "Messiah" promised in the Jewish Scriptures. Jews who believe this are called "Messianic Jews".


title: Jesus

text: Nearly all modern scholars, both Christian and non-Christian agree that Jesus was a real person. Both Christian and non-Christian scholars base their studies of him on the Gospels. They are believed to have been written between 60-90 AD.


title: Jesus

text: By tradition, "the Gospels" were written by four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who gave their names to these books.


title: Jesus

text: This is the order in which they are arranged in the New Testament of the Bible, but scholars think that it is not the order in which they were written. "The Gospel of Mark" was probably written before "the Gospel of Matthew". The four Gospels all tell the story of the Life of Jesus, but they do it from four different points of view, because they were written by different people and each writer had reasons to tell it in a different way.


title: Jesus

text: Other scholars have said that leaders in the Early Christian Church made changes to the Gospel writings. These changes are said to have happened at different times, in different ways and for different reasons. For example, one story was left out of many old versions of the Gospels. It is about Jesus rescuing a woman who had committed adultery (had sex outside marriage) and was about to be killed. St. Augustine of Hippo, (354-430 AD) wrote that this was probably was left out because some church leaders thought the story might cause people to act in a sinful way. This story is in all modern Bibles and is thought to contain very important teaching for Christians. Other differences that can be found in versions of the Gospels are mostly small and do not make a difference to what is known about the life of Jesus and his teaching.


title: Jesus

text: Mark's Gospel, which is thought by biblical scholars to be the earliest, has the name of a young disciple of the apostle Paul who is mentioned several times in the "Acts of the Apostles" and Paul's Letters. The Gospel was probably written in Rome and is thought by scholars to be from the memories of Jesus' follower or "disciple", Peter. It does not tell about Jesus' birth; it starts when he was 30 years old, at the time when the disciples got to know him. It shows Jesus as a man of action: going around the country, teaching and healing people.


title: Jesus

text: Matthew's Gospel was written next. Matthew was one of Jesus' disciples. He was a Jewish man that was hated by other Jews because he worked for the Roman rulers as a tax collector. Matthew tells that one day Jesus saw him sitting at his desk in the market place and said "Follow me".


title: Jesus

text: Most Biblical scholars believe that Matthew had read Mark's Gospel and decided to fill in some things that Mark left out, because, while Mark wrote his Gospel for the Church of Rome, Matthew wanted to write for Jewish Christians all over the Roman Empire. Matthew was a well-educated Jew, so he knew the Jewish Scriptures, (which Christians also use and call the Old Testament of the Bible). Matthew knew the scripture teachings that the Messiah, or God's anointed one would come. In his Gospel, he often mentions these teachings. He also starts off by giving a list of Jesus' ancestors because this was important to Jewish readers.


title: Jesus

text: The apostle Luke was Greek and a friend of the apostle Paul. He was a doctor. Luke came to know about Jesus from the "disciples". Luke writes about the birth and the childhood of Jesus and he says "Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them."


title: Jesus

text: Luke was not a Jew and he writes in a way that is easy for other people who are not Jews to understand. He explains Jewish customs and laws. He wrote a second book called "the Acts of the Apostles" which tells what the disciples did after Jesus had left them.


title: Jesus

text: It is believed by scholars of the Bible that John was a "disciple" of Jesus and was probably the youngest of the twelve men who were Jesus' main followers. He lived to be an old man and, because of his teaching about Jesus, he was sent to a small island, called Patmos.


title: Jesus

text: John writes with one particular idea in mind. He wants to prove to the reader that Jesus is God's way of saving humans from the terrible problem of sin or "evil". John starts by telling the reader that Jesus was and is God. John says that Jesus is God's "Living Communication" (or "Living Word"). Every part of "John's Gospel" is written to show that Jesus came from God, taught the "Message of God" and is the way for people to understand "God's Love".


title: Jesus

text: The Gospels tell many of the stories that Jesus told when he was teaching people about the way that God loved them and the way they should live. These are called parables. They include the following:


title: Jesus

text: In this story from chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel, Jesus shows what it means to be a good neighbour. Near the Jews lived the people called Samaritans. They did not agree with each other about religious teaching, and were considered enemies. One day, a Jewish man was walking, when some robbers beat him up, robbed him, and left him naked and almost dead, by the road. A Jewish priest came along and saw him. He thought, "If I touch that naked bleeding man, I will be unclean and I will not be able to go to the Temple!" So he pretended that he had not seen him. Another Jew, a Holy Man, came along and acted in the same way. At last a Samaritan came along with a donkey. When he saw the wounded man he stopped. He washed his wounds with wine and olive oil. Then he put him on his donkey and took him to the nearest inn. He paid the innkeeper and said "Keep him until he is well, and whatever is owing, I will pay when I come back this way." Jesus said to the people who were listening "Which one of these people acted like a good neighbour?" They said "He that stopped and helped." Jesus said "You go and act the same way."


title: Jesus

text: In this story from chapter 15 of Luke's Gospel, Jesus tells how a rich man had two sons. They would both get a share of his money, when he died. The younger son said, "Father, give me my money now, so I can go and enjoy myself, while I'm young." He took the money to the city, and spent it all on parties with his friends and other sinful things. Soon he had none left to feed himself and was ashamed. He got a job caring for pigs, a unholy meat to eat, just keep himself from starving. He said to himself, "I'll go home to my father and I will say, 'Father, I have sinned! Please let me be a servant in your house!'" When his father saw him coming, he ran along the road to put his arms around his son. The father said, "Bring the finest clothes! Kill the fattest calf to make a feast!" When the elder brother heard all this, he was angry and said, "I'm a good son to you, but you never even gave me one little goat to have a party with my friends!" The father said, "You have always been with me. I love you greatly, and all I have is yours, but my son who was lost is now found! My son who seemed to be dead is alive! Be happy with me!" Jesus said that this is the way God loves and forgives his people, when they ask for forgiveness.


title: Turkish alphabet

text: The "Turkish alphabet" is used for writing, speaking and reading in Turkish. This alphabet is modified from the Latin alphabet.


title: Turkish alphabet

text: There are 29 letters in the Turkish alphabet of Turkey. The English letters, "Q", "W" and "X" are not in Turkish alphabet. Seven Turkish letters (Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş, and Ü) are in the Turkish alphabet.


title: Turkish alphabet

text: There are 21 consonants in the Turkish alphabet: B, C, Ç, D, F, G, Ğ, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, Ş, T, V, Y, Z.


title: Fanta

text: Fanta is an orange soda drink. It was created in Germany in 1940. Fanta was created during World War II in Nazi Germany by the German Coca Cola (GmbH) bottling company. Because of the war, there was no shipping between Nazi Germany and the United States. Therefore, the German bottling plant could no longer get Coca-Cola syrup. The manager of the plant, Max Keith, needed to do something to keep the plant going. He came up with a fruit-flavored drink made from whatever he could find. Using apple fiber leftover from lollipops and whey, from cheesemakers, Fanta was created and became quite popular. The original German Fanta had a red-orange color from beets and tasted different from today's Fanta Orange; the flavor would change during the war, depending on what ingredients could be found.


title: Fanta

text: Back in America, the Coca-Cola Company—led by Robert Woodruff—did not discourage this. The company sponsored the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Woodruff attended, and made banners featuring the Coca-Cola logo alongside the swastika. Keith used a 10th anniversary party for Coca-Cola GmbH to order a mass Sieg-Heil (Nazi salute) in honor of the dictator’s 50th birthday. He declared that this was “to commemorate our deepest admiration for our Fuhrer.”


title: Fanta

text: The name 'Fanta' came during an employee contest to name the new beverage. Keith told them to let their Fantasie (German for imagination) run wild. On hearing that, salesman Joe Knipp thought of the name "Fanta".


title: Fanta

text: After the war, Fanta was brought to the United States by Coca-Cola, and in 1960 they bought the trademark. Fanta Orange is the most popular Fanta flavor. It is available in 180 countries. In terms of volume, Brazil is the largest consumer of Fanta in the world. Fanta is more popular in Europe and South America than in the United States.


title: Fanta

text: There are over 90 different flavors worldwide. Most of them are only available by region in some countries. For example, in Romania (and some other countries), there is "Fanta Shokata" based on the traditional Romanian drink "Socată". This drink is made from Elderflower. In Switzerland and the Netherlands the local fruit, blackcurrant is used to make Fanta as well. Some identical flavors have different names in different markets. “The classic orange”, for example, was renamed "Fanta Funky Orange" in 2003 for the Nordic countries and Belgium, while other countries have kept the older "Fanta Orange" brand name. As of the year 2005, the Fanta brand has been connected with the word "Bambaacha" (or "Bamboocha"), which is often seen in the Fanta commercials. TaB diet Cola was originally produced by the Fanta division of Coca-Cola. It was available in different non-cola flavors as well. Later in 2005, Fanta branched out into new Fanta Zero (diet versions) varieties in Great Britain and in other countries as well.


title: History of the United States

text: The history of the United States is what happened in the past in the United States, a country in North America.


title: History of the United States

text: Native Americans lived in the Americas for thousands of years. English people in 1607 went to the place now called Jamestown, Virginia. Other European settlers went to the colonies, mostly from England and later Great Britain. France, Spain, and the Netherlands also colonized North America. In 1775, a war between the thirteen colonies and Britain began when the colonists were upset over paying taxation to their government in the UK, but were not being given any chance to vote in the UK/British elections, to contribute to how that money was spent.


title: History of the United States

text: Just after dawn on April 19, 1775, the British attempted to disarm the Massachusetts militia at Concord, Massachusetts, thus beginning the war with the "" On July 4, 1776, Founding Fathers wrote the United States Declaration of Independence. They won the Revolutionary War and started a new country. They signed the constitution in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1791. General George Washington, who had led the war, became its first president. During the 19th century, the United States gained much more land in the West and began to become industrialized. In 1861, several states in the South attempted to leave the United States to start a new country called the Confederate States of America. This caused the American Civil War. After the war, Immigration resumed. Some Americans became very rich in this Gilded Age, and the country developed one of the largest economies in the world.


title: History of the United States

text: In the early 20th century, the United States became a world power, fighting in World War I and World War II. Between the wars, there was an economic boom called the Roaring Twenties, when many people became richer, and a bust, called the Great Depression, when most were poorer. The Great Depression ended with World War II.


title: History of the United States

text: The United States and the Soviet Union entered the Cold War. This included wars in Korea and Vietnam. During this time, African-Americans, Chicanos, and women sought more rights. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States started to make fewer things in factories. The country then went through the worst recession it had since the Great Depression. In the late 1980s, the Cold War ended, helping the United States out of recession. The Middle East became more important in American foreign policy, especially after the September 11 attacks in 2001. In the 2010s, Barack Obama's presidency helped many domestic problems in the country such as the auto business and healthcare coverage. After Obama, the country saw a rise in populist politics with the presidency of Donald Trump. In 2020, the country oversaw the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest over racial justice and disputes over the 2020 election results which led to violent reactions.


title: History of the United States

text: The Pre-Columbian Era is the time before Christopher Columbus went to the Americas in 1492. At that time, Native Americans lived on the land that is now controlled by the United States. They had various cultures: Native Americans in the Eastern Woodlands hunted game and deer; Native Americans in the Northwest fished; Native Americans in the Southwest grew corn and built houses called pueblos; and Native Americans in the Great Plains hunted Bison. Around the year 1000, the Vikings visited Newfoundland. However, they did not settle there.


title: History of the United States

text: The English tried to settle at Roanoke Island in 1585. The settlement did not last, and no one knows what happened to the people. In 1607, the first lasting English settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, by John Smith, John Rolfe and other Englishmen interested in gold and adventure. In its early years, many people in Virginia died of disease and starvation. The colony in Virginia lasted because it made money by planting tobacco, rice and cotton.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1621, a group of Englishmen called the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. A bigger colony was built at Massachusetts Bay by the Puritans in 1630. The Pilgrims and the Puritans were interested in making a better society, not looking for gold. They called this ideal society a "city on a hill". A man named Roger Williams left Massachusetts after disagreeing with the Puritans, and started the colony of Rhode Island in 1636.


title: History of the United States

text: Great Britain was not the only country to settle what would become the United States. In the 1500s, Spain built a fort at Saint Augustine, Florida. France settled Louisiana, and the area around the Great Lakes. The Dutch settled New York, which they called New Netherland. Other areas were settled by Scotch-Irish, Germans, and Swedes. However, in time Britain controlled all of the colonies, and most American colonists adopted the British way of life. The growth of the colonies was not good for Native Americans. Many of them died of smallpox, a disease brought to America by the Europeans. The ones who lived lost their lands to the colonists.


title: History of the United States

text: In the early 1700s, there was a religious movement in the colonies called the Great Awakening. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards preached sermons. One of them was called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". The Great Awakening may have led to the thinking used in the American Revolution.


title: History of the United States

text: By 1733, there were thirteen colonies. New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston were the largest cities and main ports at that time.


title: History of the United States

text: From 1756 to 1763, England and France fought a war over their land in America called the Seven Years' War or the French and Indian War, which the British won. After the war, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 said that the colonists could not live west of the Appalachian Mountains. Many colonists who wanted to move to the frontier did not like the Proclamation.


title: History of the United States

text: After the French and Indian War, the colonists began to think that they were not getting their "rights as freeborn Englishman". This meant they wanted to be treated fairly by the English government. This was mainly caused by new taxes the British made the colonies pay to pay for the war. Americans called this "No taxation without representation", meaning that the colonists should not have to pay taxes unless they had votes in the British Parliament. Each tax was disliked, and replaced by another which led to more unity between the colonies. In 1770, colonists in Boston known as the Sons of Liberty got in a fight with British soldiers. This became known as the Boston Massacre. After the Tea Act, the Sons of Liberty dumped hundreds of boxes of tea in the sea. This was known as the Boston Tea Party (1773). This led to the British Army taking over Boston. After that, leaders of the 13 colonies formed a group called the Continental Congress ( 1774 ). Many people were members of the Continental Congress, but some of the more important ones were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Roger Sherman and John Jay.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called "Common Sense". It argued that the colonies should be free of English rule. This was based on the English ideas of natural rights and social contract put forth by John Locke and others. On July 4, 1776, people from the 13 colonies agreed to the United States Declaration of Independence. This said that they were free and independent states, and were not part of England any more. The colonists were already fighting Britain in the Revolutionary War at this time. The Revolutionary War started in 1775 at Lexington and Concord. Though American soldiers under George Washington lost many battles to the British, they won a major victory at Saratoga in 1777. This led to France and Spain joining the war on the side of the Americans. In 1781, an American victory at Yorktown helped by the French led Britain to decide to stop fighting and give up the colonies. America had won the war and its independence.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1781, the colonies formed a confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation, but it lasted only six years. It gave almost all the power to the states and very little to the central government. The confederation had no president. It could not remove Native Americans or the British from the frontier, nor could it stop mob uprisings such as Shays' Rebellion. After Shays' Rebellion, many people thought the Articles of Confederation were not working.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1787, a constitution was written. Many of the people who helped write the Constitution, such as Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris, were among the major thinkers in America at the time. Some of these men would later hold important offices in the new government. The constitution created a stronger national government that had three branches: executive (the President and his staff), legislative (the House of Representatives and the Senate), and judicial (the federal courts).


title: History of the United States

text: Some states agreed to the Constitution very quickly. In other states, many people did not like the Constitution because it gave more power to the central government and had no bill of rights. To try and get the Constitution passed, Madison, Hamilton and Jay wrote a series of newspaper articles called the "Federalist Papers". Very soon after, the Bill of Rights was added. This was a set of 10 amendments (changes), that limited the government's power and guaranteed rights to the citizens. Like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution is a social contract between the people and the government. The main idea of the Constitution is that the government is a republic (a representative democracy) elected by the people, who all have the same rights. However, this was not true at first, when only white males who owned property could vote. Because of state laws as well as the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments, almost all American citizens who are at least 18 years old can vote today.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1789, Washington was elected the first President. He defined how a person should act as President and retired after two terms. During Washington's term, there was a Whiskey Rebellion, where country farmers tried to stop the government from collecting taxes on whiskey. In 1795, Congress passed the Jay Treaty, which allowed for increased trade with Britain in exchange for the British giving up their forts on the Great Lakes. However, Great Britain was still doing things that hurt the U.S., such as impressment (making American sailors join the British Royal Navy).


title: History of the United States

text: John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1796 to become the second President of the United States. This was the first American election that was between two political parties. As president, Adams made the army and navy larger. He also got the Alien and Sedition Acts passed, which were much disliked.


title: History of the United States

text: In the election of 1800, Jefferson defeated Adams. One of the most important things he did as President was to make the Louisiana Purchase from France, which made the United States twice as big. Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to map the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson also tried to stop trade with England and France so that the United States would not become involved in a war the two countries were fighting. Fighting broke out between the United States and England in 1812 when James Madison was President. This was called the War of 1812.


title: History of the United States

text: One of the problems of this period was slavery. By 1861, over three million African-Americans were enslaved in the South. This means that they worked for other people, but had no freedom and received no money for their work. Most worked picking cotton on large plantations. Cotton became the main crop in the South after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. There were a few slave rebellions against slavery, including one led by Nat Turner. All of these rebellions failed. The South wanted to keep slavery, but by the time of the Civil War, many people in the North wanted to end it. Another argument between the North and South was about the role of government. The South wanted stronger state governments, but the North wanted a stronger central government.


title: History of the United States

text: After the War of 1812 the Federalist Party faded away, leaving an "Era of Good Feelings" in which only one party was important, under Presidents James Madison and James Monroe. Under Monroe, the United States' policy in North America was the Monroe Doctrine, which suggested that Europe should stop trying to control the United States and other independent countries in the Americas. Around this time, Congress called for something called the "American System". The American System meant spending money on banking, transportation and communication. Due to the American System, bigger cities and more factories were built. One of the big transportation projects of this time was the Erie Canal, a canal in the state of New York. By the 1840s, railroads were built as well as canals. By 1860, thousands of miles of railroads and telegraph lines had been built in the United States, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.


title: History of the United States

text: In the early 19th century, the industrial revolution came to America. Many factories were built in Northern cities such as Lowell, Massachusetts. Most of them made clothes. Many factory workers were women, and some were children or people from Ireland or Germany. Despite this industrialization, America was still a nation of farmers.


title: History of the United States

text: In the early and mid-1800s, there was a religious movement called the Second Great Awakening. Thousands of people gathered at large religious meetings called revivals. They thought they could bring about a Golden Age in America through religion. New religious movements such as the Holiness Movement and the Mormons started, and groups like the Methodist Church grew. The Second Great Awakening led to two movements in reform, that is, changing laws and behaviors to make society better. One of these was the Temperance Movement, which believed that drinking alcohol was evil. The other was abolitionism, which tried to end slavery. People such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison wrote books and newspapers saying that slavery should stop. They also formed political movements, which included the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party and the Republican Party. Some abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, were former slaves. By 1820, slavery was very rare in the North, but continued in the South.


title: History of the United States

text: In the 19th century, there was something called the “cult of domesticity” for many American women. This meant that most married women were expected to stay in the home and raise children. As in other countries, American wives were very much under the control of their husband, and had almost no rights. Women who were not married had only a few jobs open to them, such as working in clothing factories and serving as maids. By the 19th century, women such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton thought that women should have more rights. In 1848, many of these women met and agreed to fight for more rights for women, including voting. Many of the women involved in the movement for women’s rights were also involved in the movement to end slavery.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected President. He was the first president elected from the Democratic Party. He changed the government in many ways. Since many of his supporters were poor people who had not voted before, he rewarded them with government jobs, which is called "spoils" or "patronage". Because of Jackson, a new party was formed to run against him called the Whigs. This was called the "Second Party System". Jackson was very much against the National Bank. He saw it as a symbol of Whigs and of powerful American businessmen. Jackson also called for a high import tax that the South did not like. They called it the "Tariff of Abominations". Jackson’s Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, was from the South. He wrote that the South should stop the tariff and perhaps leave the Union (secession). These words would be used again during the Civil War.


title: History of the United States

text: People started to move west of the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains at this time. The first people who moved west were people who caught and sold animal skins such as John Colter and Jim Bridger. By the 1840s, many people were moving to Oregon by wagon, and even more people went west after the California Gold Rush of 1849. Many new states were added to the first thirteen, mostly in the Midwest and South before the Civil War and in the West after the Civil War. During this period, Native Americans lost much of their land. They had lost military battles to the Americans at Tippecanoe and in the Seminole War. In the 1830s, Indians were being pushed out of the Midwest and South by events such as the Trail of Tears and the Black Hawk War. By the 1840s, most Native Americans had been moved west of the Mississippi River.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1845, Texas, which was a nation after it left Mexico, joined the United States. Mexico did not like this, and the Americans wanted the land Mexico had on the West Coast (“Manifest Destiny”). This led to the U.S. and Mexico fighting a war called the Mexican-American War. During the war, the U.S captured the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Monterrey, Veracruz and Mexico City. As a result of the war, the U.S. gained land in California and much of the American Southwest. Many people in the North did not like this war, because they thought it was just good for Southern slave states.


title: History of the United States

text: In the 1840s and 1850s, people in the Northern states and people in the Southern states did not agree whether slavery was right or wrong in the territories—parts of the United States that were not yet states. People in the government tried to make deals to stop a war. Some deals were the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but they did not really work to keep the Union together. People in the South were angry at books like "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" that said that slavery was wrong. People in the North did not like a Supreme Court decision called Dred Scott that kept Scott a slave. People from the South and people from the North started killing each other in Kansas over slavery. This was called "Bleeding Kansas". One of the people from Bleeding Kansas, John Brown, took over a town in Virginia in 1859 to make a point about slavery being wrong and to try to get slaves to fight their owners.


title: History of the United States

text: In the election of 1860, the Democratic Party split and the Republican candidate for President, Abraham Lincoln, was elected. After this, many Southern states left the Union. Eventually, eleven states left. They tried to start a new country called the Confederate States of America, or the "Confederacy". A war started between the Union (North) and the Confederacy (South). Not having factories made it harder for Southern soldiers to get guns or uniforms. The South could not get supplies because Northern ships blockaded the Southern coast.


title: History of the United States

text: Early in the war, Confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson won battles over Union generals such as George B. McClellan and Ambrose Burnside. In 1862 and 1863, the Union Army tried to take the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia several times, but failed each time. Lee's army invaded the North twice, but was turned back at Antietam and Gettysburg. In the middle of war, Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the Confederacy, and started letting black men fight in the Union Army. The war started going the Union’s way after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863. Gettysburg stopped Lee from invading the North, and Vicksburg gave the Union control over the Mississippi River. In 1864, a Union Army under William T. Sherman marched through Georgia and destroyed much of it. By 1865, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had taken Richmond and forced Lee to give up the fight at Appomattox.


title: History of the United States

text: In April 1865, Lincoln was shot and killed while watching a play. The new president, Andrew Johnson, had to go through the process of reconstruction, which was putting the United States back together after the Civil War. During this time, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were passed, freeing slaves, making them citizens and allowing them to vote. Congress was run by "Radical Republicans", who wanted to punish the South after the Civil War. They did not like Johnson, and almost removed him from office. They also sent many soldiers to the South, installed unpopular "scalawag" governments, and made the South pass the 14th and 15th Amendments. The South did not like this, so they made "Jim Crow" laws that placed blacks in lower roles. White Southern Democrats started a group called the Ku Klux Klan that attacked blacks and stopped them from voting.


title: History of the United States

text: During this time, many people moved to the United States from other countries, such as Ireland, Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe, and China. Many of them worked in large factories and lived in big cities, such as New York City, Chicago, and Boston, often in small, poor, close-together apartments called "tenements" or "slums". They often were used by "political machines", who gave them jobs and money in exchange for votes.


title: History of the United States

text: Major politicians were chosen by political machines and were corrupt. The government could do little and leaders of big businesses often had more power than the government. At this time, there were several very big businesses called trusts. People who ran trusts made millions of dollars while paying their workers low wages. Some of these people were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan.


title: History of the United States

text: After the Civil War, people continued to move west where new states were formed. People now could get free land in the West due to an 1862 law called the Homestead Act. Most of the land in the West was owned by the government, railroads, or large farmers. The Transcontinental Railroad, finished in 1869, helped get people and goods from the west to the rest of the country. Chicago became the center of trade between West and East because many rail lines met there. There were problems between the white settlers and the native Indians as more people began to move west. Because of this, many more Indians were killed at battles such as Wounded Knee. Almost all the Indians' land was taken away by laws like the Dawes Act.


title: History of the United States

text: Many Americans thought the railroads charged farmers so much money that it made them poor. Workers led several strikes against the railroad that were put down by the army. Also, farmers started groups to fight the railroad, such as the Grange. These groups became the Populist Movement, which almost won the presidency under William Jennings Bryan. The Populists wanted reforms such as an income tax and direct election of Senators. The Populist Party died out after 1896. Many of the things the Populists wanted would happen during the Progressive Era.


title: History of the United States

text: In the United States, progressivism is the belief that the government should have a larger role in the everyday life of Americans to provide good living standards for people, especially workers. Imperialism was the belief that the U.S. should build a stronger navy and conquer land.


title: History of the United States

text: In the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, the U.S. started being more active in foreign affairs. In 1898, the United States fought a war with Spain called the Spanish–American War. The United States won, and gained Puerto Rico, Guam, Guantanamo and the Philippines. Combined with the purchase of Alaska and the taking-over of Hawaii, the United States had gained all the territory it has today, plus some it would later lose after World War II. Around this time, the U.S. and European nations opened up trade with China. This was because they had beaten China in the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. The U.S. and Europe were able to trade with China through the Open Door Policy.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1901, Republican Theodore Roosevelt became President. He had been a soldier in the Spanish–American War. He called for a foreign policy known as the "Big Stick". This meant having a large navy and exercising control over Latin America. Between 1901 and 1930, the United States sent soldiers into Latin America several times. When Roosevelt was president, work was begun on the Panama Canal, a link between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that made travel around the world much faster.


title: History of the United States

text: During this time, people started to notice the poor condition of American cities. A group of people called the “muckrakers” wrote books and newspaper articles about subjects like the power of big business, unclean practices in factories, and the condition of poor people. Roosevelt and Congress answered their concerns with laws such as the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Act controlled the way food was made to make sure it was safe. Another response to the muckrakers was something called "trust-busting", where big businesses were broken up into smaller ones. The biggest business broken up this way was the Standard Oil Company in 1911.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became President. He was a Progressive, but not quite the same as Roosevelt. He fought the "triple wall of privilege", which was big business, taxes, and fees on goods coming into the United States. During this time, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed. They allowed for a federal income tax and direct election of U.S. Senators.


title: History of the United States

text: The United States did not want to enter World War I but wanted to sell weapons to both sides. In 1915 a German submarine sank a ship carrying Americans called the "Lusitania". This angered Americans, and Germany stopped attacking passenger ships. In January 1917 Germany started attacking them again, and sent the Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico about invading the U.S. The United States joined the war against Germany, and it ended a year later. Wilson worked to create an international organization called the League of Nations. The main goal of the League was preventing war. However, the United States did not join because isolationists rejected the peace treaty. At the end of World War I, a flu pandemic killed millions of people in the U.S. and Europe. After the war, the United States was one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.


title: History of the United States

text: The 1920s were an era of growth and increased wealth for the United States. Many Americans began buying consumer products, such as Model T Fords and appliances. Advertising became very important to American life. During this time, many black people moved out of the South and into large cities such as New York City, Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles. They brought with them jazz music, which is why the 1920s are called the "Jazz Age". The 1920s were also the Prohibition Era after the Eighteenth Amendment passed. During the 1920s, drinking alcohol was illegal, but many Americans drank it anyway. This led to much rum-running and violent crime.


title: History of the United States

text: Racism was strong in the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan was powerful once again, and attacked black people, Catholics, Jews and immigrants. People blamed the war and problems in business on immigrants and labor leaders, whom they said were Bolsheviks (Russian communists). Many people also thought that the United States had lost touch with religion. They handled that by changing religion, and some of them by attacking science.


title: History of the United States

text: After World War I, the United States had an isolationist foreign policy. That meant it did not want to enter into another global war. It passed laws and treaties that supposedly would end war forever, and refused to sell weapons to its former allies.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1921, Warren G. Harding became President. He believed that the best way to make the economy good was for the government to be friendly to big business by cutting taxes and regulating less. While the economy was doing very well under these policies, America had the largest difference between how much money the rich had and how much money the poor had. Harding's presidency had several problems. The biggest one was Teapot Dome over oil drilling in the Navy Oil Reserve. Harding died in 1923, and Calvin Coolidge became President. Coolidge believed that the government should keep out of business, just like Harding, and continued many of Harding's policies. Coolidge chose not to seek the presidency in 1928 and Herbert Hoover became president.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1929, a Great Depression hit the United States. The stock market crashed (lost much of its value). Many banks ran out of money and closed. By 1932, over a quarter of the nation had no jobs, and much of the nation was poor or unemployed. Many people were driven off farms, not only because of the Depression, but also because of a storm known as the "Dust Bowl" and because farmers had not been doing well during the 1920s.


title: History of the United States

text: President Hoover tried to do something about the Depression, but it did not work. In 1932, he was defeated and Franklin D. Roosevelt became President. He created the New Deal. It was a series of government programs which would give relief (to the people who were hurt by the bad economy), recovery (to make the economy better), and reform (to make sure a depression never happens again).


title: History of the United States

text: The New Deal had many programs such as Social Security, the National Recovery Administration (regulated wages), Works Progress Administration (built thousands of roads, schools, government buildings and works of art), the Civilian Conservation Corps (gave young people jobs to help the environment), and Tennessee Valley Authority (built dams and electric lines in the South). These programs put millions of Americans to work, though often at low pay. Many of these programs were started early in Roosevelt's term in a time called the "Hundred Days" or in 1935 in a time called the "Second New Deal". Programs like Social Security grew out of populist movements by people such as Huey Long that were called "Share Our Wealth" and "Ham and Eggs". The New Deal also led to the rise of worker's unions such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations.


title: History of the United States

text: The New Deal is often called the period that "saved capitalism", and stopped America from becoming a Communist or Fascist state. Although the New Deal improved the economy, it did not end the Great Depression. The Great Depression was ended by World War II.


title: History of the United States

text: As World War II was beginning, the United States said they would not get involved in it. Most Americans thought the United States should remain neutral, and some people thought the United States should enter the war on the side of the Germans. Eventually, the U.S. did try to help the Allied Powers (Soviet Union, Britain, and France) with the Lend Lease Act. It gave the Allies a lot of money and guns in trade for use of air bases throughout the world.


title: History of the United States

text: On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S.Naval base in Hawaii. The U.S. was no longer neutral, and it declared war on the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, Italy). The U.S. entering World War II ended the Great Depression because the war created many jobs. While some of the battles the U.S. fought in were air and naval battles with Japan, the U.S. mainly fought in Europe and Africa. The U.S. opened up several fronts, including in North Africa and Italy. The U.S. also bombed Germany from airplanes, blowing up German cities and factories. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), American and British forces invaded Normandy. A year later, the Allies had freed France and taken Berlin. In 1945, Roosevelt died, and Harry Truman became president. The U.S. decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. Japan gave up soon afterwards, and the war ended.


title: History of the United States

text: The war meant different things for women and minorities. During the war, many women worked in weapons factories. They were symbolized by a character called "Rosie the Riveter". Many African-Americans served in the army, but often in segregated units with white officers. Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were forced to live in internment camps, though a few also served in the Army.


title: History of the United States

text: After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were the two most powerful countries left in the world. The Cold War was a period of tension between the two countries over ways of life. The two countries tried to get other countries on their side. The Soviet Union tried to get countries to become Communist and the United States tried to stop them from being Communist. American and Soviet soldiers never fought in battles, but they fought indirectly in the Korean War (1950s) and the Vietnam War (1950s–1970s).


title: History of the United States

text: The Korean War lasted only a few years, but led to American soldiers being in Korea since then. The Vietnam War lasted much longer. It started with a few American troops in Vietnam, but by the 1960s thousands of Americans were being sent to Vietnam. Both wars were between a Northern Communist government helped by the Soviet Union and Communist China and a Southern government helped by the U.S. The Korean War resulted in a split Korea, but the Vietnam War resulted in a Communist Vietnam after the United States left due to American people wanting to end the war. Over a quarter million Americans died or were wounded in Vietnam, which was very much a military failure. The U.S. and Soviet Union argued about where they could place nuclear weapons. One of these arguments was the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. and Soviet Union came very close to attacking each other with nuclear weapons.


title: History of the United States

text: During the Cold War, the United States had a "Red Scare" where the government tried to find people it thought were Communist. The House of Representatives had a group called the House Un-American Activities Committee to deal with this, and Joseph McCarthy led hearings in the Senate. The Red Scare led to people losing their jobs, going to jail, and even being executed. Many actors and authors were put on blacklists, which meant they could not get jobs in movies or get credit for their writings.


title: History of the United States

text: The Cold War began with an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could have more and better weapons. This started after the Soviets were the second country to develop an atomic bomb. In the United States, this started something called the "Military Industrial Complex", which meant business and government working together to spend a lot of money on large-scale weapons projects. Business and government helped each other to get more money and more power. Part of the Complex was something called the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe while making them buy American goods. The Complex allowed for a growing middle class, but also kept the Cold War going.


title: History of the United States

text: Besides the arms race, another part of the Cold War was the "Space Race". This started when the Soviets launched a satellite into space called "Sputnik" in 1957. Americans became worried that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union, and made their schools focus more on mathematics and science. Within a few years, both the United States and the Soviet Union had sent satellites, animals and people into orbit. In 1969 the "Apollo 11" mission put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.


title: History of the United States

text: United States foreign policy changed in the 1970s when the United States left Vietnam and Richard Nixon left office due to a political scandal called Watergate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States had a policy of "detente" with the Soviet Union. This meant that the two countries signed treaties to stop use of weapons. Under Nixon and Reagan, the United States sent troops and money to many Latin American governments to stop them from being Communist. This led to violence in Latin America. Around this time, the economy suffered because the United States was not making as many things as it used to, and because some countries in the Middle East were not giving the U.S. as much oil as it wanted (this was called an "oil embargo"). The Middle East became very important in American foreign policy after several Americans were kidnapped in Iran in 1979. In the 1980s, people in the U.S. government sold weapons to people in Iran and gave the money to "contra" soldiers in Nicaragua. This was called the "Iran-Contra affair". In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. normalized relations with China. The Cold War came to an end as Communist governments in the Soviet Union and other countries fell apart.


title: History of the United States

text: The United States once again had prosperity. Millions of white people moved out of the cities and into suburbs, and into Southern and Western states known as the "Sunbelt". They bought new cars and television sets. The birth rate in the 1940s and 1950s rose, in what was called the "Baby Boom" The "Space Age" inspired "Googie" style art and architecture. Many more people became part of the middle class, but there were still many people who were poor.


title: History of the United States

text: Poverty was most common among African-Americans. Most lived in poor neighborhoods in Northern cities, or in the South where they faced racism and "Jim Crow" segregation. These conditions led to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, led by Martin Luther King Jr. and others. In 1954, the Supreme Court found school segregation illegal in "Brown v. Board of Education", though it would be several years before school segregation was ended. In 1955, King led a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. In the late 1950s and 1960s, King got help from Presidents John F. Kennedy, who was shot, and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1963, he led a march on Washington calling for civil rights. Soon after, Congress passed laws that made most segregation illegal. Johnson also passed a program called the Great Society that helped poor people and minorities.


title: History of the United States

text: Gays and lesbians, who had often been persecuted, also started to ask for rights, beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969. Chicanos, Native Americans, old people, consumers, and people with disabilities also fought for rights, as did women. Though women had had jobs during World War II, most of them went back to the home after the war. Women did not like that they often held jobs that paid less than men or that fewer opportunities were open to them. People like Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinem founded groups such as the National Organization for Women to try and solve these problems. NOW and other groups wanted an Equal Rights Amendment that would guarantee them equality in all areas. In the 1970s and 1980s, many more jobs and opportunities were opened to women. There were some women like Phyllis Schlafly who opposed Freidan and Steinem and were known as "anti-feminists". It was partly because of the anti-feminists that the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated, but also because women had already gained equality in many areas and they did not want to be drafted into the army.


title: History of the United States

text: In the 1960s, the counterculture was created. Some of the followers of the counterculture were called hippies. They had long hair, and lived communally, smoking marijuana and practicing free love. The counterculture, along with college students, were the groups most against the Vietnam War. They also were the groups that listened to new music known as rock and roll.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1973, the Supreme Court issued a decision called "Roe v. Wade", which made many abortions legal. The many changes led to a reaction by Jerry Falwell and other conservatives who called themselves the "Religious Right" and the "Moral Majority".


title: History of the United States

text: Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980. He defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter by winning 44 out of the 50 American states. During the Reagan Era, the country was facing through inflation, a bad economy, and the American foreign policy were not as good. When Ronald Reagan became president, he signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which lowered taxes for corporations, supposedly so they could reinvest the surplus profits back into business. During Reagan's presidency, he expanded the American military creating more jobs, but also raising the deficit due to overspending. During his first term, the economy went from a 4.5% to 7.2%.


title: History of the United States

text: In 1984, Reagan won in a major landslide by winning 49 out of the 50 American states. During his second term, Reagan focused on ending the Cold War. He held many meetings between Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They first met at the Geneva Summit in 1985. Later they both discovered their passion of ending the war. Reagan met four times with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who ascended to power in 1985, and their summit conferences led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.