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Vocabulary

Antilles - Антильские острова possess - владеть attractiveness - привлекательность animate - оживлять sever - суровый thoughtful
- задумчивый executive - исполнительный arrogance - высокомерие

hot-tempered - вспыльчивый, горячий attract the attention — привлечь внимание

Travaling

The uniqueness of the British as a people has long been taken granted by foreign observers and native commentators alike. Visitors from overseas,; fromVenetian ambassadors in the late fifteenth century, through intellectuals like Voltaire, to American journalists of the twentieth century, have all been convinced of the special quality of British society.
This has been equally asumed by modern native chroniclers of the British scene. But the nature or essence of the Britishness of the British is far easier to proclaim than to explain. Some English characteristics upon which both natives and visitors have tended to agree have to do with national psychology: egoism, self-confidence, intolerance of outsiders, deep suspieiousness towards their compatriots, ostentatious wealth, independence, social mobility, love of comfort and a strong belief in private property. Moderation, the avoidance of extremes, the choice of a middle way, are among the essential qualities of Englishness. The two features of English life which from the 15th century onwards struck almost every observer were the country's wealth and its strong sense of individualism.
The features that have shaped the British distinctiveness were determined by the country's geographical isolation from the European continent, with the consistent centrality of sea power and a broad social fluidity in which the early collapse of feudalism helped generate a new industry and commercial enterprise. The long centuries during which the land was free from invaders meant that there could be a flowing culture continuity from the time of Chaucer onwards impossible on the war-torn Continent. A political and legal evolution is expressed in the English Parliament which has survived in recognisable form till today, without those interruptions and periods of absolute monarchy that have marked the history of its neighbours, and the rule of law. There have been other significant features in the development of England which mark it as a country to some degree separate from Europe. One of the most important is the language. English is a language of unparalleled richness, subtlety and variety, which unlocks' the treasures of a literature second to none in the werid. It is the easiest language to leam.

As for British history, it is not one of harmonious continuity, broadening from epoch to epoch. It is a dramatic, colourful, often violent story of an ancient, society and culture torn apart by the political, economic, and intellectual turmoil of human experience. Britain in many ways has been the cockpit of mankind.

Vocabulary
Ambassador – посол assume – допускать
Proclaim – провозглашать psychology – психология
Self – confidence – самоуверенность intolerance – нетерпимость
Ostentatious – показной Uniqueness – уникальность social fluidity – соц. Подвижность Avoidance – уклонение extreme – крайность

Isolation – изоляция invader – захватчик Continuity – непрерывность proceed – продолжать Turmoil – беспорядок private property – частная собственность

Environmental protection

The 20th century began slowly, to the ticking of grandfather clocks and the stately rhythms of progress. Thanks to science, industry and moral philosophy, mankind's steps had at last been guided up the right path. The century of steam was about to give way to the century of oil and electricity. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, only 41 years old in
1900, proposed a scientific basis for the notion that progress was gradual but inevitable, determined by natural law.
And everybody thought that the development would continue in the small steps that had marked the progress of the 19th century. Inventions like the railroad or the telegraph or the typewriter had enabled people to get on with their ordinary lives a little more conveniently. No one could have guessed then that, in the century just beginning, new ideas would burst upon the world with a force and frequency that would turn this stately march of progress into a long distance, free-for-all sprint. Thrust into this race, the children of the 20th century would witness more change in their daily existence and environment than anyone else who had ever walked the planet.
This high-velocity attack of new ideas and technologies seemed to ratify older dreams of a perfectible life on earth, of an existence in which the shocks of nature had been tamed. But the unleashing of unparalleled progress was also accompanied by something quite different: a massive regression toward savagery. If technology endowed humans with Promethean aspirations and powers, it also gave them the means to exterminate one another. Assassinations in Sarajevo in 1914 lit a spark that set off an unprecedented explosion of destruction and death. The Great War did more than devastate a generation of Europeans. It set the tone - the political, moral and intellectual temper - for much that followed.
Before long the Great War received a new name - World War I. The roaring
1920s and the Depression years of the 1930s proved to be merely a prelude to World War II. Largely hidden during that war was an awful truth that called into question progress and the notion of human nature itself.
But civilization was not crushed by the two great wars, and the ruins provided the stimulus to build a way of life again. To a degree previously unheard of and perhaps unimaginable, the citizens of the 20th century felt free to reinvent themselves. In that task They were assisted by two profound developments–psychoanalysis and the Bomb.

Vocabulary

stately - величественный, величавый thrust - толчок high-velocity - большая скорость savagery - варварство aspiration - стремление exterminate - уничтожать assassination - убийство политического или общественного деятеля spark
- искра explosion - взрыв destruction - разрушение, уничтожение devastate - опустошить roaring - бурный

Depression - кризис 1929-32 гг.

Outstanding people
Edward VI took the English throne in 1461. When he unexpectedly died in
1483, his brother Richard was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.
Edward IV left two little sons, Edward, Prince of Wales, age twelve, and
Richard, Duke of York, age nine. Their uncle Richard made a conspiracy to seize the Princes. He brought them to London and locked away in the Tower, and started to move toward usurpation. He alleged that the marriage of his dead brother, Edward IV, was invalid because Edward had previously promised to marry another woman. As a result, the little princes were declared bastards, and young Edward V had no right to the throne of England. To assure his own security, Richard is believed to have ordered to murder the little princes in the Tower. He became King Richard III.
Richard had the most obvious reasons for wanting the young princes dead. He lived through a civil war that taught him that powerful men were always ready to rally around a standard revolt. If such a flag could be raised for a prince of the royal blood to restore him to a rightful throne, noblemen with great lands, great debts, and empty wallets might readily take arms, looking for the main chance in the change of kings. Richard never felt secure on his throne; his swift, lawless, and lethal moves against those who threatened him showed that he was capable of murder if by murder he could rid himself of the mortal danger. And as long as the little princes remained alive the danger was always present. In the summer of 1483, the little princes disappeared forever; that much is certain.
Richard III was killed in the battle on 22 August 1485. Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, now King Henry VII by right of conquest and some other hereditary claims, felt he needed to justify his own actions at the battle of Bosworth. He issued a royal proclamation, dated the day before the battle, declaring himself the rightful king of England and condemning
Richard as the rebellious subject.
In 1674 two small skeletons were found in a wooden box buried ten feet under a small staircase that workmen were removing from the White Tower.
They were thought to be the bones of the little princes. King Charles II had his own reasons for being offended at the murder of kings, so he placed these bones in the chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey.

Vocabulary

usurpation - узурпация, незаконный захват allege - утверждать, заявлять (голословно) invalid - не имеющий законной силы bastard - внебрачный ребенок security - безопасность rally – сплотиться standard - знамя, флаг murder - убийство disappear - исчезнуть it-rightful - законный condemn - осуждать

Youth and unemployment

In the year 1000, Western Europe was just emerging from the long depression commonly known as the Dark Ages. Shortly before the beginning of the millennium, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III moved his capital and court back to the Eternal City. But what little grandeur Rome still possessed paled by comparison with the splendors of 'the new Rome, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire. Byzantium was one of three centers of wealth and power in the known world of the 11th century, India and China were the others. There were sophisticated cultures elsewhere, notably the
Mayans of Mexico, but they were virtually out of touch with other civilizations — thus lacking an essential condition for being considered part of world history.
Little of Europe's coming dynamism was apparent in the year JOOO, although there were signs that the Continent was getting richer. Wider use of plows had made farming more efficient. The planting of new crops, notably beans and peas, added variety to Europe's diet Windmills and watermills provided fresh sources of power. Villages that were to become towns and eventually cities grew up around trading markets. Yet the modern nation-state, with its centralized bureaucracies and armies under unified command came into being in the 15th century. For most of the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism was Europe's unifying force. Benedictine abbeys had preserved what fragments of ancient learning the Continent possessed. Cistercian monks had cleared the land and pioneered in agricultural experimentation. Ambitious popes competed with equally ambitious kings to determine whether the spiritual realm would hold power over the tea or vice versa. Symbolic of the church's power were great Gothic cathedrals of Europe: construction of
Reims began 13th century, and Charters—the most glorious of all such edifices—was consecrated in 1260.
By the 20th century the ingenuity, coupled with an aggressive wanderlust, brought Europeans and their culture to the ends earth. By the year 1914, eighty four per cent of the world' surface, apart from the polar regions, was under the influence European civilization. The hegemony of European civilization was based on the successful application of new knowledge to a problems and conquering nature, and much of that success based on circumstance and ingenuity.

Vocabulary

emerge - выходить millennium – тысячелетие

asceticism - аскетизм sophisticated - сложный bureaucracies - чиновники apparent - явный watermill - водяная мельница ambitious - честолюбивый ingenuity - изобретательность wanderlust
- страсть к путешествиям surface - поверхность conquer - завоевать assertion - утверждение accomplishment - достижение grandeur - великолепие, пышность, грозность

Mass media

The problem between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland started a long time ago. It is more political than religious. For centuries the
English had tried to gain control of Ireland. Until the 16-th century,
England controlled only a small area of Ireland around Dublin. English rulers, including King Henry VIII (1491-1547), Queen Elizabeth I (153-1603) and Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) gradually conquered the whole of Ireland.
The last area to resist the province in Ulster, in the north of Ireland, but in the Irish were defeated.
In 1910 the British Government offered Ireland a mild form of Home Rule – full self-government in regard to purely Irish affairs. Opposition was basked by the generals of the British Army’s troops in Ireland. The Irish patriots formed their own military organizations of the Irish Volunteers, drilling troops for the fight. The Labour Party in Ireland established the
Irish Army. The Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army jointly started preparation for an insurrection. The set date was Monday of Easter Week,
1916. Although the uprising was a failure, it laid the foundation for another stage of the fight for freedom. In 1921, an independent Irish state was set up, that is the Republic of Ireland. In the north of Ireland six countries were dominated and controlled by Protestants, who refused to join the new Irish state. These six countries stayed part of the UK and are now called Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is a very beautiful place. It is a land of mountains, rivers and lakes. It has a rugged coastline and one is never more than half an hour away from the coast by car. The people of Ireland have always been known for the stories and myths. They say that giants used to live on the
Antrim coast, north of Belfast. One giant, Finn McCool, the commander of the king of Ireland’s army, fell in love with the woman giant in Scotland.
He wanted her to come to Ulster so he started to build a bridge, the
Giant’s Causeway, so that she could walk across the sea.

Vocabulary
Area-пространство
Defeat - наносить поражение
Home Rule – Гом Руль
Back - поддержать
Troops - войска
Volunteers - «Добровольцы»
Drill - строевая подготовка
Insurrection – восстание
Uprising – восстание
Failure – неудача, провал
Independent - независимый
County – округ, графство
Giant – великан

Leisure time

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