VENTE DE GATEAUX

Les élèves de la section euro ont vendu des gâteaux  sur le port de Sanary aujourd'hui samedi 29 novembre et la récolte a été très bonne ! L'argent récolté permettra de financer une partie du voyage à Londres qui aura lieu en avril 2015

THANKSGIVING

                                          THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada.


US President Barack Obama pardons the National Thanksgiving Turkey,
"named Apple, in a ceremony with daughters Sasha and Malia, together with National Turkey Federation Chairman Yubert Envia, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC." - 25 November 2010


(telegraph.co.uk)

History of Thanksgiving

Modern Thanksgiving has its direct origins in American history. In 1609, a group of Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England moved to Holland. They ­lived in Holland for a number of years until a group of English investors -- the Merchant Adventurers -- financed a trip for more than 100 passengers to the New World.

On Sept. 6, 1620, they set sail on a ship called the Mayflower, leaving from England and arriving in the New World after 65 days. They settled in a town called Plymouth in what is now Massachusetts. The Pilgrims' first winter was so harsh that fewer than 50 of the group survived the season.
On March 16, 1621, an Abnaki Indian named Samoset entered the Plymouth settlement. He welcomed the Pilgrims in English, and the next day returned with another American Indian namedSquanto, who spoke English well. With Squanto's help, the Pilgrims were able to survive in the New World. He taught them how to get sap out of the maple trees, how to avoid plants that were poisonous and how to plant corn and other crops.
The harvest was very successful, due in large part to help from the American Indians. The Pilgrims had enough food for the winter and had learned how to survive in the New World. Plymouth Colony's Governor, William Bradford, decided to throw a celebratory feast and invited the colony's American Indian neighbors to take part. The American Indians brought food as well, and the celebration lasted for three days.
Historians believe that this celebration took place sometime in the fall. And although there are very few clues to reconstruct the feast, some scholars believe that food items, like venison and fish, were the main sources of protein, rather than turkey. It's also thought that the food preparation would have been greatly influenced by American Indian traditions since the Puritans had been instructed by American Indians on how to cultivate and cook items 

Many view the first Thanksgiving as an example of the possibility of great respect and cooperation between two different cultures. But others see it as a symbol of the colonists' eventual persecution of the American Indians. Sadly, the friendly spirit of the first Thanksgiving and the 50-year period of peace that followed is one exception in a long history of bloodshed between Native American tribes and European settlers.
In 1970, some American Indians began observing a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day to remember the violence and discrimination suffered by their ancestors. The Day of Mourning is observed by gathering at the top of "Coles Hill," which overlooks Plymouth Rock.
In the next section, we'll look at how Thanksgiving spread throughout the colonies, eventually becoming an official U.S. holiday.
 
Thanksgiving Traditions

Apart from food, the biggest Thanksgiving traditions are football and parades. In an­cient harvest festivals, people usually celebrated with games and sports, so you could argue the football tradition has very deep roots.
 The traditional American Thanksgiving football game was usually between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but as football has become more popular, there are now more games on Thanksgiving day.
The tradition of Thanksgiving parades goes back to the early 20th century, when people began to associate Thanksgiving with the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In order to attract customers, stores like Macy's sponsored elaborate parades like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
It started in 1954

http://www.ibtimes.com/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-2014-route-map-start-time-where-watch-live-stream-video-1727621

The Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts is the oldest public museum in the United States in continuous operation, having opened in 1824.

The Pilgrim Society, established in 1820, runs the museum. 

The museum tells the story of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony. 

Black Friday in the United States

Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day in the USA and falls on the Friday after the fourth Thursday in November. It is a busy shopping day and is a holiday in some states.

Black 

What do people do?

Many people have a day off work or choose to take a day from their quota of annual leave on Black Friday. Some people use this to make trips to see family members or friends who live in other areas or to go on vacation. Others use it to start shopping for the Christmas season.

Shopping for Christmas presents is also popular on Black Friday. Many stores have special offers and lower their prices on some goods, such as toys.

Public life

Black Friday is not a federal holiday, but is a public holiday in some states. Many people take a day of their annual leave on the day after Thanksgiving Day. Many organizations also close for the Thanksgiving weekend.

Public transit systems may run on their normal schedule or may have changes. Some stores extend their opening hours on Black Friday. There can also be congestion on roads to popular shopping destinations.

Background

Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days in the USA. 

There are two popular theories as to why the day after Thanksgiving Day is called Black Friday. One theory is that the wheels of vehicles in heavy traffic on the day after Thanksgiving Day left many black markings on the road surface, leading to the term Black Friday.

The other theory is that the term Black Friday comes from an old way of recording business accounts. Losses were recorded in red ink and profits in black ink. Many businesses, particularly small businesses, started making profits prior to Christmas. Many hoped to start showing a profit, marked in black ink, on the day after Thanksgiving Day.

To revise for your test : do the following quiz
http://www.quizrocket.com/thanksgiving-trivia

NATIVE AMERICANS

                                  NATIVE AMERICANS

How well do you know about Native Americans? Do this quiz
http://www.ducksters.com/history/native_americans_questions.php


                   Indian reservations and major Indian battles in the 19th century:

                                       Indian culture map

    

   Famous Indian chefs

Crazy Horse

                                                           

Sitting Bull

           


Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South 

Dakota (under construction)

Portrait of Pocahontas

Pocahontas Born: 1596 (exact date uncertain) Died: March (exact date uncertain) 1617 Have you seen the animated film "Pocahontas"? It tells the story of the daughter of Powhatan, the most powerful Indian chief of coastal Virginia in the early 1600s. Even today, her story fascinates people. Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, an important chief of the Algonquian Indians (the Powhatans) who lived in the Virginia region. Her real name was "Matoaka." "Pocahontas" was a nickname meaning "playful" or "mischievous one." Pocahontas was only about 10 years old when her world changed forever. English settlers arrived from far across the ocean and created a settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. These new English settlers looked and acted very differently from Powhatan's tribe. Some of Pocahontas's people were afraid or even hateful of the newcomers. But the chief's daughter had a curious mind and a friendly manner. She wanted to know more about these newcomers. Pocahontas is most famous for reportedly saving the life of English Captain John Smith. Throughout her short life (she died at the age of 22), however, she was important in other ways as well. Pocahontas tried to promote peace between the Powhatans and the English colonists. She even converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe, a Jamestown colonist, a union which helped bring the two groups together. Her untimely death in England hurt the chance for continued peace in Virginia between the Algonquians and the colonists.

The Trail of Tears (Piste des Larmes)

It is the name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United Statesfollowing the Indian Removal Act of 1830. 

The removal included many members of the Cherokee, Muscogee(Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory in eastern sections of the present-day state of Oklahoma. The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the ChoctawNation in 1831.

Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease and starvation on the route to their destinations. Many died, including 2,000-6,000 of 16,542 relocated Cherokee.

 European Americans and African American freedmen and slaves also participated in the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek and Seminole forced relocations.

To revise for your test 

: http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/quizzes/natives/native_americans.htm

http://www.discip.crdp.ac-caen.fr/anglais/documents/america2/indians.htm

MOUNT RUSHMORE

Thanks to Estelle and Kassandra for their oral presentation

The southeastern face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest is the site of four gigantic carved sculptures depicting the faces of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. 
Led by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, work on the project began in 1927 and was finally completed in 1941. 
Over that time period, some 400 workers erected the sculpture under dangerous conditions, removing a total of 450,000 tons of rock in order to create the enormous carved heads, each of which reached a height of 60 feet (18 meters). 
In sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s original design, the four presidents were meant to be represented from the waist up, but insufficient funding brought the carving to a halt after completion of their faces.
 Known as the “Shrine of Democracy,” Mount Rushmore welcomes upwards of 2 million visitors every year, and is one of America’s most popular tourist attractions.

ELLIS ISLAND

The Origin of the Island From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor. Ellis Island is located in the upper bay just off the New Jersey coast, within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Through the years, this gateway to the new world was enlarged from its original 3.3 acres to 27.5 acres mostly by landfill obtained from ship ballast and possibly excess earth from the construction of the New York City subway system. Before being designated as the site of the first Federal immigration station by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890, Ellis Island had a varied history. The local Indian tribes had called it "Kioshk" or Gull Island. Due to its rich and abundant oyster beds and plentiful and profitable shad runs, it was known as Oyster Island for many generations during the Dutch and English colonial periods. By the time Samuel Ellis became the island's private owner in the 1770s, the island had been called Kioshk, Oyster, Dyre, Bucking and Anderson's Island. In this way, Ellis Island developed from a sandy island that barely rose above the high tide mark, into a hanging site for pirates, a harbor fort, ammunition and ordinance depot named Fort Gibson, and finally into an immigration station. A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVENTS : 1630 The Colonial governors of Nieuw Amsterdam purchased a small, 3.5-acre mud bank in Upper New York Bay, near the New Jersey shore. The Indians called it Kioshk, or Gull Island, after the birds that were its only inhabitants. The Dutch settlers called it Oyster Island, after the many surrounding oyster beds. The Island barely rose above the surface at high tide.

1776 By the time of the American Revolution, the Island was owned by Samuel Ellis, a New York merchant and owner of a small tavern on the island catering to fisherman.

1808 Samuel Ellis's heirs sold the island to New York State. The name Ellis Island stuck. Later in the year, the Federal Government bought Ellis Island for $10,000.

1812 Shortly before the War of 1812, a battery of 20 guns, a magazine and a barracks were constructed on the island.

1890 The States turned over control of immigration to the Federal Government. The U.S. Congress appropriated $75,000 to build the first Federal immigration station on Ellis Island. Artesian wells were dug, and landfill (from incoming ships' ballast and New York City subway tunnels) doubled the size of Ellis to over six acres. While the new immigration station was under construction, the Barge Office on the Battery on the tip of Manhattan was used for immigration reception. During 1891, there were 405,664 immigrants, or about 80% of the national total, that were processed at the Barge Office.

1892 The first Ellis Island Immigration Station was officially opened. The first immigrant to pass through Ellis was a "rosy-cheeked Irish girl," Annie Moore, a teenager from County Cork. She came with her two younger brothers to join their parents in New York City. That first day, three large ships were waiting to land, and 700 immigrants passed through Ellis Island. In the first year, nearly 450,000 immigrants passed through the Island.

1897 A fire of undisclosed origin, possibly faulty wiring, completely destroyed the Georgia pine structures on Ellis Island. No one died, but most of the immigration records dating from 1855 were destroyed. In five years, some 1.5 million immigrants had been processed. While a new, fireproof immigration station was being constructed on Ellis, processing was transferred back to the Barge Office.

1900 The present Main Building opened, an impressive, French Renaissance structure in red brick with limestone trim. It cost some $1.5 million and was designed to process 5,000 immigrants per day. This was scarcely big enough for the surge in immigration in the pre-World War I years. The island was continuously enlarged with landfill, remodeling, additions and new construction.

1907 This was the peak year at Ellis Island with 1,004,756 immigrants received. The all-time daily high was on April 17th of this year when a total of 11,747 immigrants were processed.

1921 Post-war immigration quickly revived and 560,971 immigrants passed through Ellis Island in 1921. The first Immigration Quota Law passed the U.S. Congress, adding to the administration problems at Ellis Island. It provided that the number of any European nationality entering in a given year could not exceed three percent of foreign-born persons of that nationality who lived in the U.S. in 1910. Nationality was to be determined by country of birth, and no more than 20 percent of the annual quota of any nationality could be received in any given month. The total number of immigrants admissible under the system was set at nearly 358,000, but numerous classes were exempt.

1924 The Immigration Act of 1924 further restricted immigration, changing the quota basis from the census of 1910 to that of 1890, and reducing the annual quota to some 164,000. This marked the end of mass immigration to America. The Immigration Act also provided for the examination and qualification of immigrants at U.S. consulates overseas. The main function of Ellis Island changed from that of an immigrant processing station, to a center of the assembly, detention, and deportation of aliens who had entered the U.S. illegally or had violated the terms of admittance. The buildings at Ellis Island began to fall into disuse and disrepair.

1938-1945 After the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, Ellis Island served primarily as a detention center for alien enemies, those considered to be inadmissible and others. By 1946, approximately 7000 aliens and citizens, with German, Italian, and Japanese people comprising the largest groups, were detained at Ellis Island. The detainees became so numerous that the immigration functions had to be transferred to Manhattan for lack of room. Ellis Island was also used as a hospital for returning wounded servicemen and by the United States Coast Guard, which trained about 60,000 servicemen there.

1950 A brief flurry of activity occurred on Ellis Island after the passage of the Internal Security Act of 1950, which excluded arriving aliens who had been members of Communist and Fascist organizations. Remodeling and repairs were performed on the buildings to accommodate detainees who numbered as many as 1,500 at one time.

1954 Ellis Island, with its 33 structures, was closed and declared excess Federal property.

1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Proclamation 3656 adding Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty National Monument, thus placing Ellis Island under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.

1984 The largest restoration in American history was undertaken by the non-profit Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., established in 1982 and chaired by Lee A. Iacocca, which raised all the funds from private citizens, corporations, and other groups and oversaw the restoration, working in partnership the National Park Service.

1990 The Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened to the public and has received over 40 million visitors to date. Also unveiled was The American Immigrant Wall of Honor®, the largest wall of names in the world, where individuals can have the name of an immigrant ancestor inscribed for posterity.

 

2001 The American Family Immigration History Center® was opened by The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, which allows visitors to the Center and its website to explore the extraordinary collection of records of the more than 25 million passengers and members of ships’ crews who entered the United States through Ellis Island and the Port of New York between 1892 and 1924.

2011 Journeys: The Peopling of America® Center, 1550 - 1890 the first phase of a major expansion of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum which explores arrivals before the Ellis Island Era, is opened by The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. Located in the historic Railroad Ticket Office, this exhibit highlights global reasons for immigration, describes both voluntary and involuntary forms of immigration, and underscores some of the historical debates and discussions about immigration in America.

2015 The second phase of The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s Peopling of America® Center, which was delayed due to the damage sustained by Ellis Island from Superstorm Sandy, is scheduled to open. It will tell the story of arrivals to America in the post-Ellis Island era (1955-Present).