The statue of Liberty

The statue of Liberty symbolizes freedom , marking the arrival of millions of immigrants  to the United States.  It was designed by the French sculptor, Frederic Bartholdi.  France gave it to the United States  as gift in memory of the centennial  of the U.S. independence  from England.  The statue  symbolizes liberty in the form of a woman wearing flowing robes  and a spiked crown.  She is holding a torch in her right hand.  In her left hand  , she is  carrying a book with the date July 4, 1776 inscribed on it.  There are broken chains of tyranny  at her feel .  The statue is located on  an island in New York City harbor.

The statue of Liberty is one of the largest statue in the world.  It rises 93.5m. (306ft. 8 in.) from the bottom of the pedestal to the tip of the torch .  The figure alone is 46.4 m . (152ft. 2 in.)  high.  The right arm is 12.8m . (42 ft) long; the hand is 5.03 m. (16 ft.5 in) long; and the head measures  8.5 m.(28 ft) from neck to diadem  and  3.05 m.(10 ft) from ear to ear.  The  statue weighs 254 metric tons.  Following are the last verses of a poem inscribed  at the main entrance  to the pedestal:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these , the homeless , tempest- tost to me ,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

(by Emma Lazarus)

    

The U.S. Flag  and the Pledge of Allegiance

Every country has a flag.  When the thirteen colonies declared their independence ,  they needed a new flag.  It is believed that  George Washington designed the flag and asked a friend, Mrs. Betsy Ross, to make it for him.  

This flag has three colors: red(for courage), white(for truth), and blue(for justice).  There were thirteen stars in a circle on  a blue field and thirteen red  and white stripes.  

The number of stars and the stripes  stood for the number states of beginning  of the United States.  Today the United States have the same flag , but there are fifty stars for the fifty states.

  The thirteen stripes still stand for  the first  thirteen states.  The flag stands not only for a country (The United States of America),  but also for the people , the land , and the government – a republic.  A republic is a government elected by the people.

People show their respect for the flag and for the United States when they say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag:

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the  United states of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation , under god, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

                             

The National Anthem

The national anthem, or song, of the U.S. is the "Star Spangled Banner."  It was written by Francis  Scott Key and is about the U.S. flag.  He was an American who was arrested  by the English in the War of 1812, which was the  second war between England and American .  He was help captive on an English ship .  The English had already burned Washington, D.C. 

Key watched the night battle against an American fort.  He kept watching to see if the American was still flying over the fort.  In the morning ,  the flag was still there.  The Americans won the war.  He wrote this song about watching the battle from an English ship:

Oh! Say , can you see, by the downs early light, 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad  stripes  and bright stars , through the perilous fight,

O` er the ramparts we watch  were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs  bursting in air, 

Gave proof through the night that our flag   was still there.

Oh! Say does that star –spangled banner yet wave

O'ver  the land of the free and the home of the brave?

                   Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War


Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in the state of Kentucky . The family was very poor. They moved several times and lived  as pioneers in wild new country in Indiana and Illinois . They lived very far from cities and schools.  

When Abraham was nine years old, his mother died. His father remarried and his stepmother helped him to learn to read and write.  Since he could not go to the schools , he learned all he could from the few books  his family and friends had.

Lincoln left home when he was twenty –one years old.  He worked as a storekeeper , a surveyor  and a mailman.  He was friendly , kind, helpful, wise and very honest.  People called him honest Abe. 

 In 1832, he ran for public office.  He lost the election and tried again two years later.  In1834, he won the election and served in the Illinois state legislature.  During this time , he taught himself to be a lawyer.  He was a successful lawyer and was later elected to the U.A. Congress  in Washington D.C.

In 1860, Abe Lincoln was elected the sixteenth President to the United States. Just after he was elected President, the eleven southern states began to leave the Union.  

The south wanted to have slavery in the U.S. and the north said slavery was inhuman.  The southern states wanted to break away from the United States and form a new country so they could keep their slaves.

Abe Lincoln believed that slavery  was wrong.  He and his ideas became well-known in the United States during a series of government debates about slavery. He said: "A house divided  against itself cannot stand".  I believe this government  cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.  He also said that once state joined  the United States , it would be a state forever.  The North began  to fight against  the South in a Civil  War.  Lincoln  was the leader of the North.

From  1861-1865, the North and the South fought a bloody  and costly war.  Lincoln did everything he could to win the war of the North.  He declared the slaves free in 1863. 

  But the southern states did not  free their slaves until they lost  the war in April of 1865.

Lincoln was elected to a second term as  President.  The  war was over and the slaves were freed.  Less than a week after the war ended , Lincoln went to the Ford Theater  to watch a play   one night.  At 10:00 PM , he was shot by John Wilkes Booth , an actor who loved the south.  Lincoln  died early the next morning.’ 

Lincoln is remembered   as the President who freed  the slaves  and saved the Union.  His most famous  sentence was: '.. a government of the people , by the people, and for the people shall not perish  from the earth." 

Lincoln greatest speech was the Gettysburg Address.  He gave it in a soldiers' cemetery  in the state of the Pennsylvania at one of the great battlefields  of the Civil War.  Another great speech was the Second Inaugural Address.  He gave this speech at the beginning of his second term as President .  It was full of hope of the defeated  Southerners  and promised the help of the North.  

Lincoln greatest hope was to keep all the states together under one government.  He freed the slaves to try to save the Union.  He fought a long, hard war to save the Union.  He lived and died to save the Union.

Lincoln is buried in Springfield  ,  Illinois , where he lived most of his live.  His picture is on our five dollar bill ($5.00) and on our penny.  In Washington, D.C there is a beautiful monument in honor of Lincoln.   There is another beautiful monument in honor of Washington.  These two presidents  are remembered for their courage and honesty.  Their birthdays  are both in February and are celebrated together on President's day.  It is a legal holiday.

The California Gold Rush

In 1848, shortly after the war with Mexico ended , James Marshall accidentally found gold in a stream  while building a saw mill.

 John Sutter , the owner of the land , wanted to keep it a secret . But the word quickly spread across America and even to the old World and China.  Within a year , one hundred  thousand people came to Sutter land .  These people were  called the Forty  - Niners . 

Many of then found gold and got rich. Many  mining towns  were started and many people got rich selling supplies  to the gold miners at high  prices .  

San Francisco went from a sleepy little town on the Pacific to one  of the most important cities in the west.  

The first comers had it easy because the gold was near the top. But most of the others Forty-Niners had to dig deep for their gold.  Many spent almost as much to get the gold as the gold was worth.  

The owner of the land, John Sutter , died penniless as he tried to get his land back from the Forty –Niners.