Sports
Football
Two football conference:AFC NFC
Why so popular:it is time to party and to advertise products;the advent of color
television;it has a marching band and a squat of cheerleaders;the game combines
teamwork with individual prowess in a rough,contact competition.
baseball
Major leagues:the older National League;the American League;Negro League
A period of hero worship and individual triumph
Changes after World War two:the demolition of the color barrier;a few other teams
hired African-Americans who had demonstrate their abilities with the Negro Baseball
League
The baseball season:at the beginning of April and ends in October
The World Series Champion:an occasion for neighbors and co-workers to engage in
some minor wagering on the outcome of the game.
Basketball
Origin:to create an indoor sports activity in 1891 Massachusetts.
Fast game:the score can suddenly shift so fans does not permit snaking.
National Basketball Association;All-star game;play-off games
Other Sports Activities
Ice hockey:first played in Canada;popular in Florida and California
Track and field:horses,dogs.automobiles and bicycles
Court games:tennis,racket ball and volleyball
Individual sports:golf bowling
Scenic spots
The Grand Canyon:this is a gorge slowly carved away for nearly 6 million years by
the waters of the Colorado River.it is so deep that there are four distinct zones of
climate from top to bottom
Location:the US National Park.
The Southwest
East:the Painted Desert National Park(within which is Petrified Forest)
South:the Sunset Crater Volcano National Park
The Northwest
Far north:Yellowstone National Park(oldest and largest)
Known for geysers and hot springs
Grand Te ton National Park:scenic peaks and glacier scoured valleys
Dinosaur National Monument:fossils
Bryce Canyon National Park
The Rocky Mountains
The Pacific Coast
Location:to the west of Rocky Mountains
Northern part:Seattle;Olympic Peninsula
Coastline toward south:rugged with cliffs and beaches
San Francisco:universities and Yosemite National Park
Southern California:Hollywood;Disneyland
The Middle West
Territory:flat lands grain fields
Northern part:South Dakota(four famous US president)
To the south:National monument(Mississippi River)
Florida
Climate:mild
Farther south:Everglades:Everglades National Park(subtropical wetlands)
Wildlife
Florida Keys:connected by a series of bridges called the overseas highway
Key West:a summer retreat
The Southeast
States:Georgia.South California and Virginia
East coastline:beaches and fishing vessels
West coastline:hills and mountains
Eastern coast:historic cities
The Northeast
Outer Banks:deep-sea fishing
New York City
Cape:Cape Cod;swimming beaches and docks
Inland:forests and fresh water ponds
The Green Mountains:on the range of the Appalachian chain of mountains.
The New York State
Adirondack Mountains:contains some oldest rocks
Mount Marcy:tallest peak
White-face Mountain
Lake Placid:for winter sports competitors
Schroon Lake:the model for the Loon Lake
The western part:Niagara Falls
Hawaii
Unique:lying in the center Pacific Ocean;it is the only state that is not on the North
American continent;it is entirely an archipelago;it does not have a straight line in its
state boundary;all over 40%of its population is American Asia
Largest source of outside income:tourist business.
Reason:natural beauty;warm tropical climate;inviting waters and waves;active
volcanoes.
Alaska
Scenery:vast expanses of land covered with ice and snow,Marshlands and wetland
permafrost cover large areas of land mostly in northern,western and southern flatland.
Reason:27%of its land lies above the Arctic Circle.
Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutian Islands Chain.
Interesting things:Northern Polar Light;helicopter glacier trip;wild animals
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
American film
Early years
Movies did not originate in America.it is in Paris.
The Vita scope first came up in 1895 in New York City to exhibit movies.
At first the screenings were part of the vaudeville shows and arcades.
The early films were used mainly to showcase America’s scenic views ,glimpse of
personalities,bits of daily life,jokes,news items and social events.
Then they were mostly melodramas and comedies.
The most influential early film artist:Edwin S Porter
Film exchanges made possible films of great variety.
The first American studios were built in the New York city.
In 1910,Edison formed the Motion Picture Company.
After 1913,Hollywood became the American movie capital.
The Hollywood Studio Era
Between 1960 and 1926 the American film industry came into the hands of a few
powerful companies:Fox,MGM,paramount,RKO and Warner Brothers
(majors)Columbia and Universal and United Artists(little three)
Five major produced a steady supply of films on an assembly-line basis for the
company’s theaters.
Prior to World War One:preachy and sentimental and set in a working class milieu.
In the 1920s:Cynicism and sensuality among the upper classes characterized features
and democratic optimism gave way to rampant materialism.
In 1927:”the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Science”was formed and began an
annual awards ceremony.(Oscar)
In 1928,the first all-talking picture,Lights of New York,was shown.(sound films)
In 1931,as talkie enthusiasm waned,the industry felt the impact of the Great
Depression.
1930s:child star
1939:film Gone with the Wind(epic)
In the 1950s,two developments ended the studio control of the entertainment
business:the popularity of television;the studio were forced by Federal Court ruling to
abandon the control of distribution and exhibition that they had maintained through
massive conglomerate corporations.
Solution:filmmakers urged technological innovation.(wide-screen process and
stereophonic sound system)
In 1956 many studios began to produce material especially for television,including
commercials,and to sell their old films for television reruns.
New genre:horror,sci-fi and rock’ n’ roll(avoided romanticism and sentimentality)
In 1970s:the trend of celebrity image.
The early 1990s saw the development of a commercial successful independent cinema
in the US
In the late 1990s,another cinematic transition began,from physical film stock to digital
cinema technology.(DVDs)
During the first decades of 21st century,the American film went global
3D film.
American popular music since 1900
Earliest:sentimental parlor songs.Audience:middle-and working-class white audience
Civil War era:in New Orleans black marching bands played the syncopated
rhyme(early jazz)
Early 20th century:vaudeville(Broadway musical theater and the songs of Tin Pan
Alley) national consciousness was developing because the US became a big world
power.
After World War One:jazz(phonograph cylinder which launched the birth of recorded
music)
The 1930s and 1940s was an age of swing；there are hundreds of bands.(after World
War Two individual singers became more popular)
Early 1950s:rock’ n’ roll and rhyme-and-blues(black blues and white country music)
Reason:black people moved to northern cities because the war improved their
economic position,the music industry was responsive to their taste;there was no
segregation of the radio audiences.
In 1965:the two fused to create rock music.
Until the 1950s three style:pop;rhyme-and-blues;country-and-western. The three
separate styles came together to form rock’ n’ roll.(Elvis Presley Dylan)
Early 1960s:the Beatles(in 1964 they revolutionized pop music);Bob Dylan revived
folk music and bring the era of rock.(electric guitar)
New elements:satirical,bitter and angry
Mid-1960s:followed the footsteps of Dylan.
In the late 1965:the Beatles began using subtle texts with reference to drugs, new
instrument sounds and more complex harmonious and rhymes.
1966:sounds of silence
1967:San Francisco sound
The 1970s:emphasis shifted to the performance and composers.(groups have given
way to individual performance)
In the 1980s:rhythm and blues came back in the form of R＆B
By the end of 1980s:pop-rock derived from the British rock movement with macho
lyrics and attitudes,accompanied by hard rock music and heavy mental solo singing.
The 1990s:influx of Grunge music coming from Seattle.(Nirvana);alternative style of
rock and alternative bands;rap music(black run and black created, it was not created to
cater to a white audience );hip pop(from rap)