6
Culture
1
The USA
Warm-up
1 a
What do you know about the history of the
USA before the 20th century? Match these
important dates to the events below (A–F).
1492
1776
A
1620
1861–1865
1775–1783
1865
The American Civil War: southern
vs. northern states.
The American Revolution: America’s
struggle for independence from
Britain.
Christopher Columbus sails across
the Atlantic Ocean and reaches an
island in the Caribbean Sea.
Slavery is abolished.
English settlers arrive to start a
colony in Plymouth.
The Declaration of Independence is
signed on 4 July.
B
C
D
E
A
the pictures (1–3)?
Lincoln wanted the southern states to return to
the Union. Union soldiers were based in forts on
Confederate land. The Confederates wanted the Union
soldiers to leave. They refused. Confederate soldiers
attacked Union soldiers at Fort Sumner, in South
Carolina, in April 1861. The Civil War had begun.
Listening
B
F
b Which of the events are illustrated in
P
2 a
T4 06 Listen to an interview with an
American historian and check your answers
to exercise 1.
b
Listen again. Are the sentences
True or False? Write T or F.
1
2
3
4
5
c
T4 06
Columbus was the first person to set foot
on the Caribbean islands.
The English settlers of 1620 arrived on a
ship called the Pilgrim.
The American Revolution was about
independence from Britain.
The Declaration of Independence ended
the American Revolution.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President
before the Civil War began.
In pairs. Do you know any other important
events in US history, during the 20th century,
and later?
14
The American
The Confederates finally surrendered in April 1865.
The war was over.
Five days after the end of the Civil War, Lincoln attended
a theatre performance, where he was shot and killed
by John Wilkes Booth, a southerner opposed to his
policies. It was a tragic ending to the life of someone
who had brought radical change to the USA.
Reading
3
Now read about the American Civil War.
Put the texts (A–G) in the correct order (1–7).
Vocabulary
4
Find these words (1–8) in the texts and
match them to their correct definition (a–h).
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
injured
plantations
supported
bloody
defeat
speech
surrendered
opposed to
a with many deaths
from fighting
b accepted defeat and
stopped fighting
c physically hurt
d not in favour of
e large areas of
cultivated land
f loss in a fight or war
g in favour of
h a formal talk given
to an audience
2
Culture
6
3
Civil War
C
Before the start of the Civil War, there were over
four million slaves in the USA. They worked mostly
in the south, on the cotton plantations, in difficult
and cruel conditions. Before Abraham Lincoln
was elected President in 1860, he had announced
that he wanted to stop the expansion of slavery.
The country was divided in two – the southern
states, who supported slavery, and the northern
states, called the Union, who wanted to end it.
The southern states said that they would leave the
Union in protest if Lincoln became President.
D
The American Civil War (1861–1865) ended slavery
in the USA. But during those five years over 600,000
people died, and more than a million were injured.
E
Lincoln was inaugurated as President in 1861, but seven
southern states had already left the Union, soon followed
by four more. These states formed their own nation called
The Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis
as President.
F
In July 1863, the Confederates suffered a devastating defeat at
the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was here that Lincoln
made his famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, when he
declared part of the battlefield a cemetery for all the soldiers
who had died in this terrible war.
G
The war continued, with many bloody battles and victories
on both sides. In 1862, Lincoln made his Emancipation
Proclamation. It said that all slaves would be given freedom if
the Confederate states returned to the Union. The Confederates
ignored him. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln’s order came into
effect, and although not all slaves were freed in the USA, this
was an important step towards the final abolition of slavery.
Check
5
Choose the correct alternative.
1 President Lincoln supported/was
opposed to slavery.
2 Most of the slaves in the south/north
worked on cotton plantations.
3 Many of the southern states were against/in
favour of Lincoln’s anti-slavery views.
4 The Confederate consisted of seven/eleven
states in the south.
5 The Civil War began when Unionist soldiers/
Confederates attacked Fort Sumner.
6 The Confederate states returned/didn’t return to
the Union after the Emancipation Proclamation.
7 The Gettysburg Address was a speech to
honour the soldiers of the war/about slavery.
8 Abraham Lincoln lived/didn’t live to see the
end of the Civil War.
Speaking
6
T
In pairs. Ask and answer the questions.
1 What did you know about slavery, or the
American Civil War, before this lesson?
2 What do you know about slavery elsewhere in
the world, for example in Europe, at the time?
3 Do you think slavery still exists today? If so, can
you think of any examples of modern-day slavery?
4 What important events in Italian history
changed the country radically? How?
Writing
7
Portfolio
Write a short text (100–150 words) about an
important event in Italian history. Include
this information:
a description of what happened, and the date(s)
some information about the historical
background to the event
the consequences of the event, and why it is
still important today
15