Regardez et écoutez cette vidéo sur la vie de George Washington. Après cliquez sur le lien pour faire le quiz

Now click here to do the George Washington Quiz !

Here are the three songs I spoke to you about in our last lesson

1. Sam Cooke's "A change is gonna come" which inspired Barack Obama's election announcement "A change has come to America"

2. Bob Marley's "Buffalo soldier". Buffalo soldiers were the African Americans who fought with the Unionist Army in the American Civil War.

3. And finally Billie Holiday's poignant "Strange Fruit". The photos are real photos, I'm afraid. They are not from films.

  Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809- April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States of America. He served as President from March 4, 1861, until April 15, 1865 (he was re-elected in 1864). Lincoln's Vice-President was Andrew Johnson (1808-1875). 

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. He didn't go to school but he was self-educated. He eventually became a lawyer and a Republican politician; he earned the nickname "Honest Abe." Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842. 

During Lincoln's presidency, the Southern states left the Union because Lincoln and the Northern states were against slavery. Six weeks after becoming President, the Civil War began. In this war, the Northern states (which stayed in the Union) fought the Southern states (called the Confederacy). The Civil War lasted from 1861 until 1865. General Robert E. Lee (from the Confederacy) surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant (from the Union) on April 9, 1865. 

On Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation : slavery was abolished  in the USA and African Americans were to have the same rights as all citizens of the USA. For this humanitarian reason, Lincoln is still remembered today. However, for his treatment of Native Indians during his presidency, he is less remembered. During his presidency, the White Americans forced the Indians from their territories in Minnesota and South Dakota, and didn't respect peace treaties and promises that they had previously made. In 1862, an Indian rebellion was crushed and 38 Indian leaders were executed on direct order of the President.

Lincoln was shot in a theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, who was a sympathiser to the Confederate cause and against the abolition of slavery. Lincoln died the next morning. He was the first US president ever assassinated. 

The Lincoln Monument in Washington, D. C. was built in honor of his memory..

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a democrat, was Governor of the State of New York, before becoming President of the USA in 1933. When he became President, The US economy was in a state of crisis which was known as "The Great Depression". Unemployment was very high and a lot of Americans were living in poverty. 

Roosevelt's economic policies were a success and put an end to the depression of the 1930s. The government invested in  many construction projects, creating employment in the building industry, and reducing unemployment. Roosevelt claimed that America had "bulit its way out of the recession". He also introduced many new laws to improve working conditions and salaries. He became very popular with the ordinary, working people of the USA, and was re-elected in 1936, and again in 1940. 

In the late 1930s Roosevelt was very popular for his internal policies and for improving the US economy after the depression. But he was less popular for his foreign policy. The 1930s saw the rise of Nazi Germany in Europe under Adolf Hitler. Roosevelt thought that Hitler was a menace to the USA and to the free world. He wanted to take the USA into the Second World war, to help Great Britain and France combat Hitler.But The US Senate voted against his proposals to enter the war. And many Americans didn't want to fight another war in Europe only 20 years after the First World War. Roosevelt spoke regularly with the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who wanted to persuade the Americans to help Britain to defeat Germany. Eventually, the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbour in 1941 forced The USA to enter the war. 

So President Roosevelt was responsible for the US intervention in World War II. He directed the US war effort vigorously and helped to prepare the situation in Europe after the war. For this reason, he became very popular in Europe too and many streets in France are named after him. 

Roosevelt was re-elected President for a third time in 1944, but died a year later, in April 1945. 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Family
John Fitzgerald Kennedy became the 35th President of The United States in 1961. His pesidency lasted just three years but he remains one of  the most famous American presidents in history. 

John F Kennedy was born in 1917. His family was rich and influential. His father, Joseph P Kennedy Sr, was a successful businessman and a prominent member of the Democrat Party. He was US Ambassador to Great Britain in 1938. His mother, Rose Fitzgerald, was the daughter of John Fitzgerald who had been mayor of Boston and a Democrat member of Congress.

Election
After serving in the Second World War, JFK went into politics. He became a senator for the Democrat party and was their candidate for the presidency in 1960. His Republican opponent was Richard Nixon.
The 1960 Predidential Election is seen as the first "modern" election campaign with debates between the two candidates on national television. The young, charming Kennedy looked better on television than his older opponent and he won the election. However, the vote was very close. Kennedy was elected with one of the smallest margins in American political history.

Presidency
The short presidency of JFK was very eventful. The new President had to face many problems on the domestic and international fronts 

Cuba
In 1959 the island of Cuba, not far from the coast of the USA, underwent a revolution and became communist under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The US government was very worried about having a communist neighbour.
The first principal event of JFK's presidency was, in fact, a military disaster. In the spring of 1961, a CIA trained force of Cuban exiles attempted an invasion of Cuba, to overthrow the communist government of Castro. The force landed on the Bay of Pigs but was defeated in just three days.

 But the Cuba "problem" returned in the Autumn of 1962. The US intelligence services learned that the USSR was starting to build nuclear bases in Cuba. This meant that nuclear missiles could be aimed directly at US cities.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began. The JFK governement demanded that the USSR dismantle the nuclear bases in Cuba. They organised a blocade of the international waters around Cuba, to stop the material arriving on the island.  President Kruchev of the USSR publicly refused to stop the bases, and threateneda "nuclear disaster" if the USA did not let the Soviet ships pass into Cuba. The world had never been closer to a nuclear war. Privately, however, the Soviet Union wanted a compromise. In October 1962, President Kennedy and President Kruchev reached an agreement. The USSR promised to abandon their nuclear project in Cuba if the USA promised never to invade the communist island. JFK survived the crisis and became a national and international hero for stopping a potential nuclear war.

Civil Rights

During Kennedy's presidency, the Civil Rights Movement was very prominent. African Americans in the southern states were demonstrating to end segregation in schools, buses, and other public places. These practices were very common in the south of the USA. President Kennedy supported the cause of African American Citizens. In a televised address to the nation, he said : "Are we to say that this is the land of the free, except for the negroes". In 1963 he met with the Civil Rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King, and introduced laws to protect the civil rights of African Americans.

The "moon" project
In the early 1960s the two world superpowers, the USA and the USSR, were also rivals in the conquest of Space. In 1961, the USSR won the first battle by sending the first man into space. In May 1961 President Kennedy announced the US response. He launched the Apollo Program and promised that The USA would send a man to the moon before the end of the 1960s. This feat was achieved in 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

Assassination
On November 22 1963, in the Texan city of Dallas, President Kennedy was shot dead while riding in a motorcade. His wife Jacqueline was sitting next to him but was not hit by the shots. Lee Harvey Oswald was subsequently arrested and charged with the murder. But he was also shot before his trial. The FBI investigation concluded that Oswald was the culprit of the assassination, but this conclusion has been questioned since. It was later discovered that there were several shots aimed at the President and they didn't all come from the same direction. There are many conspiracy theories concerning the assassination and the truth may never be known.

President Kennedy and his wife in an open-top car just moments before his assassination

Richard Nixon entered US poiltics after the war as a republican. In 1950 he won a Senate seat and two years later he was Vice President to President Eisenhower. He was only 39. Everyone predicted that he would become President himself one day. 

When President Eisenhower retired, Nixon was nominated as the Republican candidate for the 1960 election. The Democrat candidate was John F Kennedy, who won the election, but only by a very narrow margin. Nixon was again candidate in 1968, and this time he won the election, defeating the democrat candidate Hubert Humphrey. 

As President, Nixon introduced many anti-crime laws to try to solve the inner city problems. But his principal success was in the domain of foreign policy. He wanted to improve world stability. In 1972 he visited the USSR, and signed an agreement with President Brezhnev to limit nuclear weapons. Then he became the first US President to visit Communist China. Diplomatic relations were re-opened between the two countries. With these two visits he reduced tensions between the USA and the two biggest communist nations. These efforts for world peace made him popular. Nixon was re-elected with a very large majority in November 1972. 

During his second term, he continued his advances for world stability and peace. In 1973, he signed a pact with North Vietnam to end American involvement in Indochina. The Vietnam war had become very expensive and very unpopular in the USA and Nixon decided to put an end to it. And in 1974 the Nixon administration negotiated agreements between Egypt and Israel, to ease tensions in the Middle East. 

However, during this time, there was a scandal developing in the USA which became disastrous for President Nixon. Two journalists from a big newspaper had learned that someone had broken into the offices of the Democrat Party during the 1972 election campaign. Important documents had been stolen, which helped the Republican party during the campaign. The journalists published a series of articles which suggested that the Republican party had been responsible for the break-in. Nixon denied any involvement in the crime, but the scandal would not go away. 

The scandal became known as the "Watergate" affair, because "Watergate" was the name of the Democrat Party offices where the break-in had taken place. During 1973 and 1974 more and more Republican senators were forced to resign because they were suspected to be involved in the scandal.
It seemed inevitable that the President would soon be impeached. He would have to answer questions in a court of law about the break-in. So, in August 1974, Nixon went on television to announce his resignation as President of the USA. 

Nixon's reputation suffered after his resignation. His previous popularity was forgotten. He became known as the President who had resigned because he had "cheated" in an election. For this reason he has become a famous, or maybe, infamous President of the USA.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Click here to listen to the biography of President Nixon. Then answer the questions in your copybook.You must write sentences to answer the questions !:

Télécharger « Nixon bio audio »

1. Why is Richard Nixon a famous President ?          7. When did he become President ?

2. When and where was he born ?                        8. What happened in the first year of his Presidency ?

3. What did he have to do as a child ?                  9. Where did he go in 1972 ?

4. When did he get married ?                              10. Why did he go to Moscow ?

5. How many children did he have ?                     11. What did he do in January 1973 ?    

6. What political party did he join after the war ?   12. What is Watergate ? What happened there ?