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USA Monuments and Symbols
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Table of Contents
Introduction........page 3
Historical Monuments
The Statue of Liberty....page 4
The White House..........page 5
The Pentagon....page 6
Geographical Monuments
Yellowstone National Parkpage 7
The Grand Canyon.....page 8
Mount Rushmore National Monument..page 9
Symbols
Flag of the United States....page 10
Bald Eagle......page 10
Washington Monument..page 11
World Trade Centerpage12
Conclusion.....page 14
Bibliography.....page 15
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Introduction
The United States of America is a large country in North America, often
referred to as the "USA," the "U.S.," the "United States," "America," or simply"the States". It has a land area of about 9.6 million sq km (about half the size of
Russia and about the same size as China). It also boasts the world's third largest
population, with over 310 million people. It includes both densely-populated cities
with sprawling suburbs, and vast, uninhabited and naturally beautiful areas. With
its history of mass immigration dating from the 17th century, it is a "melting pot"
of cultures from around the world.
The country plays a dominant role in the world's cultural landscape, and is
famous for its wide array of popular tourist destinations, ranging from the
skyscrapers of Manhattan and Chicago, to the natural wonders of Yellowstone andAlaska, to the warm, sunny beaches of Florida, Hawaii and Southern California.
The United States of America are worldwide known for being a great
economical, political and military power and for being the most representative
example of democracy in the world. They managed to accomplish in a matter of
hundreds of years what others could not in thousands of years and all these even if
they dont have such an amazing culture as other countries, but the beauty of the
Kingdom is one to envy and praise and their monuments and symbols are true
works of art.
I have chosen USA Monuments and Symbols theme, because, from mypoint of view, it is an interesting topic. When you go to a foreign country, it is
very well to know something about the history of the region, about its monuments,
its symbols and its traditions.
From the beginning, I wanted to describe some of the most representative
buildings and creations of the nature from the USA.
Everyone heard about this New World discovered by Cristofor Coloumb
and everyone from all over the world came here to also discover the so-called
American-Dream. Thus, America became the most wealthy and powerful
country in the world, with a lot of extraordinaries traditions. The United States ofAmerica also have such great landforms and strange climat variation that makes
this country so interesting.
The Americans have known how to show their natural potential, to restore
the old monuments and symbols and to create new ones.
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The Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty, formally LIBERTY
ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD, the colossal
statue on Liberty Island in the Upper Bay of New
York Harbour - U.S., commemorates the
friendship of the people of the United States and
France. Standing 92 m high including its
pedestal, it represents a woman holding a torch
in her raised right hand and a tablet bearing the
date July 4, 1776, in her left, proclaiming liberty.
An elevator rises to the balcony level, and a
spiral staircase leads to an observation platform
in the figures crown. A plaque at the pedestals
entrance is inscribed with a sonnet, The New
Colossus-1883, by Emma Lazarus.
The statue was constructed of copper
sheets, hammered into shape by hand and
assembled over a framework of four gigantic
steel supports, designed by Eugne-Emmanuel
Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. In
1885 the completed statue, 151 feet 1 in high and
weighing 225 tones, was disassembled and shipped to New York City.
The pedestal, designed by American architect Richard Morris Hunt and
built within the walls of Ft. Wood on Bedloes Island, was completed later. The
statue, mounted on its pedestal, was dedicated by President Cleveland on October
28, 1886. In the mid 1980s the statue was repaired and restored by both American
and French workers for a centennial celebration held in July 1986.
The statue, also known as Lady Liberty, has been a symbol of welcome
to arriving immigrants, who could see the statue when they got close to arriving at
their new home or destination. The interior of the statue used to be open to
visitors.
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The White House
White House, formerly
EXECUTIVE MANSION (1818-1902), official residence of the
president of the U.S. , at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue in
Washington D.C. . The White
House and its landscaped grounds
occupy 7.2 hectares of ground.
In 1791 a public competition was held to choose the most suitable design
for a presidential residence in the newly designated capital city of Washington.
Thomas Jefferson and others submitted drawings, but the Irish-American architectJames Hoban of Philadelphia won the commission with his plan for a Palladian
style. This structure was to have three floors and would be built in pale grey
sandstone. The cornerstone was laid on October 13, 1792 and President John
Adams and his wife, Abigail, became the newly completed mansions first
occupants in 1800. By 1809 it was already called the White House because its
white-grey sandstone contacted strikingly with the red brick of nearby building.
During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the mansions second-floor
rooms were converted from presidential offices to living quarters for his family
and the West Wing was constructed to provide greater office space for thepresident and his growing staff. More office space was made available with the
building of the East Wing in 1942. In 1948, during Harry Trumans presidency,
the entire interior of the main building was carefully rebuilt in the next four years,
though the original exterior walls were left standing. The last major alterations to
the White House were made in the 1960s by Jacqueline Kennedy, who collected
items of historic and artistic value with which to decorate its more than 130 rooms.
The main building still contains the presidential familys living quarters and
various reception rooms, all decorated in styles of the 18 th and 19th centuries. Parts
of the main building are open to guided tours. The north portico is the publicentrance to the main building, while the south portico is a private entrance
reserved for the presidential family. The West terrace contains a swimming pool
and gym, while the east terrace contains a movie theatre. The West Wing contains
the presidential office, the Cabinet rooms and the press rooms, while the East
Wing contains other offices.
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The Pentagon
Pentagon is a large five-sided building in Arlington country, Virginia, near
Washington, D.C., that serves as headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense
including all three services: Army, Navy and Air Force. Designed by George
Edwin Bergstrom, it was built in 1941-1943 to bring under one roof the United
States War Department offices, covering 14 hectares.
The open space in the center is informally known as ground zero, a
nickname originating during the Cold War and based on the presumption that the
Soviet Union would target one or more nuclear missiles at this central location.
The building consists of five concentric pentagons, or rings with 10 spoke like
corridors connecting the whole. A huge concourse within it provides a shopping
centre for Pentagon workers and beneath this concourse are bus and taxi terminals.Parking areas adjacent to the building can accommodate as many as 10 000 cars
and a heliport for the Pentagon was added in 1956.
Since 1998, the Pentagon has been undergoing a major renovation, known
as the Pentagon Renovation Program. This program, scheduled to be completed in
2010, involves the complete gutting and reconstruction of the entire building in
phases to bring the building up to modern standards, removing asbestos,
improving security and providing greater efficiency for Pentagon tenants. The new
space will include a return to open bays, with a new Universal Space Plan of
standardized office furniture and partitions developed by Studios Architecture.As originally built, most Pentagon office space consisted of open bays
which spanned an entire ring. These offices used cross-ventilation from operable
windows instead of air conditioning for cooling. Gradually, bays were subdivided
into private offices with using windows air conditioning units.
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The Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, the oldest largest and probably best-known
national park in the U.S., situated in northwestern Wyoming and partly in southern
Montana and eastern Idaho. It was established by the U.S. Congress on March 1,
1872, as the nations first national park.
The park covers 898.349 hectares and consists mostly of broad volcanic
plateaus with an average elevation of 2440 m. Among the mountain ranges that
protrude into the park are the Gallatin Range on the northwest, the Absaroka
Range on the east, the Snow Mountains along the north and the Tetons along the
parks southern boundary. The park is also surrounded by the Custer, Shoshone,
Teton, Targhee, Beaverhead and Gallatin national forests.
Aside from its rugged mountains and spectacular deep vallers, Yellowstone
has unusual geologic features, including fossil forests, eroded basaltic lava flows,
a black obsidian (volcanic-glass) mountain and odd erosional forms. Its biggest
attractions, however, are its 10.000 hot springs, which find surface expression as
steam vents, fumaroles, colourful hot pools, mud caldrons, paint pots, hot springs
and terraces, hot rivers and geysers. Of the parks 200 geysers many erupt to
height of 30 m or more old. Faithful, the most famous geyser, erupts fairly
regularly every 33 to 93 minutes.
Yellowstone is also known for its lakes and rivers. River is a colourful
gorge 31 km long that runs through the park. The canyon has brilliantly coloured
rocks walls with two majestic waterfalls along its course. Most of Yellowstone
Park is forested, and the vast majority of the tree growth consists of lodge pole
pine, though there are other conifer species, as well as cottonwoods blossom in the
warm month. In 1988 a disastrous series of forest fires temporarily laid waste large
areas of the park.
Animal life in Yellowstone is typical of the Rocky Mountains and includes
buffalo, elk, bighorn sheep, deer, moose, black bear, grizzly bear and coyotes.
Many types of smaller mammals are also common. Hundreds of different species
of birds live in the park, among them many waterfowl. The lakes and streams are
stocked with fish, trout is the most popular with anglers.
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The Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon immense gorge cut by the Colorado River into the high
plateaus of north western Arizona, U.S., noted for its fantastic shapes and
coloration. The broad intricately sculptured chasm of the Grand Canyon contains
between its outer walls a multitudes of imposing peaks, buttes, canyons and
ravines.
The canyon includes many tributary side canyons and surrounding plateaus.
The deepest and most impressively beautiful section, 90 km long, is within Grand
Canyon National Park, which encompasses the rivers length from Lake Powell to
Lake Mead. In its general colours the canyon is a red, but each stratum or group of
strata has a distinctive hue-buff and gray, delicate green and pink and in its depths,
brown, slate-gray an violet.Grand Canyon National Park, now containing 4931 square km, was created
in 1919. Its area was greatly enlarged in 1975 by the addition of the former Grand
Canyon National Monument and Marble Grand National Monument and by
portions of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, as well as other adjoining
lands.
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Mount Rushmore National Monument
Mount Rushmore
National Monument is a
national memorial (1829 m)
situated in the Black Hills of
southwestern South Dakota,
U.S. , 40 km southwest of
Rapid-City. Huge sculptured of
the heads of presidents George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
Abraham Lincoln and Theodore
Roosevelt are carved in granite on the northeast side of Mount Rushmore.
The four heads, each about 60 feet high, represent, respectively, the
nations founding, political philosophy, preservation and expansion and
conservation. Construction began on August 10, 1927 after Gutzon Borglums
death, soon before the sculpture was done, the completion of the giant sculpture
was overseen by his son, Lincoln Borglum. The monument was finished in 1941,
after six and a half years of actual work. The federal government paid most of the
cost. Mount Rushmore is largely composed of granite. The material is carved on
the northwest margin of the Harney Peak granite batholith in the Black Hill of
South Dakota, so the geologic formations of the heart of the Black Hill region are
also evident at Mount Rushmore. The uneven cooling of the molten rock caused
the both fine and coarse-grained minerals, including quartz, feldspar, muscovite
and biotite. The granite of the face is comprised of a mixture of ceramic minerals
including quartz and feldspars, making Mount Rushmore a natural ceramic
landmark.
The flora and fauna of Mount Rushmore are similar to those of the rest of
the Black Hills region of South Dakota. The memorial serves as home to many
animals and plants representative of the Black Hills of South Dakota. Birds
including the turkey vulture, bald eagle, hawk and meadowlark fly around the
Mount Rushmore, occasionally making nesting sports in the ledges of the
mountain. Smaller birds, including songbirds, nuthatches and woodpeckers,
inhabit the surrounding pine forest. Terrestrial mammals include the mouse,
chipmunk, squirrel, skunk, porcupine, raccoon, beaver, badger, coyote, bighorn
sheep and bobcat. There is also a variety of wildflowers, including especially the
snapdragon, sunflower and violet.
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The Flag of the United States
Flag of the United States, popularly called the American flag and is
celebrated on June 14. It consists of 13 horizontal stripes, 7 red alternating with 6
white and in the upper corner near the staff, a rectangular blue field, or canton,
containing 50 five-pointed white stars.
The stripes symbolize the 13 colonies that originally constituted the United
States of America. The stars represent the 50 states of the Union. The symbolic of
the colors red, white and blue which are used in the flag is: white signifies purity
and innocence, red signifies hardiness and valor and blue signifies vigilance,
perseverance and justice.
Bald Eagle
The Bald Eagle is the national bird of the United
States of America. It appears on most of its official seals,
including the Seal of the President of the United States.
The Continental Congress adopted the current design of
the Great Seal of the United States including a Bald
Eagle grasping 13 arrows and 13 leaf olive branch with
its talons on June 20, 1782.
It is said the eagle was used as a national emblembecause at one of the first battles of the Revolution the
noise of the struggle awoke the sleeping eagles on the
heights and their flew from their nests and circled about
over the heads of the fighting men, all the while giving
vent to their raucous cries.
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Washington Monument
Washington Monument is situated
in Washington, D.C. and represents an
obelisk built to commemorate the first
American president, General George
Washington. The monument, made of
marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, is
both the world's tallest stone structure and
the world's tallest obelisk. The idea of a
memorial honoring Washington
developed in the 1780s. In the absence of
action by the federal government, a group
of private citizens formed the Washington
National Monument Society in 1833.
The monument originally promoted by the Washington National Monument
Society was built between 1848 and 1884 from public subscriptions and federal
appropriations and was dedicated in 1885. The structure, based on a design by
Robert Mills, is a granite obelisk faced with Maryland marble 16,8 m square at the
base, 169,3 m high and weighing about 91 000 tones. It is located in grounds 43
hectares that are a westward extension of the Mall (the Capitol lying to its east)
and just east of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. It lies just north of the
Tidal Basin and is separated from the White House on the north only by the
Ellipse and Constitution Ave. It is supervised as a unit of the National Capital
Parks. Inserted in the interior walls are 190 carved stones presented by various
individuals, cities, states and foreign nations. The top of the monument can be
reached by an interior iron stairway comprising 50 landings and 898 steps; an
elevator makes the ascent in about 70 seconds.At the time of its construction, it
was the tallest building in the world; it remains the tallest stone structure in the
world. This monument is vastly taller than the obelisks around the capitals of
Europe and in Egypt, but ordinary antique obelisks were quarried as a monolithic
block of stone and therefore seldom taller than around 30 m.
The four faces of the pyramidal point all bear inscriptions in cursive letters.
Halfway up the steps of the monument is an inscription in Welsh Fy iaith, fy
ngwlad, fy nghenedl Cymru Cymry am byth (My language, my land, my nation
of Wales Wales forever). The reason for this inscription and its author are
unknown.
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World Trade Center
The idea of establishing a World Trade Centerin New York City was first
proposed in 1943, but the plans were put on hold in 1949.
The original World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings. It
featured landmark twin towers, which opened on April 4, 1973 and were destroyed
in the September 11 attacks of 2001. The other buildings in the complex were
damaged in the attacks and eventually destroyed.
At the time of their completion, the original 1 World Trade Center (the
North Tower) and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower), known collectively as
the Twin Towers, were the tallest buildings in the world. The other buildings
included 3 WTC (the Marriott World Trade Center), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC
(which housed United States Customs), and 7 WTC. All of these buildings were
built between 1975 and 1985.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew
two Boeing 767 jets into the complex, one into each tower, in a coordinated
terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower collapsed, followed
a half-hour later by the North Tower , with the attacks on the World Trade Center
resulting in 2,753 deaths. 7 World Trade Center collapsed later in the day and the
other buildings, although they did not collapse, had to be demolished because they
were damaged beyond repair. The process of cleanup and recovery at the World
Trade Center site took eight months.
Over the following years, plans for a rebuilt World Trade Center took form.
The first new building was 7 World Trade Center, which opened in May 2006.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), established in
November 2001 to oversee the rebuilding process, organized competitions to
select a site plan and memorial design. Memory Foundations, designed by Daniel
Libeskind, was selected as the master plan, but this went through substantial
changes in design.
The new World Trade Center complex will include One World Trade
Center, three other high-rise office towers, and the National September 11
Memorial & Museum. The 1,776-foot skyscraper, the One World Trade Center
building, is expected to reach its full height and to be completed by late 2013 or
early 2014, when it will likely to be declared the tallest building in the United
States and the third-tallest in the world.
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After years of effort and numerous setbacks, three of the proposed seven
towers to be built at the World Trade Center complex have "topped out", reaching
their structural maximum height. Seven WTC was completed in 2006, Four WTC
topped out in June of this year, and the tallest, One World Trade Center (formerly
known as Freedom Tower), just topped out at 104 floors on August 30, 2012.Financial difficulties have left the future of the remaining towers in doubt, and
have raised concerns about the still-incomplete National September 11 Memorial
and Museum, as the foundation that runs the memorial estimates that it will cost
$60 million a year to operate.
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Conclusion
At first, when I decided which would be the topic of my project, I thought it
would be interesting to write about a famous place. Then I thought at the UnitedStates of America.
Who hasnt heard about the Statue of Liberty, the White House, the
Washington Monument or who hasnt wondered about the flag? But, anyway, I
thought that I might find something really interesting which will make me learn
more about those monuments and symbols: who and why built them or what
significance they had or how we find them in present.
Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country (UK) in 1776
and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of America following
the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states wereadded to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American
continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions.
The two most traumatic experiences in the nation's history were the Civil
War (1861-65) and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Buoyed by victories in
World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the US remains the
world's most powerful nation state. The economy is marked by steady growth, low
unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in technology.
The United States is made up of many diverse ethnic groups and the culture
varies greatly across the vast area of the country and even within cities - a city likeNew York will have dozens, if not hundreds, of different ethnicities represented
within a neighborhood. Despite this difference, there exists a strong sense of
national identity and certain predominant cultural traits. Generally, Americans
tend to believe strongly in personal responsibility and that an individual
determines his or her own success or failure, but it is important to note that there
are many exceptions and that a nation as diverse as the United States has literally
thousands of distinct cultural traditions. One will find Mississippi in the South to
be very different culturally from Massachusetts in the North.
In conclusion I hope everyone to enjoy what I have written about and to
become willing to travel in the USA (if they still arent) and to visit all of these
impressive buildings and landforms, with their landscapes.
Once you get there I suggest to explore and to find out more about the
country of all the possibilities, by living each experience in all what it involves.
The United States is home of exciting cities, scenic landscapes and history galore.
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Bibliography
Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 1 A-ak Bayes (Ready Reference)
Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 5 Freon Holderlin (Ready Reference)
Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 7 Krasnokomsk Menadra (Ready Reference)
Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 8 Menage Ottawa (Ready Reference)
Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 9 Otter Rethimnon (Ready Reference)
Britanica (Micropaedia) vol. 12 Trudeau Zywiec (Ready Reference)
www.kaibab.org
http://biztravels-monuments.net/biztravels/monuments.php?
id=154&lg=en&w=statue_of_liberty
www.enchantedlearning.com
www.roportal.ro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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